Friday, December 10, 2010

Elia Kazan on bohemianism


"Elia Kazan at Cannes," courtesy The New Yorker
My suggestion: read this aloud.
"A dying race call them what you will: romantics, eccentrics, rebels, Bohemians, freaks, harum-scarum, bobtail, Punchinello, odd-ducks, the out-of-steps, the queers, double-gated, lechers, secret livers, dreamers, left-handed pitchers, defrocked bishops... the artists, the near artists, the would-be-artists, the wanderers, the would-be wanderers, the secret wanderers, the foggy-minded, the asleep on the job, the loafers, the out-and-out hobos, the down and out, the grifters and drifters, the winos and boozers, the old maids who don't venture to the other side of their windows, the good for nothings, the unfenceables, the rebels inside, the rebels manifest..."
-- Elia Kazan, from a letter to Tennessee Williams

3 comments:

gilhodges said...

I know that others who were actually harmed by his cowardice have, but why do I find it so hard to forgive him?

Tim Connor said...

gilhodges, You might want to read the article at http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/12/13/101213crat_atlarge_lahr. The writer, John Lahr is very sympathetic to Kazan. Places him between a rock & hard place. McCarthy was a bully & a pig of course but K hated the Communists too at that point (Stalin was a bully & a pig & a mass murderer). I don't know enough at this point to have strong feelings.

Tim Connor said...
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