Steamy "streetcar" Goes all the Way

A Streetcar Named Desire

directed by Elia Kazan

starring Marion Brando,

Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter

and Karl Malden

at the Brattle Theatre

through March 3

With the emotional intensity of William Faulkner, the eeriness of Edgar Allen Poe and some of the old-style manners of Margaret Mitchell, the film version of Tennessee Williams' smashing play, "A Streetcar Named Desire," won four Academy Awards in 1951. Today those non-descript Oscar figurines should be polished to their original sheen because perfection, impossibly enough, has been improved. Four minutes of charged dialogue, violent actions and a different ending have returned this film to the state Williams and director Elia Kazan originally intended.

The director's cut brings "Streetcar' up to a standard more suitable for the modern palate. we see a richer portrayal of the sexuality of Blanche Dubois, played stupendously by Vivien Leigh, and Stella (Kim Hunter). Instead of a doting housewife and her lonely sister, we see full-bodied emotional an sexual characters. We understand the intensity of the battle over stella that happens between Blanche and Stella's husband, Stanley (played with a feverish pitch by Marlon Brando) because we are allowed to see the sexual attachment between Stella and Stanley.

On the surface, this movie deals with the alcoholism, sexism and abuse of the really codependent but superficially "O-so-happy, June Cleaver" marriages of 1950s America. Through the dialogue and manners of Blanche Dubois, we realize how easily the surface can be scraped away to reveal the truth. Typically Southern and truly deceptive, Blanche speaks her bitter grain of truth wrapped in a sugar coating of politeness.

Blanch speaks deceptively in only the first few minutes of the film; for after Stanley's confrontation of why she has arrived on his and Stella's doorstep, Blanche begins to lose the facade of reality she carried as the last reminder of her former life, She has lost the family's country plantation, Belle Reve (translated as "beautiful dream"). And Blanche, confronted by Stanley Kowalski's brash manner and disrespect, loses the last hold on her own "beautiful dream" of maintaining her life as a lady.

In truth, this film is not a battle of the sexes but a battle of a living anachronism versus a modern neanderthal. As the film progresses, Blanche deals lines like, "After all, a women's charm is fifty-percent illusion," "Sometimes there's God so quickly," and the line which sums up the film, "Death, the opposite is desire," Of course, all these lines are out of context to the plot structure, but they convey the sense of honesty that reveals itself as the film progresses.

Blanche aptly describes Stanley to Stella by saying, "If you'll forgive me, he's common...He's an animal with an animal's habits..thousands of years have passed him by there he is, Stanley Kowalski." With angry rages where he breaks all the light-bulbs with Stella's wedding shoe (a rampage which Stella erotically described as "thrilling"), his finger-licking table manners and process of clearing the table by smashing the dishes against the wall (then delivering the famous, "do you need help cleaning yours?" line), Kowalski proves himself to be the insensitive, oversexed image of what it is to be a (grunt) real man. He is juxtaposed with Blanche's swaying, swooning, gauzy manners, which explode to reveal a core of steel. The intensity of their exchanges and the force of their personalities make watching these two characters emotionally taxing for the audience.

The additional minutes show the intensity which Williams and Kazan originally intended for the film. This is one of the few restorations made by a major film company which improves the original version. Leigh deservedly won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Blanche. She showed Blanche's struggle to maintain her Southern politesse until the bitter, insane end. Kim Hunter as Stella won the Best Supporting Actress while Karl Malden, playing Mitchell, the naive, yet passionate love interest of Blanche, won the Best Supporting Actor award.

Brando would have to wait to win his first Best actor award, but he set the standard for modern day Method acting. His infamous cries of "Stelllllaaaaa...Stelllllaaaaa" have rung in the ears of audiences for years. Maybe now their tone will be even more embittered, and one of Blanche's opening lines, "Only Edgar Allen Poe could do justice to it," will finally be true in describing "A Streetcar Named Desire."