Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named
Desire, in 1947; in 1951 the film was released, directed by Elia Kazan. As
with any novel or screen play written, the director makes certain liberties to
make the play more visually and emotionaly appealing. In sence six many production
elements have been changed from the original text have been edited to make the sence
come to life.
Kazan’s
takes his first abductations of the text with sence six right as it opens by
changing the setting. In the screen play Williams describes Mitch and Blanche
returning back the the appartment after being at an amusment park. Where as
Kanzan has the couple walking out of a dance onto what appears to be a peir.
Kazan has also cut out the beginning of the playful banter between the two. He
starts the sence by showing the audience Mitch’s light playful side talking
about his weight, then immideialty goes into Blanche telling the story of her
past.
Even though
much of the dialouge in this sence has been has been cut out and edited, Kazan
still stays true to music. The Varsouviana begins to play everytime something
is brought up about Blanche’s past and her young husband. Like Williams wrote
in the play, the music comes on as Blanche begings to tell her story and stops
abruptly with a shot as she mentions Allan’s death. Kazan, like Williams, has
the music restart and play untill the end of the sence. It begins again faintly
as Blanche finishes her story, and becomes louder as Mitch proposes. The music
in both the play and the film seem to increase with intensity and reflect the
emotion in the sence.
Lighting is
another huge factor used throughout the play and the film. As with the music,
the lighting is also used to reflect the intensity of emotion running through
the characters in the sence. Again with lighting, Kazan stayed faithful to
William’s vision and kept the lights dim and shaded in the film. The lights can
be seen as a reflection of Blanche, where she once shawn so bright and happy,
she now stays in the dark and has become flickery with emotions. At the start
of sence six Blanche says, “We’ll have a
night-cap. Let’s leave the lights off. Shall we?” (103) This showing her level
of insecurity. Where as Kazan made the change to have Blanche and Mitch outside
on the peir; the lights still however, are dim but the feeling of Blanche’s
insecurities is not as prominent.
At the end
of Blanche’s story she states, “And then the seachlight which had been turned
on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been
any light that’s stonger than this – kitchen – candle.” (115) This shows how
powerful light is in the play. And that Blanche in a way is scared of the light,
because it brings out her past and all of her promblems and poor decisions.
Again in Kazan’s verison due the the setting, Blanche compares the searchlights
to a lantern instead of a candle. Which in this case may be more fitting to the
storyline given her want to cover any bare light bulb with the paper lanterns.
Therefore, even though Kazan made many verbal changes to this
sence he still stayed true to Williams orginal play and the characters
emotions; as well as including all of the lighting and music changes. This
allowed the characters moods and feelings to be seen quite easily, which made the
story light up on film.
