The curious case of the quisling Elia Kazan

History is full of people who chose to show moral courage in the face of adversity. Unfortunately it is more full of those who show cowardice. While it is true that Elia Kazan was a gifted director in the theatre and in the cinema, there is no doubt in my mind that he was one fairly despicable human being. I love Martin Scorsese and I appreciate his scholarship and will not argue about his assessment of Kazan's career as a director. But I can not and will not ignore the man. Kazan apologists puzzle me because they tend to cherry pick their information. They lack perspective and seems blind to the truth, making me wonder the Sarah Palins of the world are winning. Kazan was a guy who testified against others to protect his own skin. We have names for that and they are not kind. And yet you seem to hold him up as some hero. Where sir is your moral compass? For me, there is no question that those who chose to betray others on the witness stands of the Senate and House UnAmerican activity committees are the moral equivalent of the French collaborators, the Norwegian quislings or the Dutch conspirators who turned Anne Frank's family into the Nazis. No different at all. Many people--my father among them--were confronted by these watershed tests of character and human decency. Some like my Dad behaved honorably. Others like Kazan, Budd Schulberg failed miserably. I know it has become common practice of late for pop culture revisionist historians like Sam Tanenhaus to play the contrarian card, to make rapid fire declarations that are profoundly incorrect (e.g. "Conservatism is Dead", anyone?) or simply cherry pick history to further their own personal and political agenda, (e.g. the Rosenbergs and McCarthy). But this revisionism, this attempt at resurrecting Kazan and his legacy by changing history--is both sad and deplorable. I understand that Kazan and his friends had the PR machine working full-time. He was looking for the Oscar and to repair his image. It is sort of pathetic for me that writers fall for this. Do they really think that Kazan chose to be a friendly witness because he was labeled a "foreman"? Yeah, name calling is really traumatic. Defenders read this delusional excuse in his autobiography. And they believed it? Hell even Wikipedia seems to have more of a clue: "in 1952 Kazan had handed over to the House Un-American Activities Committee the names of eight members of the Communist Party who had worked at the Group Theater where he had started as an actor. Naming names cost Kazan, himself a member of the party between 1934 and 1936 before resigning in protest, many friends in Hollywood and among US intellectuals. His reason for doing so after previously refusing to testify is still debated." Kazan refused to testify at his first appearance before the HUAC but the second time he was called, Kazan capitulated, claiming it was because of his hatred of communism. So he names actors from his Group Theatre. What does that have to do with actors from the 1930s? I suspect in his own mind he thought he was mitigating the harm that he knew was about to be bestowed upon these people. The FBI undoubtedly presented him with a difficult choice: "rat on your friends and we'll let you have a career or don't and suffer the consequences." I know this because the FBI played rough because of the pressure they put upon my own father and mother. And the FBI offered lots of enticements to rat out his peers. But my father--a flawed human being for sure--showed moral courage and instead offered only half the peace sign. Those who named names did so in a variety of ways. Jerome Robbins named some friends who name him back. Others pointed the finger at old friends and acquaintances without a thought. Careers and lives were destroyed. Some like Lee J. Cobb and Sterling Hayden apologized for their transgressions. My father who suffered through 11 years of struggle was a forgiving man. I am less so. Gerald Peary writing in the Boston Phoenix described Kazan's testimony as "odious pages and pages of careerist butt kissing and flag waving, Kazan going through the plots of each of his movies, explaining laboriously why they were very anti-Communist and (coming from an immigrant lad from Greece) very, very pro-American. And he named names to HUAC. Lots and lots of them. Kazan betrayed his ex-friends which guaranteed his continued employment in Hollywood. While they struggled, he, the informer, continued to work. And Kazan's defenders seem to think that is ok. Where is their moral compass? A writer in the LA Times recently wrote that "On The Waterfront" written by fellow collaborator Budd Schulberg has often been read "with no small degree of contortion" as an apologia for Kazan's testimony. The snarkiness of that comment is only exceeded by its absurdity. Brando's character testifies to congressional investigators and is the hero. Was he really suggesting that Kazan and Schulberg were not trying to make their own testimony as heroic as Terry Malloy's to justify their treachery? You call that a contortion? Those conclusions are the only contortions here. I have no problem with reviews of Kazan's movies on dvd or elsewhere. But if reviewers are going to weigh in on the politics, get it right and spare us the revised, adulterated and untruthful history. The truth is what matters. Per Daniel Moynihan, Kazan defenders are entitled to their opinions, just not your own set of facts.