Tue 14 Jun 2005
This article has a brief mention of Elia Kazan ‘31.
Director Elia Kazan, who named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee in the ’50s, had been persona non grata in Hollywood for decades when the Academy decided to present him an honorary Oscar in 1999; despite masterpieces like A Tree Grows In Brooklyn and On the Waterfront, the American Film Institute had refused to approve a proposal to similarly honor Kazan some ten years earlier.
There is a great senior thesis to be written about Kazan and his decision to name some names.
June 14th, 2005 at 9:25 pm
As far as I know, no one ever accused Kazan of prevarication, nor of executing (or threatening to execute) the Hollywood Blacklist. He merely responded truthfully when his country in its legislative capacity asked him certain questions. That action on his part is the least a citizen should be expected to do.
June 15th, 2005 at 6:22 am
oh. wow.
“he merely responded truthfully when his country in its legislative capacity asked him certain questions. That action…is the least a citizen should be expected to do.”
oh. wow.
Or, in a a different interpretation of the history of the McCarthyism of the time:
“he avoided punishment at the hands of a witchhunt by furthering the witchhunt’s absurd waste of government time and embarrassment of American ideas of freedom and limited government through casting aspersions on other Americans. Such an act of lacking the spine to stand up and say no when our government acted irresponsibly to attack its own citizenry is a sad stain on an otherwise brilliant career.”
For what I take to be a more nuanced view of Kazan’s position in the times (look for the paragraphs beginning: “Did he do wrong?” and But failing to be a hero…”)
see here:
http://slate.msn.com/id/18121/
for the opposite view from Frank’s, here’s a quote from the book Naming Names which has a whole chapter exploring Kazan’s experiences:
“If Kazan had refused to cooperate [with HUAC],” speculates one director-victim of the day, “he couldn’t have derailed the Committee, but he might well have broken the blacklist. He was too important to be ignored.” Probably no single individual could have broken the blacklist in April 1952, and yet no person was in a better strategic position to try than Kazan, by virtue of his prestige and economic invulnerability, to mount a symbolic campaign against it, and by this example inspire hundreds of fence sitters to come over to the opposition.”
The communist hunt of the era was embarrassment for the country. to say that what Kazan did was the “least [that] should be expected” is very troubling in a country that is supposed to be a pillar of democracy and freedom.
June 15th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
rory: I don’t believe that McCarthyism should have been forwarded or otherwise endorsed, but I do believe that upon request our government was entitled to have the facts from those who had them. Why attack Kazan for “naming names” to the House? That action was his civic duty. If one desires, one can attack him for not sufficiently politically opposing what McCarthy stood for? Of course, millions similarly failed.
June 15th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Does that mean that those who did not name names were incorrect or bad to do so?
Kazan came out with a NY Times ad he bought supporting the extreme communist hunt soon after naming names. I don’t want to cast aspersions on Kazan because I can’t imagine being in his position and thus don’t know that i’d have the strength to do better than him, but I also don’t want to make it sound like his actions were noble.
Our government (in this case and many others) often goes too far and it is noble, when faced with such a situation, to speak truth to power, even in the face of blacklisting.
June 16th, 2005 at 3:08 pm
Does anyone know how Williams handled the McCarthy-era requirment that students sign loyalty oaths in order to qualify for the government financial aid program?
This requirement was in effect throughout the late 1950s until it was repealed early in the Kennedy administration.
It was a requirement that didn’t sit well with many colleges.