On the 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 fa
The scene near the end of movie, when Terry shouts to Friendly, "You're a cheap, lousy, dirty stinkin' mug. " On the Waterfront is Kazan's justification for his decision to testify. " This means that no matter how wretched the circumstances are, a person never rats. " Kazan has one character, in particular, stress the importance of speaking out in life. He tells the court that, on the night authorities discovered the body, someone pushed Joey Doyle from the roof. Throughout the film there are a number of references to the code of silence, "D n' D", or "Deaf and Dumb. What's rattin' to them is telling the truth for you. He states that he was the last person to see him alive, "except for the two thugs that murdered him. "A lot of that kind of thing happened to me after I testified at HUAC," said Kazan. " In interviews, Kazan discusses his identification with the Brando character. On the Waterfront was made in 1954, two years after Kazan willingly testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. However, Terry's struggle is just beginning. " After the trial, Terry's friends refuse to talk to him and he does not receive work.
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