A Streetcar Named Desire Analysis

This 1950's theatrical presentation was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Tennessee Williams. It is about a southern bell by the name of Blanche Dubois who loses her father's plantation to a mortgage and travels to live in her sister's home in New Orleans by means of a streetcar called Desire. There she finds her sister living in a mess with a drunken bully husband, and the events that follow cause Blanche to step over the line of insanity and fall victim to life's harsh lessons.

The artistic intensions of the film were clearly stated in the beginning when the credits appeared on the screen along with the recognition that this film received. Nothing in the background moved. The size and arrangement of the letters on the screen screamed to the audience that the main artistic intension of this film was for the audience to clearly recognize that this film itself was a piece of art in its finest form. The film very quickly and artistically set the mood and the location as well as the topical time period through the jazzy music in the background, the accents and grammar of the characters, the style of clothing and hair, the presence of a soldier, and through the scenery. Later in the film, some indicators of the time period were shown through the old radio Stanley threw out the window and the young man coming to collect for the newspaper. An indicator of the location was made more clear by the presence of African American people walking in Stella and Stanley's neighborhood. Back when this movie was made the black people and white people, especially of upper class society, were still segregated for the most part. The upstairs neighbors fighting with each other and yelling loudly and the appearance of Stanley's poker friends...

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...ley with his buddies.

The target audience for this film I would say is the general public, age 15 and older. I do not think that a child would understand much of what goes on in the film, especially seeing is how I saw this actual play when I was 10 years old and I did not like it then because I could not understand the point. The historical time lag does make a bit of a difference in how the audience perceives the film but not in whether or not they understand it. You see, nowadays it is getting to be more and more unlikely that a woman would put up with some of the things Stella puts up with from Stanley for very long. I also do not think that women expect some of the things from men that Blanche expected or pretended to expect, such as them standing just because she was walking by. Overall, I would say that the actors and the film as a whole is a success.