Imitating an Icon: John Erman's Remake of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire
1985; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 28; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.3138/md.28.1.139
ISSN1712-5286
Autores Tópico(s)Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary Research
ResumoWhen the news broke that John Erman would be directing a television film version of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, most of us thought not of the Williams play but of Elia Kazan's 1951 Hollywood film, wondering how Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois would be possible without Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh. The combination of Brando's raw sexuality and Leigh's desperate fragility had become not merely the measure of any subsequent performance but an icon: inevitable, indelible, inimitable. After Brando, who would dare to wail "Stella!" from the bottom of that New Orleans staircase, shriek out a cat cry to frighten Blanche, or "clear off' his place at table? After Leigh, who would dare to pluck up the threads of dignity from the unraveled spool and walk out of Stanley's house on the gentleman caller's arm, acknowledging, "Whoever you are - I have always depended on the kindness of strangers?” But Treat Williams and Ann-Margret did dare and, under Erman's direction, were gutsy enough to do a remake of the Kazan film. Erman's A Streetcar Named Desire (1984), in imitating this icon, prescribes its own limitations, yet it still manages to accomplish a distinct if subtle reinterpretation of the Williams play.
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