A Streetcar Named Desire is the story of a southern belle, Blanche Dubois, who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her aristocratic background seeking refuge with her sister and brother-in-law in a dilapidated New Orleans tenement. She doesn';;t understand how Stella, who is expecting her first child, could have picked a husband so lacking in refinement. Stanley Kowalski';;s buddies come over to the house to play cards and one of them, Mitch, finds Blanche attractive until Stanley tells him about what kind of a woman Blanche really is.
The fact it was the fifth most lucrative film in its year of release is a depressing sign of how we have infantilized ourselves as spectators. [Full review in Portuguese.]
...Kazan achieves a sort of theatrical intensity in which the sweaty realism sometimes clashes awkwardly with the stylisation that heightens the dialogue into a kind of poetry.
... a Hollywood landmark, both for pushing the envelope of subject matter allowed on screen by the censors and for showcasing the more naturalistic "method" approach to performance ...
The camera has done greater justice to the Williams play, catching the nuances and reflected tragedy with an intimacy that is so vital in a story of this type.
