A Streetcar Named Desire Movie (1951)
Disturbed Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law while her reality crumbles around her.
Blanche DuBois, a high school English teacher with an aristocratic background from Auriol, Mississippi, decides to move to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski, in New Orleans after creditors take over the family property, Belle Reve. Blanche has also decided to take a break from teaching as she states the situation has frayed her nerves. Knowing nothing about Stanley or the Kowalskis' lives, Blanche is shocked to find that they live in a cramped and run down ground floor apartment - which she proceeds to beautify by putting shades over the open light bulbs to soften the lighting - and that Stanley is not the gentleman that she is used to in men. As such, Blanche and Stanley have an antagonistic relationship from the start. Blanche finds that Stanley's hyper-masculinity, which often displays itself in physical outbursts, is common, coarse and vulgar, being common which in turn is what attracted Stella to him. Beyond finding Blanche's delicate hoidy-toidy act as putting on airs, Stanley, a plant worker, believes she may really have sold Belle Reve and is withholding Stella's fair share of the proceeds from them. What further affects the relationship between the three is that Stella is in the early stage of pregnancy with her and Stanley's first child. Soon after her arrival at the Kowalskis, Blanche starts to date Mitch, one of Stanley's friends and coworkers who is a little softer around the edges than most of Stanley's friends. Mitch does not hide the fact that he is looking in general to get married because of a personal issue, he wanting Blanche ultimately to be his wife. Mitch is somewhat unaware that Blanche has somewhat controlled their courtship to put herself in the best possible light, both figuratively and literally. But in Stanley's quest to find out the truth about Belle Reve and Blanche's life in Auriol, the interrelationships between Stanley, Blanche, Stella and Mitch may be irrevocably affected, with any revelation about that life which may further destroy what's left of Blanche's already damaged mental state.
Blanche DuBois, a high school English teacher with an aristocratic background from Auriol, Mississippi, decides to move to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski, in New Orleans after creditors take over the family property, Belle Reve. Blanche has also decided to take a break from teaching as she states the situation has frayed her nerves. Knowing nothing about Stanley or the Kowalskis' lives, Blanche is shocked to find that they live in a cramped and run down ground floor apartment - which she proceeds to beautify by putting shades over the open light bulbs to soften the lighting - and that Stanley is not the gentleman that she is used to in men. As such, Blanche and Stanley have an antagonistic relationship from the start. Blanche finds that Stanley's hyper-masculinity, which often displays itself in physical outbursts, is common, coarse and vulgar, being common which in turn is what attracted Stella to him. Beyond finding Blanche's delicate hoidy-toidy act as putting on airs, Stanley, a plant worker, believes she may really have sold Belle Reve and is withholding Stella's fair share of the proceeds from them. What further affects the relationship between the three is that Stella is in the early stage of pregnancy with her and Stanley's first child. Soon after her arrival at the Kowalskis, Blanche starts to date Mitch, one of Stanley's friends and coworkers who is a little softer around the edges than most of Stanley's friends. Mitch does not hide the fact that he is looking in general to get married because of a personal issue, he wanting Blanche ultimately to be his wife. Mitch is somewhat unaware that Blanche has somewhat controlled their courtship to put herself in the best possible light, both figuratively and literally. But in Stanley's quest to find out the truth about Belle Reve and Blanche's life in Auriol, the interrelationships between Stanley, Blanche, Stella and Mitch may be irrevocably affected, with any revelation about that life which may further destroy what's left of Blanche's already damaged mental state.
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Movie Comments & Discussion (2)
Every movement (esp. of Vivian Leigh, but of all of the characters really) chorographed as if it were ballet, epic and tragic opera, meolodramatic and yet mundane and even more frightening for that reason. The Southern gothic romance, but one set after the lights have dimmed and the pages faded, after The War of Aggression, after that "expensive death" that Southeners still enact to this day, when the violent violating darkness "covers a multitude of sins" and desire for 'la petite mort' makes the "cup runneth over".
There are so many layers in the dialogues, but since I have been watching this film over and over for thirty years now, I wonder if it is really layers peeling away from the poetic script, or layers accumulating in my own understanding of the stage on which "all humans are but players upon"? Perhaps both.
There are just a handful of films I have kept on a sort of 'top 5' list (the others are Brazil, Miller's Crossing, City of Lost Children, and Wings of Desire), but "Streetcar" has slowly made its way up the sequence and has remained at the list's head for some time now.
If you are young, I recommend it. If you are old, you have probably lived much of this film, so you will be the one nodding your head with the knowing smile, while the youngsters in attendance are baffled, all the while wondering, "Just what ARE these characters going on about? and why the overacting?"
A good question, my children. Two very good questions.
There are so many layers in the dialogues, but since I have been watching this film over and over for thirty years now, I wonder if it is really layers peeling away from the poetic script, or layers accumulating in my own understanding of the stage on which "all humans are but players upon"? Perhaps both.
There are just a handful of films I have kept on a sort of 'top 5' list (the others are Brazil, Miller's Crossing, City of Lost Children, and Wings of Desire), but "Streetcar" has slowly made its way up the sequence and has remained at the list's head for some time now.
If you are young, I recommend it. If you are old, you have probably lived much of this film, so you will be the one nodding your head with the knowing smile, while the youngsters in attendance are baffled, all the while wondering, "Just what ARE these characters going on about? and why the overacting?"
A good question, my children. Two very good questions.
@ rachamin; Wow! that was one intellectual review.
Anyway I love this film too, so I suppose we're in agreement.
Anyway I love this film too, so I suppose we're in agreement.
Post Comment - Let others know what you think about this movie
Storyline
Blanche DuBois, a high school English teacher with an aristocratic background from Auriol, Mississippi, decides to move to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski, in New Orleans after creditors take over the family property, Belle Reve. Blanche has also decided to take a break from teaching as she states the situation has frayed her nerves. Knowing nothing about Stanley or the Kowalskis' lives, Blanche is shocked to find that they live in a cramped and run down ground floor apartment - which she proceeds to beautify by putting shades over the open light bulbs to soften the lighting - and that Stanley is not the gentleman that she is used to in men. As such, Blanche and Stanley have an antagonistic relationship from the start. Blanche finds that Stanley's hyper-masculinity, which often displays itself in physical outbursts, is common, coarse and vulgar, being common which in turn is what attracted Stella to him. Beyond finding Blanche's delicate hoidy-toidy act as putting on airs, Stanley, a plant worker, believes she may really have sold Belle Reve and is withholding Stella's fair share of the proceeds from them. What further affects the relationship between the three is that Stella is in the early stage of pregnancy with her and Stanley's first child. Soon after her arrival at the Kowalskis, Blanche starts to date Mitch, one of Stanley's friends and coworkers who is a little softer around the edges than most of Stanley's friends. Mitch does not hide the fact that he is looking in general to get married because of a personal issue, he wanting Blanche ultimately to be his wife. Mitch is somewhat unaware that Blanche has somewhat controlled their courtship to put herself in the best possible light, both figuratively and literally. But in Stanley's quest to find out the truth about Belle Reve and Blanche's life in Auriol, the interrelationships between Stanley, Blanche, Stella and Mitch may be irrevocably affected, with any revelation about that life which may further destroy what's left of Blanche's already damaged mental state.Details
- Rated: PG
- Runtime: 2:02 hours
- Genre: Drama
- Director: Elia Kazan
- Writer: Tennessee Williams (screen play), Oscar Saul (adaptation), Tennessee Williams (original play "A Streetcar Named Desire")
- Actors: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden
- Language: English, Spanish
- Country: USA
- Awards: Won 4 Oscars. Another 13 wins & 15 nominations
- Production Company: Warner Bros. Pictures
- ASIN: B00124LYHQ
- Year Released: 1951
- Release Date: Nov 30, 1951
- DVD Date: May 17, 1999
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