- Elia Kazan embodied the American dream. An immigrant from Constantinople who became the Prince of Hollywood and Broadway after World War II.
- Elia Kazan, born in 1909 in Constantinople, the son of a Greek shopkeeper, came to the United States at the age of four and made a career as an autodidact. He created cinematic masterpieces such as "A Streetcar named Desire" and "East of Eden", discovered film talents such as Marlon Brando and James Dean and experimented in the actor's co-founded Actors Studio with unorthodox acting methods. To date, Kazans role is controversial during the anti-communist witch hunt. The denunciation of Hollywood colleagues, who had previously been members of the Communist Party, branded him until the end of his life. He died in 2003 at the age of 94 - as a traitor. In 1954, the surprise success of the eight-time Oscar-winning film "On the Waterfront" helped him to material independence, but he should never recover from the consequences of his behavior in the years of the McCarthy era. The documentary shows Kazan as a man of leftist convictions, patriots, rebels and fellow travelers who saw themselves as outsiders all their lives. As someone who loved America and at the same time sharply criticized it, Kazan's films are a challenge to Puritanism, narrowness and corruption. By placing them in chronological context, it becomes clear how the prodigy of Broadway and Hollywood fell into disfavor and became a leper. The director's voice can be heard in previously unpublished excerpts of talks that the French film critic Michel Ciment conducted with Kazan in 1971, as an alternative or as a supplement to the commentary. As an eloquent testimony of a belligerent spirit that did not regret anything.
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By what name was Un Américain nommé Kazan (2018) officially released in Canada in English?
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