A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Elia Kazan

(Constantinople, Turkey, 1909 - New York 2003), born Elias Kazancıoğlu, was a director, screenwriter, actor, author, movie and theatrical producer of Greek origin, and a naturalized American citizen. Famous for having founded the Actors Studio in New York in 1947, as a film director he made some of the most important Hollywood movies of the 1950s and ’60s, all the while maintaining his ties with theatre and contemporary literature (in particular with John Steinbeck and Tennessee Williams, whose play A Streetcar Named Desire he adapted for the silver screen), before dedicating himself to writing novels. He won Oscars for best director for Gentleman’s Agreement (1948) and On the Waterfront (1955), and an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1999. His name is associated with McCarthyism because of his controversial collaboration with the McCarthy Commission.

FILMOGRAFIA

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Un albero cresce a Brooklyn, 1945), The Sea of Grass (Il mare d'erba, 1947), Boomerang! (Boomerang - L'arma che uccide, 1947), Gentleman's Agreement (Barriera invisibile, 1947), Pinky (Pinky, la negra bianca, 1949), Panic in the Streets (Bandiera gialla, 1950), A Streetcar Named Desire (Un tram che si chiama Desiderio, 1951), Viva Zapata! (id., 1952), Man on a Tightrope (Salto mortale, 1953), On the Waterfront (Fronte del porto, 1954), East of Eden (La valle dell'Eden, 1955), Baby Doll (Baby Doll - La bambola viva, 1956), A Face in the Crowd (Un volto nella folla, 1957), Wild River (Fango sulle stelle, 1960), Splendor in the Grass (Splendore nell'erba, 1961), America, America (Il ribelle dell'Anatolia, 1963), The Arrangement (Il compromesso, 1969), The Visitors (I visitatori, 1972), The Last Tycoon (Gli ultimi fuochi, 1976).