Elia Kazan vs. The House Un-American Activities Committee

Hollywood is a master of revisionist history, especially when that history is its own. One of the defining moments in the histories of both Hollywood and America was the series of Congressional hearings held by the House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC, and led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the late 1940′s and early 1950′s in order to ostensibly eliminate Communism from the United States. Hollywood was intimately involved in the HUAC hearings, and one of those targeted most viciously in the controversy was acclaimed film and theater director Elia Kazan.

Despite an illustrious career in which he directed nearly two dozen films, among them such classics as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and East of Eden, and collaborated with Pulitzer-prize winning playwrights Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams for both the stage and screen, Kazan is remembered by many only for his testimony in front of this committee.

This point is illustrated by the heated controversy surrounding the director’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented to him at the 1999 Academy Awards. Kazan’s importance to the world of cinema is undisputed, but Hollywood remains divided by a single political affair that took place over half a century ago. The Academy Award was therefore protested by some and supported by others. But should Elia Kazan still be regarded with such contempt by his peers and contemporary members of the Hollywood community? Should his legacy be based on this one transgression, rather than his long history of cinematic achievement? And has Kazan already put the entire subject to rest in On the Waterfront, perhaps the best work of his entire career? I hope to answer these questions in an essay that will discuss the t...

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..., for being a “friendly witness” to the Congressional committee, he has made it equally difficult for anyone else to forgive or forget what he did. Even though Kazan’s testimony was essentially symbolic, and despite that fact that many others were guilty of the same crimes against Hollywood, his name has become the symbol most associated with HUAC.

As I mentioned at the onset, Hollywood is a master storyteller, especially when the stories it tells are about itself. In this case, Hollywood had to write its own ending to the story, since Kazan never apologized or offered any closure of his own on the subject. As a result Kazan became the antagonist more than even the Communists themselves. HUAC, in hindsight, was an ugly, embarrassing incident in American history that many would prefer to forget. Yet even after the death of Elia Kazan in 2003, the debate rages on.