Tennessee Williams a Streetcar Named Desire [DVD] [1995] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

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An American Medal of Freedom winner, western author Louis L'Amour, said that Americans love stories with awesome heroes and victorious endings (my paraphrasing.)

In 1997, at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago IL, Gary Sinise as Stanley, John C Reilly as Mitch, Kathryn Erbe as Stella, and Laila Robins as Blanche. A Tribute From Tennessee Williams To 'Heroic Tallulah Bankhead' ". archive.nytimes.com . Retrieved December 23, 2022. Production of A Streetcar Named Desire – Theatricalia". theatricalia.com . Retrieved January 28, 2019. The play was set entirely at the Kowalski apartment, but the story's visual scope is expanded in the film, which depicts locations only briefly mentioned or non-existent in the stage production, such as the train station, streets in the French Quarter, the bowling alley, the pier of a dance casino, and the machine factory.John Erman’s 1984 Streetcar is, as I stated above, a fidelity to the letter adaptation since despite the minor alterations to the plot it follows Williams’s narrative structure. Erman uses the colors of “soft-golden” and “sepia” in his version of Streetcar, which “suggest both the past and the paper-lantern lighting that Blanche uses to hide the fact that she is no longer young” (O’Connor 1984, The New York Times). The director places the focus on characters as Kazan did previously and highlights the tension between them with long-shots and close-ups but does not manege to creat such a powerful intradiegetic world as his predecessor in 1951. Glenn Jordan’s 1995 remake of the Streetcar is also a fidelity adaptation as I mentioned earlier, a fidelity to the letter adaptation of William’s play in terms of the original plot. Jordan arranged the scenes to be identical with the Broadway version of the play—and so, to confere a sense of being in the theater. I do not consider this solution as a very creative way of adapting a work; it reminds one of the so-called Cinema du Papa from the onset of the history of the film when all works were fidel to the letter to the novel they adapted since the mise-en-scène cannot give new experience for the viewer. On the contrary, the film, with regard to its mise-en-scène merely and anachronistically repeats its Broadway version. Moreover, by observing the performance of Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin subsequently in the roles of the protagonist and antagonist, it seems that their acting is less original by trying to mime former actors playing the role. Francois Truffaut in his article entitled “Certain Tendency of the French Cinema” (1954) described that a good mise-en-scéne is something when the director is recognizable by the stylistic features and “thematic personality” he or she uses and does not work with a previously crated scenario, which does not need to be altered or formed (Cristian 2008,65). This version of Streetcar has no visible signs of thematic personality resulting in a flat fidelity re-creation of an earlier plot. Jordan’s characters, however, show strong intertextual features to Elia Kazan’s 1951 version rather than to the original play which creates an interesting contrast and connection between the films and the drama. In his 2020 autobiography Apropos of Nothing, director Woody Allen praises every aspect of the production:

More, than thirty years later, in 1984, John Erman made a new Streetcar remake as television film and in 1995 Glenn Jordan also directed A Streetcar Named Desire movie for television, which was based on the play’s 1992 success on the Broadway. Erman used the original plot, making only minor transformations to it and rather following a fidelity of the letter adaptation the original script of the 1947 play. Names like Treat Williams or Ann-Margret (who won the Golden Globes for her performance as Blanche Dubois in 1985) starred in the movie. Interestingly, the Golden Globes was the only event where Erman’s Streetcar could win an award because the film was not among the successful Williams adaptations. This version was not regulated by the PCA and therefore, had more explicit scenes allowed by the rating system in vogue then. Jordan’s intention was also to revive Williams’s play without making any alterations to it. The new Streetcar – starring Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin – had no specific regulations limiting its creative output in terms of censorship. The film was first aired on the CBS channel, so it was open to a greater mass of audience then a feature film. Moreover, despite its obvious fidelity adaptation of Williams’s masterpiece, it received an ambiguous welcome from the film critics. For example, Tom Shales from The Washington Post called the audience’s attention to “expect [their] patience to be tested very early” and continued with the observation in which he claims that “viewers are likely to be put off by the talkiness and slow pace of the first hour, and viewership will likely decline steadily through the night” (1995, The Washington Post). Despite the harsher comments on the film, Jordan’s Streetcar was nominated for several awards, such as the Emmy Awards in 1996 (for the Best Leading Actress, Best Leading Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Outstanding Art direction), the Casting Society of America (Best Casting for TV Movie) or the Golden Globe, where Jessica Lange the won the Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television. In 1965, fourteen years after the release of the film, state tourism director John Carroll attempted to revive the imagery of the Desire Streetcar to spur tourism interest. Originally from New Orleans but trained in Hollywood, Carroll emphasized that the state needed to “think big if it wanted to get into the big league in tourism.” One of his suggestions included putting the “streetcar named Desire” on a trailer and send it “rolling around the country loaded with promotional materials for potential visitors.” Additionally, an undated, but probably 60s-era tourism brochure featured a map of the Desire streetcar line’s former route. [3]Geis, Deborah. "Deconstructing (A Streetcar Named) Desire: Gender Recitation in Belle Reprieve". Feminist Theatrical Revisions of Classic Works. Ed. Sharon Friedman. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009. 237-246. Print. In 1998, PBS aired a taped version of the opera adaptation that featured the original San Francisco Opera cast. The program received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Classical Music/Dance Program. [40] As the weeks pass, the friction between Blanche and Stanley continues to grow. Blanche has hope in Mitch, and tells Stella that she wants to go away with him and not be anyone's problem. During a meeting between the two, Blanche confesses to Mitch that once she was married to a young man, Allan Grey, whom she later discovered in a sexual encounter with an older man. Grey later killed himself when Blanche told him she was disgusted with him. The story touches Mitch, who tells Blanche that they need each other. Mitch also has lost someone and seems to have empathy with Blanche's situation. A highly publicized and acclaimed revival in 1992 starred Alec Baldwin as Stanley and Jessica Lange as Blanche. It was staged at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where the original production was staged. This production proved so successful that it was filmed for television. It featured Timothy Carhart as Mitch and Amy Madigan as Stella, as well as future Sopranos stars James Gandolfini and Aida Turturro. Gandolfini was Carhart's understudy. [15]

Close, tight photography altered the dramatic qualities of the play, for example in the lengthy scenes of escalating conflict between Stanley and Blanche, or when Mitch shines the light on Blanche to see how old she is, or when the camera hovers over Blanche, collapsed on the floor, with her head at the bottom of the screen, as though she were turned upside down. In this Streetcar adaptation there were three big changes in the film compared to the Broadway version of the play and the original text of the drama. After the success of the Bicycle Thief, PCA started to weaken its paramount influence on controlling films (Cristian 2008, 75). This was partly the reason why Streetcar could finally be released. However, it had to overcome the “C” (condemned) rating it received which meant that, similar to other art films, it could not be booked in major theatres (75) in the US. After several negotiations with Joseph Breen, Kazan and Williams were asked to change three main parts of the drama (Palmer 1997, 218). The first such change was concerned with the representation of homosexuality on the screen since at that time, the regulations of the PCA forbade the representation of sexual minorities. Therefore, the character of Alan Grey, Blanche DuBois’s homosexual husband, was altered into the figure of a man who was described as an unemployed, weak man, which, in fact, appealed to Kazan since he was not a fan of “perversion” (218). The other important element that needed to be altered was Blanche’s excessive sexual behaviour, her nymphomania, which had to be transformed in a way, into a neurotic character that only the older and more experienced viewers would get the idea, so that it would remain hidden from or unnoticed for the younger audience. The third and perhaps the most controversial scene that required changes was the so-called rape scene at the end of film, the scene that shows the sexual encounter between Blanche and Stanley Kowalski. Joseph Breen wanted it to be completely removed from the film but Kazan and Williams were against the idea, saying that it is the central element of the narrative and without it the catharsis would not be fulfilled (Palmer 1997, 218). According to Palmer, the PCA was in a difficult situation since it had to meet the expectations of the rapidly changing popular taste and also, had to continue their path on maintaining the morally acceptable movies in Hollywood (218). Seeing Breen’s hesitation, Kazan decided to keep the rejected script and put it into the movie (218). Nevertheless, after seeing that this scene cannot be taken out, Breen had one more objection concerning the end of the film: he demanded that Stella Kowalski has to leave Stanley, her brutal husband who cheated on her and beat her several times, and so giving a morally valuable message for the viewers. Breen thought that if he could not completely prevent that scene to be shown on the screen he could at least change the ending according to his own will. As it turned out, this was not a bad decision after all ; Streetcar became partly a morally instructive movie with a tongue-in-cheek subtlety for those who knew the original plot.

Pedro Almodóvar's 1999 Academy Award-winning film All About My Mother features a Spanish-language version of the play being performed by some of the supporting characters and the play plays an important role in the film. However, some of the film's dialogue is taken from the 1951 film version, not the original stage version. For the opening scene, #922 was chosen to be the streetcar that dropped off Blanche. This streetcar is still in revenue earning service on the St. Charles Streetcar Line [8] The first adaptation of Streetcar in Greece was performed in 1948 by Koun's Art Theater, two years before its film adaptation and one year before its London premiere, directed by Karolos Koun starring Melina Mercouri as Blanche and Vasilis Diamantopoulos as Stanley, with original music by Manos Hadjidakis.

The 1984 television version featured Ann-Margret as Blanche, Treat Williams as Stanley, Beverly D'Angelo as Stella and Randy Quaid as Mitch. It was directed by John Erman and the teleplay was adapted by Oscar Saul. The music score by composed by Marvin Hamlisch. Ann-Margret, D'Angelo and Quaid were all nominated for Emmy Awards, but none won. However, it did win four Emmys, including one for cinematographer Bill Butler. Ann-Margret won a Golden Globe award for her performance, and Treat Williams was nominated for Best Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie. A 1952 ballet production with choreography by Valerie Bettis, which Mia Slavenska and Frederic Franklin's Slavenska-Franklin Ballet debuted at Her Majesty's Theatre in Montreal, featured the music of Alex North, who had composed the music for the 1951 film. [36] Blanche tells Stella that she has taken a leave of absence from her English-teaching position because of her nerves (which is later revealed to be a lie). Blanche laments the shabbiness of her sister's two-room flat. She finds Stanley loud and rough, eventually referring to him as "common". Stanley, in return, is suspicious of Blanche, does not care for her manners and resents her presence which is already interfering with his regimented but hedonistic lifestyle. A Streetcar Named Desire won four Academy Awards, setting an Oscar record when it became the first film to win in three of the acting categories, a feat subsequently matched by Network in 1976 and Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2022. [19] [20] It was also the first time since 1936 ( Anthony Adverse) that a Warner Bros. movie won four or more Oscars. In the film, Blanche is shown riding in the streetcar which was only mentioned in the play. By the time the film was in production, however, the Desire streetcar line had been converted into a bus service, and the production team had to gain permission from the authorities to hire out a streetcar with the "Desire" name on it. [14]In 1995, André Previn adapted the play into an opera with a libretto by Philip Littel. Three years later, Previn conducted its world premiere with the San Francisco Opera. The play was also adapted for television in 1995. Starring Alec Baldwin as Stanley, Jessica Lange as Blanche, and Diane Lane as Stella, this was the second television adaptation. (An earlier version had been produced in 1984.) For some television watchers (this author included), their first exposure to Williams’s play was its musical send up in “A Streetcar Named Marge,” a 1992 episode of the animated series The Simpsons written by Jeff Martin. Unidentified photographer. Tennessee Williams and Lars Schmidt. Lars Schmidt Collection, Music Division. brightly lit, garbage-filled stage reflecting a hostile, predatory world and immersing the audience in a total