A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

As I was watching this, I quickly realized that it was basically just a melodramatic soap opera that made me uncomfortable and pissed because the characters are so horrible and pathetic, albeit a meoldramatic soap opera that was artistically executed and filled with excellent performances. I kinda feel bad i enjoyed this. In a lot of ways, this is kind of like, to use that old cliche, a bad car wreck. It's not pleasant, but you can't help but look.The story concerns a fading beauty who is delusional and unwilling to accept reality and come to terms with the fact that, as a member of the Old South, she is no longer socially dominant and she can't stay or look young forever. This lady is named Blanche. She comes to one of the seedier sides of New Orleans to stay with her pregnant sister Stella and volatile brother-in-law Stanley. Stanley a Polish American blue collar worker, is down to Earth, brutally honest, and immediately gets into a class conflict with Blanche, hating her for her pretenses, delusions, and her issues, mostly that of dealing with her past and comeing to terms with reality. Then there's poor Stella, hopelessly caught in the middle. When she does take a side, there's some real potent social commentary due to which side she chooses, and how this might be an even worse choice than the other. Under normal circumstances, the audience might side with Stanley. He is after, seemingly a voice of reason and practicality. However, he is a true beast. He's hateful, abusive, sadistic, and really hard to sympathize with. He's a real force of nature, and it is damn hard to not get caught up in this juicy but ugly world the characters inhabit. If this wasn't so well written and acted, and if it didn't have such wonderful cinematography and art direction, I'd probably hate it. It is cruel, ugly, and depressing. The music is a little bit on the nose, but it works decently enough, I suppose. The audience can't really sympathize too much with the characters, but no one can say that they don't know of people or situations like this. It's a real shame that Brando got snubbed here, because, even though he's a real scum bag, he does any excellent job at being that way. Hunter is good as the 'caught in a crossfire' Stella, and, even though Leigh is guilty of some overacting here and there, I do think she did a really nice job as Blanche. This film might seem rather pointless, because, well, look what I've said about it so far. But it merits watching because life is like the way it is portrayed here sometimes. We all have these elements to our own characters and personalities. It's just that here, each character represents an extreme of those various qualities. Given the film's age, you might, if you wanted to, be able to look at it as not only high brow, artsy soap opera, but as that with some real campy qualities as well.It takes a lot of talent to make this type of story and subject matter redeemable in some way. Thankfully Kazan and Co, pulled it off wonderfully.