FREE ESSAY ON WATERFRONT

WATERFRONT

Does the Truth Always Set You Free? On the Waterfront is a classic, award-winning and
controversial film. It received eight academy-awards in 1954, including best-picture and
director. The director, Eliza Kazan, in collaboration with Budd Schulberg wrote the
film's screenplay. Based on actual dockside events in Hoboken, New Jersey, On the
Waterfront is a story of a dock worker who tried to overthrow a corrupt union. Marlon
Brando superbly portrays the character of Terry Malloy. He is a young ex-prize fighter,
now a dock worker given easy jobs because his brother is the right-hand man of the
corrupt union boss Johnny Friendly. After Terry unwittingly allows himself to be used in
setting up a man's death, he starts to question the basic assumptions if his life. This
includes his loyalty to his brother and Johnny, who after all ordered him to take a dive
in his big fight at Madison Square Garden. The film's controversy exists in the fact that
Terry decides to testify against Johnny Friendly. His testimony attempts to show how it
is fundamentally right to break group silence in a tough situation, even if a person
appears to "rat" on his friends. To be at peace with oneself, Kazan seems to say, one
must tell the truth, despite the fact that one will face ostracism, and, as in the film,
probably be murdered. Kazan makes the hardships of testifying painfully clear. Thus,
Brando's character is a hero. However, a dark agenda exists behind the film's plot. On
the Waterfront was made in 1954, two years after Kazan willingly testified before the
House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1952, Kazan named the names of eight friends
and colleges allegedly affiliated with the communist party. Kazan was an active member of
the communist party in the 1930s, until he went through a violent break with the party
prior to the hearings. He said that communism could override a person's intellect and
beliefs. He also stated that Hollywood and Broadway heavily financed the party.
Recounting his decision to testify, Kazan said, "Communists were in a lot of
organizations--unseen, unrecognized, unbeknownst to anybody. I thought if I don't talk,
nobody will know about it." On the Waterfront is Kazan's justification for his decision
to testify. In the film, when a union boss shouts, "You ratted on us Terry," Brando
shouts back: "Maybe from where your standing, but I'm standing over here now. I was
rattin' on myself all those years. I didn't even know it." That reflects Kazan's belief
that communism was an evil that temporality seduced him and it was necessary to oppose
it. Since Kazan believed that communism was an evil threat to the American way of life,
he tried to portray his decision to testify as a heroic act of valor. He wanted to show
the public that a person who testifies is brave, not a coward. Throughout the film there
are a number of references to the code of silence, "D n' D", or "Deaf and Dumb." This
means that no matter how wretched the circumstances are, a person never rats. The union
thugs make a joke about the boy pushed off a building because he threatened to talk to
the crime commission, thus breaking the sacred code of D n' D: "A canary. Maybe he could
sing but he couldn't fly." Kazan has one character, in particular, stress the importance
of speaking out in life. Father Barry believes that the truth will always set a person
free. He says, There's one thing we've got in this country and that's ways of fightin'
back. Gettin' facts to the public. Testifying for what you know is right and what you
know is wrong. What's rattin' to them is telling the truth for you. Can't you see that?
Can't you see that? This quotation is an example of Kazan crying out to the public for
forgiveness. Later in the film, Kazan tries even harder to gain acceptance, as there is
an obvious parallel between his own testimony and Terry Malloy's. In the courtroom scene,
Terry Malloy turns "stoolie" and betrays Friendly throughout his testimony. He tells the
court that, on the night authorities discovered the body, someone pushed Joey Doyle from
the roof. He states that he was the last person to see him alive, "except for the two
thugs that murdered him." Terry testifies that, after the murder, he went immediately to
the Friendly Bar, where he expressed his feelings about the murder to Mr. Friendly. Terry
is a hero because he made it possible for honest men to work at the docks, with job
security and peace of mind. However, Terry's struggle is just beginning. Friendly sums up
Terry's supposed fate with one sentence, "You've just dug your own grave." After the
trial, Terry's friends refuse to talk to him and he does not receive work. Neighborhood
friend Tommy kills Terry's pet pigeons on the rooftop. Tommy tosses the dead bird at
Terry and shouts, "A pigeon for a pigeon." People deride him and ostracize him as a
"canary." In interviews, Kazan discusses his identification with the Brando character. "A
lot of that kind of thing happened to me after I testified at HUAC, said Kazan. I was
snubbed. People I knew well would look at me but not talk. People looked down on me. They
couldn't except the fact that correctly or incorrectly it was something I did out of
principle." After the release of On the Waterfront, Kazan was open about his hidden
motives, noble and shameful, to make the film. The scene near the end of movie, when
Terry shouts to Friendly, "You're a cheap, lousy, dirty stinkin' mug. And I'm glad what
I've done to you," disturbed some people. Critics interpreted this to mean that Kazan was
not sorry for his severely damaging testimony. It appeared that he had no remorse for his
actions. For other viewers, the buried agenda of On the Waterfront tarnishes the picture.
The critic John Rosenbaum told Roger Ebert that he could "Never forgive Kazan for using
the film to justify himself." In later years, Kazan did eventually have remorse for the
people whose lives he ruined and the blemish his testimony left on the whole film
industry. In his 1988 autobiography he says, "I have some regrets about the human cost of
it. One guy I told on I really like a lot." Twenty years later, unlike On the
Waterfront's victorious ending, in Kazan's picture The Visitor, a man also testifies
against former friends; however, that movie ends on a note of despair. Perhaps the words
of a legendary character he helped to create, haunted Kazan. As Terry Malloy said,
"Conscience. That stuff can drive you nuts."