Wanting more information on that taxicab scene in On the Waterfront, I’ve consulted hard copy – Elia Kazan: A Life
The clip from this scene is in the post Budd Schulberg RIP – i could’ve been a contender. And the script excerpt is in On The Waterfront – INT—TAXICAB—EVENING.
Published in 1988, Kazan’s autobiography contains many stories and comments on his life and films. Speaking of Brando in On The Waterfront, Kazan writes:
If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film in America, I don’t know what it is
In a twenty page chapter describing the trials and tribulations of making this film Kazan does cover this iconic scene.
The most famous scene of the film, the one played over and over on TV until I got sick of it but never so often that I didn’t marvel at Marlon Brando’s and Rod Steiger’s performances, was the scene in the taxicab. It is the perfect example of how this picture was made by a series of accidents and misfortunes that turned out well in the end. When we started on it in the morning, everything seemed wrong, because everything was wrong. My original intention had been to shoot the scene in a real taxi, an actual cab in traffic. I was lucky I didn’t, of course, because if I had, I never would have got the performances I did. Then this seemed too difficult and too expensive for Sam Speigel [Producer], so he procured for us a shabby old taxicab shell, which he had placed in a small shabby studio. I asked to have a projection or frame seen through the rear window. When we got to the studio that morning, Boris Kaufman [Cinematographer] and I found that Sam, to save a big bill, had not arranged for the rear-projection equipment. Boris was upset and I was upset. There wasn’t time before Brando’s departure at four o’clock to do a hell of a lot, so Boris solved the problem in the simplest way possible, by putting a small venetian blind across the window at the back of the cab shell and shooting straight in to avoid the side windows, except for an edge that he caught with a flickering light to suggest traffic going by. We had some of the crew shake the taxi shell to suggest movement, and that was it; we thought it a crude, primitive solution, but we got by with it. The audience watches the actors, not the taxi, not the traffic outside.
Dealing with the technical problems and budget limitations is part of every film. Kazan knew Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger for years, having taught them acting classes at the Actors Studio in the late 1940s, and directing Brando on stage. Since they had a shared history of working together, there is a sense of an ensemble and a trust in each others work. Kazan’s description of directing by not directing (“not to do anything”) is enlightening to read.
I’ve been highly praised for the direction of this scene, but the truth is I didn’t direct it. By the time Boris and I had figured out what to do with the set, the morning was gone and Brando was leaving at four; there was nothing to do except put the actors in their places – who on which side of the seat? did it mater? – photograph them. By that time in the schedule, Brando and Steiger knew who they were and what the scene was about – they knew all that better than I did by then – so I didn’t say anything to them. Sometimes it’s important for a director to withdraw a little. If the characters are going right, to begin to talk about who they are and motivation and so forth may result in the actors’ becoming concerned with satisfying you instead of playing the scene. You can spoil a scene by being too much of a genuine director – call it showing off. Here the scene had been set in motion long before. I knew that and was smart enough that day or troubled enough by my technical problems not to do anything more.
By the time Marlon Brando had to leave. I hadn’t photographed Rod Steiger’s close-up, and it was the last thing I did, reading Marlon’s lines myself from off camera. Rod had reason to be annoyed; in fact, I doubt that he ever quite forgave me for slighting his “side” of the scene. He said I treated Marlon better than I did him. He was right, I did, but in this case it didn’t hurt the scene, Rod was excellent. I believe that what happened hurt his self-esteem but not his performance. If Steiger has played any scene better than that one, I have not seen it.
The creativity of Brando evidenced by his going so far away from the cliche and the obvious is described by Kazan. A more conventional actor might play the boxer, confronted by a gun and reacting in some violent way.
But of course the extraordinary element of that scene and in the whole picture was Brando, and what was extraordinary about his performance, I feel, is the contrast of the tough-guy front and the extreme delicacy and gentle cast of his behavior. What other actor, when his brother draws a pistol to force him to do something shameful, would put his hand on the gun and push it away with the gentleness of a caress? Who else could read “Oh, Charlie!” in a tone or reproach that is so loving and melancholy and suggests that terrific depth of pain? I didn’t direct that; Marlon showed me, as he often did, how the scene should be performed. I could never have told him how to do that scene as well as he did it….
