Elia Kazan: An Outsider

Elia Kazan: An Outsider (1982)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This hour long documentary has director Elia Kazan talking about his life and films. The director starts off talking about his early life and how he eventually got interested in acting, which of course leads to the Actor's Studio. From here he talks about his greatest films, his controversial testimony and some of the failures that hit his later films.

Documentaries like this are now pretty priceless because it gives us a chance to hear from a legendary director. There have been many documentaries done on Kazan but this here allows the man to speak for himself and share his opinions on acting, his films and some of his life's disappointments. The documentary has him revisiting where ON THE WATERFRONT was made, which was a lot of fun and he even talks about the tips he gave Robert DeNiro on THE LAST TYCOON. DeNiro is also briefly interviewed here as he discusses the director.

Some of the highlights include Kazan talking about some of his later films and the disappointments they were at the box office. This includes America America and THE APPOINTMENT. He also talks about Broadway and his love of writing. Kazan was 72 at the time and he knocks on wood at one point saying he hopes to get a few more things done before he dies. As we know, he ended up living a long time but it's worth noting that the three film projects he hoped to do were never completed.