Darkly comic sex farce: Carroll Baker in Kazan’s Baby Doll

In the weeks since the Swiss ended their neutrality on Roman Polanski, stars and pundits have struggled with the question of whether the greatness of an artist’s work can excuse the less admirable choices that may have been made in his or her life.

Ten years before Whoopi Goldberg offered us her thoughts on the difference between rape and “rape-rape,” the bestowing of a lifetime achievement Oscar at the 1999 Academy Awards caused a comparable degree of consternation. As Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro handed the honorary award to Elia Kazan, the cameras singled out attendees who sat out the standing ovation — Nick Nolte and Ed Harris were among those who were apparently not so ready to forgive the then-90-year-old Kazan for naming names to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.

Kazan never sought anyone’s forgiveness for his decision to out his one-time fellow members of the Communist Party. In the 1974 book Kazan on Kazan, he admitted to seeking payback on those who’d actually kicked him out of the party in the ’30s. The honorary Oscar hardly put the matter to rest before the director died in 2003. But, as we’ve seen with the sanitation job on Michael Jackson, death has a way of pushing pesky personal questions to the sidelines.

In his notes on the Kazan retrospective that starts at TIFF Cinematheque this week, Kent Jones wonders whether knowledge of Kazan’s HUAC testimony ever furthered an understanding of his greatest films. “Not very much” is Jones’ conclusion. While that may sound facetious, he’s right. Such was the enormity of Kazan’s impact on American theatre and film — most significantly, on the art of acting in both mediums — that those events are an inadequate prism through which to view his career.

Brandishing a title that points to both Kazan’s origins as a Turkish-born, working-class Brooklynite and his politically troublesome status with both sides of the spectrum, “American Outsider” begins on a combative note with the movie that revolutionized screen acting. Kazan’s 1951 adaptation of his own stage version of Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire (****; Oct. 23, 7pm) seethes with uncommon fury thanks to Marlon Brando’s bravura.

Three years later, Kazan and Brando would land another knockout punch with On the Waterfront (*****; Oct. 25, 4pm), which traded in the theatricality of its predecessor for a grubbier aesthetic rooted more in Italian neo-realism. The fact that Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg both participated with HUAC continues to provoke questions (e.g., does corrupt union boss Johnny Friendly embody the American left’s failure to defend the common man or is he just a right bastard?), but the movie’s brute force and raw humanity confound the polemics.

Such was not the case for many of Kazan’s message-heavy social-issue dramas. While the Cinematheque retro also features such canonic works as East of Eden and Splendor in the Grass, some less celebrated titles suggest that Kazan may have been at his strongest when he examined the least noble aspects of humankind. Decried as pornographic upon its release in 1956, Baby Doll (*****; Oct. 27, 7pm) is the strangest and sultriest of the era’s Tennessee Williams adaptations. Carroll Baker’s turn as the titular lust object keeps this Southern stew of melodrama and darkly comic sex farce at full boil.

Two of Kazan’s forays into film noir, 1947’s Boomerang! (***; Oct. 29, 7pm) and 1950’s Panic in the Streets (****; Nov. 20, 7pm) both retain plenty of oomph. A true-crime tale about a public prosecutor (Dana Andrews) who wonders whether he’s about to try the wrong man for murder, the former is juiced up by municipal political intrigues. A gritty New Orleans–set crime flick that serves as an early example of the viral-panic thriller, the latter gets all the gusto it needs from Richard Widmark, Zero Mostel and a convincingly vicious Jack Palance.

As for what these films reveal about Kazan’s own moral compass, the debates will rage on. But even the Oscar guests who sat on their hands must concede that the works still demand to be seen.


BLAME IT ON RIO
Such is the infectious musicality of the selections at the Brazil Film Festival at the Royal (608 College) this weekend, there’ll be dancing in the aisles, the lobby and possibly College Street. The third annual edition begins Oct. 22 with The Ballroom, a crowd-pleaser about fleet-footed seniors who congregate in a traditional dance hall. Yet the most spirited of the fest’s five features may be Madame Satã (****; Oct. 23, 7pm), Karim Aïnouiz’s stunning 2002 feature about a 1930s drag performer whose licentious and sometimes criminal lifestyle made him a model for Rio’s rebels.

Music-oriented films also dominate the documentary side of the program. The Mystery of Samba (***; Oct. 23, 3:30pm and Oct. 25, 3:40pm) is a stirring portrait of the G.R.E.S. Portela, the Brazilian samba school that fostered the careers of some of the country’s best songwriters. Filmmakers Carolina Jabor and Lula Buarque de Hollanda follow singer turned historian Marisa Monte as she visits with the people who enlivened the Portela scene in the ’50s and ’60s.

Monte’s friend Adriana Calcanhotto is one of many luminaries who discuss the relationship between words and music in Helena Solberg’s doc Enchanted Word. Calcanhotto caps off the fest with her Canadian debut Oct. 25 at the Royal, following the doc’s screening at 5:10pm. A treat for fans of MPB (Música Popular Brasileira), a poetic brand of bossa nova, her concert will demonstrate why Brazil’s filmmakers remain so inspired by the music that surrounds them.
(Go to www.brazilfilmfest.net for more info.)