Tennessee Williams - A Streetcar Named Desire. Tennessee Williams plays. "A Streetcar Named Desire Why is Williams's play called A Streetcar Named Desire?"

One of the most famous plays in the history of world theater was Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. Its summary is known to many, but the source of inspiration for the great playwright of our time was hidden from the general public. Perhaps the answer should be sought in the writer’s life itself.

Birth of a genius

In 1911, a son was born to a traveling shoe salesman named Williams. Cornelius, the child's father, happened to abuse alcoholic beverages, but he did not consider it a sin, since he had his own ideas about what a man should be. All his friends called him “Cee-Cee,” after the initials of both his names (Cornelius and Coffin). The father of the future writer came from a son he named in a southern manner, magnificently - Thomas Lanier Williams III. History is silent about who the first two Thomas Laniers were.

Early years

It’s not that the son did not live up to Si Si’s expectations and hopes - he grew up the complete opposite of the image that he wanted to see. Having suffered from diphtheria and barely surviving, Tom was a weak and fragile boy, and not at all a pugnacious, strong man, as his father would have liked. As for the mother, she also had shortcomings. Nervousness, hysteria and a tendency towards snobbery were character traits that oppressed the child, and one could only regret this if they had not become the source material for the creation of artistic images that were to populate many of the playwright's plays, including A Streetcar Named Desire " The brief content of each of the works is filled with people suffering and at the same time mercilessly tormenting their loved ones. This happens in life, unfortunately, often, although Williams created stories in which these situations were presented in a concentrated form.

Way to success

As a young man, Thomas became interested in literature, and nothing - neither personal failures, nor in the shoe industry where his father got him a job, nor many other unpleasant circumstances and troubles - could influence him. He wrote several plays while studying at universities (first in Missouri , then in Iowa), and was even noticed - his story was published by a little-known magazine. In 1939, the pseudonym Tennessee appeared in honor of the homeland of his father, whom, despite his rudeness towards himself, his son still loved. This happened after he was awarded a thousand-dollar Rockefeller grant (huge money then, almost a kilogram of gold) for the play “Battle of Angels.” The work, however, was not successful. Then there was the future location of the play A Streetcar Named Desire. The summary of the first theatrical script that was discussed seriously, namely “The Glass Menagerie” (1945), can be summed up in two words: a memory play. A unique style was formed, describing characters opposing each other, personifying life-loving rudeness and naive simplicity defenseless against it, which, according to Shakespeare, “is reputed to be stupidity.”

The beginning of the spectacle

In 1947, Tennessee Williams created his most famous work, the play A Streetcar Named Desire. It is difficult to break down a summary into chapters: after watching a play or film, as well as after reading the text, it is perceived monolithically. Particular attention should be paid to the description of the situation, which, unlike most dramatic scenarios, is not limited to a dry statement of what is on the right, left and behind, but is psychological. Yes, the landscape is dull, but there is also some kind of beauty in it, albeit peculiar, manifested even in depravity and “abyss.” Black musicians play the blues - this is clear from the expression "blue (sad) piano."

Stanley appears, he looks like a brutal cave dweller, and even his first act is to throw his wife a piece of meat wrapped in bloody paper. It’s as if the hunter has brought his prey and is laughing joyfully at his luck. The entire play A Streetcar Named Desire is permeated with such symbols. A brief summary of the first paintings introduces the viewer to the events taking place on stage.

Faces and characters

In contrast to the setting, the characters are listed with almost no comment. The director or the reader is given the right to decide for himself what the characters look like, and perhaps even choose for them the appearance of someone they know. It is clear from his demeanor that Stanley Kowalski is rude, strong and energetic. Stella likes him as he is, therefore, it is difficult to imagine her as a “muslin young lady”. This woman is an ordinary inhabitant of a slum quarter of a southern city, who knows how to stand up for herself in a street squabble, and have a lot of fun, and grieve if the circumstances are such that she cannot do without it. And then Blanche Dubois appears - a woman without whom it is impossible to describe either the full or brief content. A Streetcar Named Desire takes her to her sister. Yes, this vehicle does not have a number; its route is indicated by this poetic word. Stella is her younger sister, the difference is five years. From their conversation it is clear that Blanche has problems with alcohol, but she tries to hide it. It feels like my sister understands everything, but is ready to accept... At least for now. She's pregnant. Actually, in addition to the listed characters, there is also Mitch, more about him later. The rest of the characters (a doctor, a black woman, a young agent of some publication, a matron and others) appear on the stage for a short time, and it’s not worth focusing on them, that’s what the summary is for. A Streetcar Named Desire is a play by four main characters, of which Blanche is the central figure.

Main conflict

There is a basic law of dramaturgy, according to which there is no plot without conflict. Usually it has the character of a pronounced confrontation between good and evil, and just as in an electric circuit the current flows from one pole to the other, so events develop in the course of a continuous struggle between black and white or vice versa. The picture described by Tennessee Williams in A Streetcar Named Desire is somewhat more complicated. A summary of the plot of this play is almost impossible due to the long and contradictory monologues. The play does not fit into the format of modern screenplay literature. The viewer's sympathies sometimes fluctuate from Blanche to Kowalski, depending on the moment. It is clear that the main character is hiding something, but is it just her weakness for whiskey? But it is obvious that the main conflict will unfold between them.

Minor circumstances

The first clash of characters is observed already in the second picture, when Stanley begins to count the cost of Blanche’s outfits and reminds that all the wife’s property belongs to the husband. On this basis, he believes that half of the sisters’ joint inheritance is his property, and reproaches his relative for wastefulness. Then Mitch appears in the storyline - a simple plumber, and he likes a new acquaintance who has arrived from afar. He is a simple man and does not hide his intentions, and they are the most serious. Such an outcome would have suited everyone perfectly, but not Stanley, who was seized with rage. He feels enmity towards Blanche, mixed with lust, and, in the end, this strange bouquet of emotions enters a phase of disgusting denouement.

The final

So what did Williams write in A Streetcar Named Desire? The summary of the last picture leads to a depressive state. Stanley has already opened the eyes of the naive Mitch to Blanche's past, committed violence against her, and now even the most slow-witted viewer is clear that the main character She sincerely believes that she has some kind of admirer who is about to come for her. He's a millionaire, lives in Miami (or Dallas), his name is Shep Huntley, and he's been in love with her since college. This abundance of details cannot deceive - on the contrary, the more they become, the more convincing they are that the heroine is mentally ill. Meanwhile, her sister is packing her suitcase.

And finally, a car comes to pick her up. A doctor and a matron emerge from it, and the nature of the medical institution from which they came is beyond doubt. Blanche clings to the doctor, saying that she has always depended on the kindness of people she met by chance.

Sadness and regret about human cruelty, callousness and indifference fills the heart...

Tennessee Williams's play A Streetcar Named Desire is the first "serious" American drama that gained worldwide recognition due to its actualization of the conflict between man and society. It realizes the tragedy of a confused person, generated by the entire way of life in society. Existential insight drives him crazy; he is unable to withstand the comprehensive pressure of circumstances. Then all that remains for him is to flee into the world of illusions, which only poison the soul.

The playwright began working on a new play in the winter of 1944-1945. Then he was inspired only by the image of the main character, writing the poetically beautiful scene “Blanche in the Moonlight,” where a southern beauty sits on the windowsill and dreams of a better life in the arms of a loving and understanding person.

Then I stopped writing because I was incredibly depressed; it’s hard to work when my thoughts are far away. I decided not to drink coffee and took a break for several months and, indeed, soon came to my senses,” Williams shares his memories.

After regaining strength, the work continued at a crazy pace, the author did not spare nights to implement his long-standing plan. On a summer day in 1946, he arranges the first reading and shows the drama to his friends. It was originally called "Poker Night" in honor of the fateful moment when Blanche's hopes are dashed. The listeners were delighted and spoke about the exclusivity of the play; the playwright did not share their enthusiasm. The desire for perfection forced him to continue his nightly vigils again. The result was A Streetcar Named Desire.

In 1947, Tennessee Williams came to New York and attended a production of Arthur Miller's play All My Sons, directed by Elia Kazan. It was his author who asked to embody the text on stage. Then they began to look for actors for the main roles, because the success of the work depended on how spectacularly it was shown to the viewer. They achieved their goal during a persistent search: Stanley was played by Marlon Brando, and Blanche was played by Jessica Tandy.

The premiere took place at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York on December 3, 1947. The performance was sold out 855 times. The fact is that Puritan critics were quick to call the play too frank and dangerous for public morality. The notoriety served the production well: it became the author's most famous creation.

Why is it called that?

1. The drama is named after the vehicle the heroine used to get to her sister's house. When Blanche arrived, she dropped the remark: “They said, get on the tram first - Desire in the local language, then in another - Cemetery.” The meaning of the play's title is hidden in this quote: it is desire that brings a broken, downtrodden woman to the grave. All her life she obeyed her inner impulses and aspirations, regardless of the realities of the world around her. In search of love, the only absolute value, the beauty wasted herself in love affairs. In the hope of regaining her former luxury, she squandered her estate. Trying to drown out the pain of facing reality, she gave in to her passion for drinking. Obeying the dream of a family shelter visiting Stella, she went to New Orleans, although from the very beginning it was clear that she did not belong there at all. But that’s how it works: always choose “Desire,” even if it leads to the cemetery. But Williams does not consider this a consequence of spoiling and loose morals. He sees in his creation the sophistication and sophistication of a spiritually developed personality who found freedom in himself and preferred a lonely, beautiful rebellion against conformity to the cowardly opportunism of his sister.
2. Another meaning lies in the parallelism of the names: the Desire tram and the Dream house. When a dream goes under the hammer, there is nothing left to do but drag out your life in the wake of more specific and less lofty aspirations - to fall from heaven to earth. Blanche dreamed of an elegant aristocratic atmosphere, of serenity and detachment from everyday life and routine, but all her impulses were roughly pushed against the wall. All that was left was the pitiful attempts not to hang myself on this wall: to indulge my instincts and weaknesses, to live by imagination and lies, to hope against everything.
3. Another option is a cruel irony of fate: the heroine wanted to use her last chance and realize her desire to cling to the hearth and get settled in life. And this device, the last refuge, with which nothing compares in tranquility, became for her the madhouse. There her mental illness was cast into oblivion. But this was the essence of her desire - to find peace.

What is the play about?

A broke middle-aged aristocrat comes to New Orleans, supposedly to visit her sister. In fact, this is her only hope for shelter, because Mrs. Dubois has neither a job, lost due to dissolute behavior, nor a family estate sold for debts, nor a family. Her husband committed suicide, her parents died, and there are no children. Stella welcomes Blanche with open arms, she is kind and mediocre, so the squalor and vulgarity of life do not bother her. The guest, on the contrary, conceals a rich inner world, gracefully floating in the clouds of her fantasies and prejudices. Only Stanley, the husband of the mistress of the house, does not share his wife’s enthusiasm. He doesn’t like his relative, because in her he sees only pompous speeches and arrogance, so his class enmity towards the spoiled lady intensifies. The conflict in the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” is based on it.

Blanche became seriously interested in Kowalski's friend, Mitchell. He even intends to marry a stranger, so she hooked him with her mystery and tragic charm. But Stanley gives him the riddles of the southern princess one after another: she led a frivolous and dissolute lifestyle, for which she was expelled from the city and deprived of her job. The illusions are destroyed, and the groom abandons his intention. The heroine's last hope leaves with him.

Exaltation, education and mannerism make Blanche superfluous in the world of the “average person”. Stanley feels threatened by her and harasses her for a reason. His revenge for an insult is too sophisticated for an ordinary hard worker from the outskirts, who heard that he is not a gentleman. For him, his wife's sister becomes a symbol of that bourgeois, luxurious lifestyle that he will never achieve. He both wants it and hates it. The fragile and beautiful guest evokes the same attitude in him. He desires her and despises her, she brings him out of his usual routine stupor, awakening in him emotions that he did not know in himself, and could not realize, like everyone else around him. Williams's play A Streetcar Named Desire is a story about how idealism and genuine moral sense struggle with the narrow-mindedness and unscrupulousness of the moderate middle. In the finale, the heroine is sexually assaulted and goes crazy. She is taken to a madhouse. This is the verdict of the barbaric and narrow-minded crowd on sublime thoughts and strong feelings.

The main characters and their characteristics

1. Blanche- an aristocrat from the old young Dubois family, the heiress of former planters who became completely impoverished after the victory of the North in the Civil War. She is a refined, intelligent, refined, beautiful but weak woman. After a catastrophe in her marriage (her husband turned out to be homosexual and killed himself when he was exposed), she was left abandoned and unsettled. Brilliant education and manners did not save him from poverty. She worked as a teacher, and, naturally, not knowing the practical side of life, could not prevent the loss of her estate. Endless sorrows and disappointments led her to alcoholism and frivolous sexual behavior. As a result, she was forced to leave the city after a scandal with a young student with whom the teacher was having an affair. However, Tennessee Williams makes it clear that Blanche's loneliness is not a consequence of her immoral behavior, but the irreversible impact of social conditions on a degenerate element. Aristocrat Dubois cannot keep up with the rapidly changing world and realizes that she is running in vain: there is no place for her there. She does not accept the rude and vulgar Stanley Kowalski, the embodiment of narrow-mindedness, vulgarity and aggression. Existing side by side with this empty, philistine life, she feels at the level of intellectual intuition that she has no place in modern American society, but is afraid to admit it to herself. The Desire Streetcar passenger is a relic of Southern aristocracy, her time is up. It is dying like the Usher estate. The heroine is also doomed to disaster, like Roderick Usher in Edgar Allan Poe's novel.
2. Stanley- the main character of the play. This is a rude, self-confident lout who has a rather primitive way of life and thoughts: an evening playing cards, a night with a woman (not necessarily with his wife), food and drink, during the day physical poorly paid work, etc. Outwardly, he is an adherent of the traditional moral principles of the average man, but deep inside he hides depravity, unscrupulousness and cruelty. As soon as his wife left the house and went to give birth, he pounces on her sister and rapes her, probably knowing that nothing will happen to him. His mind is clouded by resentment towards the arrogant Dubois, who condemned Stella for her choice. Now he has found a way to get even and prove that he doesn’t give a damn about this elite. Thus, Kowalski is a vengeful, selfish and vile man, hiding behind the pride and bigotry of his oppressed environment. However, critics' opinions about it vary. For example, G. Clerman believes that “He is the embodiment of animal power, a cruel life that does not notice and even despises all human values.” But actor James Farentino, who played the hero of the drama A Streetcar Named Desire, says differently: “Stanley treats Blanche as a person who has invaded his kingdom and can destroy it. For me, Stanley is a highly moral person; He puts up with the existence of a guest in his house for six months until the day when he accidentally overhears her speech addressed to him, in which she calls him “man-ape.”
3. Stella- a symbol of conformism and tolerance of a mediocre person, leading him to unprincipledness and permissiveness. Sister Blanche is her opposite. She is calm, even apathetic. Maybe that's why she avoided shocks, grief and life itself in all its diversity. Her little world is limited by the walls of a wretched apartment and the whims of a stupid and sometimes cruel husband, who does not hesitate to raise a hand against her. But she comes to terms with even this. Her character is too sluggish and amorphous to prevent anything. She goes with the flow and gets stupid playing bridge with her neighbors. In the end, she becomes an indifferent witness to the death of her sister and... leaves everything as it is.
4. Mitchell- Stanley's friend. He is timid and shy by nature. He spent his whole life with his sick mother, who never bypasses him with advice and participation. Due to his strong attachment to his mother, he never built his own family, although he was already many years old. He is also a worker, he also kills time playing cards, but at the same time he has sincerity, kindness, and the ability to feel beauty. It’s not for nothing that Blanche notices him against the general background: he intuitively reaches out to her, seeing a kindred spirit. However, the man is also weak, he easily follows his friend’s lead and forgets about the inner voice that asked him to give the woman a chance to be heard. He cowardly does not come to meet his beloved and becomes a silent accomplice in her bullying.

What is the meaning of the play?

The main idea of ​​the work is much broader than a showdown. The idea of ​​the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” is that culture is doomed to destruction in the face of the vulgar “mass man”, self-confident to the point of adoration. This is a social conflict, where Blanche and Stanley are images - symbols that personify two social strata, irreconcilable in mutual hostility. Before us is more than a clash of characters, before us is a confrontation between human ideals and the routine truth of life.

A primary place in the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” is given to the problem of coexistence between a sophisticated, spiritually developed person and the rough, cruel reality created by vulgar, narrow-minded people like Stanley. Williams's psychologism lies in showing interest in the contradictory inner world of even the most unsightly hero. Blanche's spiritual invincibility lies in the fact that she, doomed to perish in a pragmatic society, does not renounce her ideals, does not give up her positions, unlike her apathetic sister, who is content with movies and cards. Sublime ideals are the psychological protection of people from the collapse of all hopes they have experienced. If the heroine gives up her views, she will have nothing left.

The violence that Stanley inflicted on Blanche sums up her twisted life. Reality in the face of vulgar and primitive people rapes her illusory inner world. In this business and calculating world, everything is put into action, nothing is idle, so the heroine was also assigned a place corresponding to her functionality. She was used shamelessly, but vice did not penetrate her essence. She was left to the mercy of fate and always depended on the kindness of random people, so no one can be blamed for the situation that has arisen.

“I create an imaginary world to hide from the real one, because I have never been able to adapt to it,” - this is what the author of the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” said about himself. In the image of the heroine, he embodied his own soul, full of fear of what was happening outside of it.

Criticism

Some reviewers attributed the incredible success of the play to the fact that it contains sex scenes, and scenes of violence. However, their dark thoughts were refuted by time itself. Nowadays, staged rapes come as no surprise: cinema actively exploits them, theater does not shy away from them, and many famous books are teeming with them. But A Streetcar Named Desire is still considered the pinnacle of American literature, which means it's not about sex. The same idea was confirmed, laughing, by the author’s contemporary, writer Gore Vidal:

The shortcomings of T. Williams's plays are beyond the reach of all living playwrights.

The importance of this work lies in the fact that it preaches a fundamental rejection of the vices of modern realities, and not a treacherous compromise with them:

The man in Williams's work confronts the cruelty, violence, nightmares and madness of modern reality, saving his dignity and not submitting - even when he becomes a victim, even when the madness of this world affects him. Most of his plays capture the drama of this confrontation, says Russian researcher V. Nedelin.

The techniques with which the author depicts psychologism in the book “A Streetcar Named Desire” are interesting. Each tense scene uses a musical insert that focuses our attention on Blanche's state of mind. We see this world through her eyes, and together with her we hear the heartbreaking polka song and the scream of the woman selling funeral wreaths. At the climax, the sounds of the blue piano end abruptly, and along with them the heroine’s inner world collapses, unable to withstand the onslaught from the outside. The same psychological breakdown in the narrative is noted by theater critic Richard Gilman:

It should now be clear that T. Williams's real theme is the pain, the torment (not the tragedy) of existence and the fate of human dignity (and not the spirit) in the face of suffering. Everything is painful for him - sexuality, the transience of time, the loss of innocence, and communication between people.

During Blanche's passionate monologue, her remarks are interrupted by the merchant's persistent offers to buy “flowers for the dead.” At this moment we understand that the heroine will no longer get out of the snares that have been set, that tragedy awaits us in the finale. This technique was brilliantly implemented by Flaubert in the novel Madame Bovary, when Emma listened to Rodolphe’s confession in the midst of the bustle of the fair. It was not about love, but about winning the next trophy. So in the play, the woman still spoke about life, but it was already about death. It is no coincidence that the book shocked many experienced literary critics with the power of its tragedy, comparable only to something classical and indisputable:

There is no drama today that can even remotely compare with the scale of A Streetcar Named Desire, and nothing similar has been written in the West during the entire second half of the 20th century, noted American critic John Simon.

It is no coincidence that the author compares the heroine to a moth. She flew into the flames all the dark night of her life, but a person will find a rational use for everything. He caught it and stuck it on pins, and then threw it away like a boring piece of junk. The clarity, artistic truthfulness and emotional brightness of the images determined the author’s place in the brilliant galaxy of writers who became the national pride of the country:

If we had a national repertory theatre, mused Harold Clerman, this play would undoubtedly be among the few worthy of a permanent place in it.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

KAZAN STATE UNIVERSITY

CULTURES AND ART

TEST

ON THE SUBJECT "ART HISTORY"

ON THE TOPIC OF:

“TENNESSEEWILLIAMS, PLAYS. "TRAM "DESIRE"

Completed by: 3rd year student

Faculty of Social Sciences

cultural activities

groups 015

correspondence department

Chernyshova

Natalia Alexandrovna

Address: Kazan

st. Mavlyutova 17, apt. 89

Checked by: Kadyrova Aigul Oktyabrievna

KAZAN, 2003

I.

Introduction.

II. The works of Tennessee Williams.

III. The play A Streetcar Named Desire.

1.

The history of writing the play, the fate of the main characters;

2.

Hollywood fate of the play;

3.

The march of the play across world stages through decades.

IV. Conclusion.

V. List of used literature.

I. Introduction.

Genuine dramaturgy is surprisingly sensitive to the conflicting material that everyday life provides it with. The writer's sober and careful analysis is subject not only to the situations underlying dramatic conflicts, but also to the state of mind that serves as a prerequisite for various attractions and repulsions. If dramas are created by great talents, then they first of all represent the sensual existence of the moods and worldviews of the society that brought them to life.

The desire to reveal social motives under the transparent cover of psychological conflicts, the tendency to depict a painfully strange psyche, confused, devoid of logic actions distinguishes the dramaturgy of the classic of modern American drama Tennessee Williams. Williams has long gained fame as an outstanding playwright of our time far beyond the borders of the United States. His plays - great or less revered - have not left the stage for many decades. “The shortcomings of T. Williams’s plays are beyond the reach of all living playwrights,” the American novelist and playwright Gore Vidal once seriously joked.

Confessing the biblical concept of the innate sinfulness of man and having experienced the influence of Freudianism and the “sexual sociology” of David Lawrence, the author of the well-known novels “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, “White Peacock”, “Women When They Love” in the West, - Williams on depth psychological level explores the social cataclysms of the bourgeois world. He writes dramas permeated with the idea of ​​trouble and acute discord, which became the main sign of the spiritual situation of the United States in the second half of the 20th century.

The confused heroes of his plays yearn for the lost ideals of refined spiritual beauty, immersed in the abyss of their inner world. “Life is a mystery that cannot be understood and explained in the categories of reason and logic, for categories kill life; only sensitive intuition can grasp life, and only from hand to hand can this secret be conveyed without losing it,” these words of Lawrence armed the artistic views of Williams, who strives to reflect in dramaturgy “not the sense of dignity inherent in man, but the sense of duality inherent in him.” He is attracted by the complex, mysterious world of existence, “hidden from view”; it is hidden and insoluble for him. That is why, in the afterword to the play “Camino Real,” Williams writes: “The text of the play is only a shadow of the play, and quite unclear at that... What is printed in the book is nothing more than a sketch of a building that has not yet been erected or has already been built and demolished... The printed text is just a set of formulas according to which the performance should be built. Color, grace, lightness, skillful change of mise-en-scène, quick interaction of living people, whimsical, like the pattern of lightning in the clouds - this is what makes up the play.” “I’m a romantic, an incorrigible romantic...” he once admitted.

The author's thought gives clear preference to poetic, internal action over what lies outside, on the surface of the plot, always firmly put together by the playwright. Williams's works immediately involve the viewer in understanding the artistic vision of the writer, who is constantly experiencing spiritual torment over the moral bankruptcy of the world in which he lives. He said: “I create an imaginary world to hide from the real one, because I have never been able to adapt to it.”

Tennessee Williams admits that in his works “from the very beginning there was an atmosphere of cruelty and hysteria... It is very difficult to explain the essence of the matter so that it is understandable not only to neurasthenics. However, I’ll try,” he writes. – All my life, like an obsession, I have been haunted by one thought: to passionately desire something or to passionately love someone means putting yourself in a vulnerable position, running the risk or even the danger of losing what you need most. Let us be satisfied with this explanation. Such an obstacle has always existed, and it still exists today, so that the opportunity to achieve some goal, to get what I crave, is invariably reduced to nothing, for this obstacle will remain forever.”

“The man in Williams's plays confronts the cruelty, violence, nightmares and madness of modern reality, saving his dignity and not submitting - even when he becomes a victim, even when the madness of this world affects him. Most of Williams’s plays depict the drama of this confrontation,” writes Soviet researcher of his work V. Nedelin. Williams's plays - essentially the culmination of events that began and developed in the distant, distant past and remain outside the scope of stage action - always represent the contours of a universal situation in the life of society.

Tennessee Williams began writing very early, at the age of 14. At 16, he considered himself an “established writer.” The first opus he published was a short story published in the summer issue of “Magic Tales” for 1928. His first play “Cairo! Shanghai! Bombay!" he wrote in 1934, while living with his grandparents in Memphis (he was 23 years old), where it was successfully staged by a small troupe, the Garden Players. In his Memoirs, Williams writes: “It was my debut as a playwright and a very memorable one. The short comedy really amused the audience, and the first bow that I took on the first day of my premiere was met with quite noisy applause...”

Williams's first play, staged by a professional theater, was called "Battle of Angels." The writer finished it at the end of 1939. On the pages of his Memoirs, he recalls: “The play, which was supposed to go on Broadway, was filmed during a test run in Boston, and what generosity was shown by the firm of New York producers, at that time the most successful in the American theatrical world and the most revered... The firm The theater in question is the Guild Theater, the play “Battle of Angels”, set on the eve of Christmas 1940. The play was too ahead of its time. One of the tactical mistakes I made was that the heroine combined excessive religiosity with hysterical sexuality. Critics and police censors saw in the performance something like the bubonic plague that suddenly appeared in their city, or rather, its theatrical equivalent. I was called to the apartments at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, located in Boston Park. All the heads of the Theater Guild were gathered there, with the exception of John Gassner, who had persuaded them to stage my play and was now, for obvious reasons, absent ... "Williams was offered $100 to go somewhere and rework the play.

"Battle of Angels" was never produced. For the fifth time, it was remade into the drama “Orpheus Descends to Hell.” But it was 1957, Tennessee Williams had already been called “the greatest playwright of the century.” Behind were triumphs and absolute recognition. There are failures and failures ahead. In 1957, the play “Red, Devilish, Battery Mark” was filmed in Boston during a test run. But the author considered his play to be the first political one, which, in his opinion, belonged to the four best of all those written by him. The author was reproached for his loose handling of the facts of American history after the assassination of President Kennedy. Only at the beginning of 1976 was the play staged by Franz Szafranek, a student of Bertolt Brecht (Williams always appreciated him).

Then in 1977, after seven performances of Williams's play "The Old Quarter" at the St. James Theater on Broadway (directed by Arthur Alan Seidelman), it was filmed. It was another failure.

It was painful, awkward and ashamed, but he could not find peace of mind. The shocks that befell him in the 60s undermined his health and taste for life. The brain refused to come to terms with the death of his close friend Frank Merlot (in 1962). Since the mid-60s, Williams has lost the ability to write. He spends a lot of time in Dr. Jacobson's clinic, being treated by the famous psychiatrist Levy. But it was at this time that Williams wrote his symbol-rich modern allegory, The Kingdom of the Earth.

And in its best times (1947), the most powerful and deeply psychological drama, A Streetcar Named Desire, was written.

Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire was a visionary play and performed on stages around the world. It was she who determined the themes, thoughts and ideals of the author for many years to come. A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic of American theater. “If we had a national repertory theatre,” Harold Clerman wrote in 1948, “the stage play would, without a doubt, be among the few worthy of taking a permanent place in it. The power of its impact is especially great because it is, essentially, the only play that speaks about both the individual and society and is entirely a product of our life today.”

Over the past years, much has changed in society, literature, and theater in America. One thing remained unchanged - the greatness of Williams' drama. “There is no play today that can even remotely compare with the scale of A Streetcar Named Desire, and nothing similar was written in the West during the entire second half of the 20th century,” wrote the American critic John Simon.

This play captures the drama of a man in turmoil, generated by the entire way of life in society. On the wretched outskirts of a huge city, his wife’s sister, Blanche Dubois, comes to Stanley Kowalski’s house. For her, the Kowalski house is her last refuge. In the past - a stupid, difficult, unhappy life. Once upon a time there was a “Dream” - a family estate. Stella, her sister, at one time went to New Orleans to seek her share. Blanche remained on the estate and fought for its existence. She didn’t win: no “Dreams,” no funds, no strength. Behind is an unsuccessful marriage (the husband turned out to be a homosexual, committed suicide after learning that Blanche had revealed his secret); loss of good name; in despair, Blanche comes to her sister. There is almost no hope for personal destiny. Stella became a stranger. When she leaves for the maternity hospital, Stanley rapes Blanche, and Blanche goes crazy.

Williams clearly conveys the idea that Blanche's loneliness is not the result of her sexual promiscuity, but a consequence of social conditions. A member of the degenerate southern aristocracy, Blanche DuBois does not accept the world of Stanley Kowalski. It is no coincidence that the author makes his heroes the heirs of the southern planters. In modern America, the Yuga aristocracy is a small part of society. She has not formed any opinions or tastes for a long time. Williams is free from the “southerner complex” - sadness for the past “greatness” of the slave-owning aristocracy. He does not idealize the South and does not contrast it with the modern world as a society that is perfect in its organization. But a varistocrat by birth, a southerner, Blanche Dubois, Williams finds the embodiment of the ideal of spiritual sophistication and sophistication. Blanche not only does not accept Stanley's world, she gets lost in it. It has no place in modern American society: the time of the southern aristocracy has expired, and it is dying. But the point is not only that Blanche is a subtle, sensitive creature, predisposed to discord with the environment; Blanche is doomed to disaster. The subtlety of her feelings (as well as her depravity) makes her an unwelcome guest in the world of the “average person.” Culture, Williams argues, developing the Blanche-Stanley conflict, is doomed to destruction in the face of the emerging viable, vulgar “mass man,” subject to all kinds of regulations, but self-confident. For Williams, Blanche and Stanley are social symbols. Blanche is a symbol of the South, Stanley is a symbol of the new “mass” man.

As G. Klerman accurately writes, “Stanley is the embodiment of animal strength, cruel life, not noticing and even consciously despising all human values... He is that little man about whom all attempts to create a more reasonable world, to which thought, consciousness and a deeper humanity...His intellect creates the ground for fascism, if we consider the latter not as a political movement, but as a state of being.” The author does not say much about the social roots of Stanley's cruelty. “For Williams, the connection of such cruelty with the fundamental laws by which modern American society lives is immutable,” writes M. Koreneva in her “Passion for Tennessee Williams.” Williams gives Stanley a working profession, but does not give any reason to interpret him as a representative of the working class of America . Although among American workers you can find types who do not have moral ideals.

The leading place in the artistic structure of the drama “A Streetcar Named Desire” is occupied by the problem of the existence in reality of the ideal of refined spiritual beauty, which is shattered to smithereens from the onslaught of another way of life and heartlessness. Elia Kazan, the famous American director who first staged the play in 1947, sensitively grasped the theme of the collapse of fragile inner human beauty and its incompatibility with the cruel ordinary world of the “mass man.” And he subordinated his idea to the author’s thought.

Williams began writing the play in the winter of 1944/1945 in Chicago. Then he finished only one scene about how Blanche sits alone at the window in the light of the moon, waiting for a handsome man who will come and take her with him from this stuffy southern city. The scene was called "Blanche in the Moonlight."

“Then I stopped writing because I was incredibly depressed, it’s hard to work when my thoughts are far away. I decided not to drink coffee and took a rest for several months and, indeed, soon came to my senses. I was strong-willed in those days, but not now, and I was happy that winter in Chicago,” Williams recalls.

He worked on the play from morning until evening, binge-watching, then went to New Orleans and continued writing there. In the summer of 1946, I took the risk of reading it to my friends - Margot Jones (assistant to the director of the production of The Glass Menagerie) and her friend. He called the play “Poker Night.” Friends were delighted. But Williams looked at the sheets of writing paper and, in the silence of a small room at the La Concha Hotel in Key West, began to rewrite the play again.

In the summer of 1947, he came to New York and attended the premiere of Arthur Miller's drama All My Sons, directed by Elia Kazan. The director delighted him. He begged his theatrical agent Audrey Wood and producer Irene Selznick to invite Kazan to direct Streetcar. Molly Day Techer, the director's wife, helped. She read the play and convinced her husband. Thus began the partnership between Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan. The playwright understood that success depended primarily on the performers of the roles of Blanche and Stanley. They searched for them for a long time and without success.

Williams said: “And suddenly I received a telegram from Kazan that he had discovered a young actor, in his opinion, talented, and he wanted him to read for me the role of Stanley. We waited two or three days, but a young man named Marlon Brando did not appear. I stopped waiting, and then he arrived in the evening with a young girl, almost a child. Surprised that the apartment was dark - there was no light - he immediately fixed the electricity - I think he just put a penny in the light fuse. Then he was a very handsome young man, the kind you rarely meet in life... He sat down in the corner and began to read the role of Stanley. I gave him cues. Not even ten minutes had passed before Margot jumped up and screamed, “Call Kazan right away, this is the greatest reading I’ve ever heard, or I’ll leave Texas.” Brando seemed to smile slightly, but did not show any elation, at least not what we felt. The role of Kowalski was the first big role he played on stage, all the rest were on the screen. It's a pity, because Brando has that magic on stage that is reminiscent of Loretta Taylor's gift, with her power over the audience... For some reason, Brando was always shy with me. The next morning he did not say a word, and we returned back in silence. So, an actor was found for the role of Stanley Kowalski. Blanche had to be found. I was called to New York to listen to Margaret Sullivan. It seemed to me that she didn’t fit, for some reason I remember her with a tennis racket in her hand, I doubted that Blanche had ever played tennis. She read again, and no matter how many times she read, the tennis racket stood invisibly in front of me. Margaret was a lovely creature, but an actress without her own self. Irene had to tell her that we were deeply grateful, but... Then I heard the name of an actress who was completely unknown to me - Jessica Tandy. She became famous on the coast in my one-act play “Portrait of the Madonna” ... As soon as I saw her, it became clear to me that Jessica was Blanche.”

The premiere took place at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York on December 3, 1947. The performance was performed 855 times. Among countless performers on the stages of Europe and America, criticism has always singled out the Englishwoman Jessica Tandy as an unsurpassed performer of the role of Blanche. The role of hellish difficulty was created, as they say, for “great actresses.” True, not many of them had the luck to play such a role.

The year 1951 came - a significant date in the history of American cinema. This year ended the long-term confrontation between Hollywood and television. Hollywood admitted its defeat in the struggle for viewers and completely capitulated to its young and successful competitor, for whom it had a deep and unshakable hostility. The era of the most tender friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation has arrived.

And it was in 1951 that the film “A Streetcar Named Desire” was released (Warner Brothers bought the film adaptation), directed by Elia Kazan, with Marlon Brando and the famous Vivien Leigh in the role of Blanche. The actress did not receive absolute recognition in this role, although her charm and tragic style were always dear to Williams’ heart. In his opinion, Vivien Leigh revealed the intense spiritual world of her heroine with amazing naturalness. The choice of the actress for the role of Blanche was determined by the fact that Vivien Leigh, an English actress who won the love and admiration of Americans in the image of Scarlett O'Hara, played in Tennessee Williams' play on the London stage. The play was staged by her husband, the famous Laurence Olivier. He himself did not like the play. He found her boring and rude. He was seduced by the easily predictable commercial success as controversy erupted around the play. The House of Commons recognized it as “low and disgusting,” and such statements, as a rule, inflame the audience’s excitement. Laurence Olivier turned out to be a visionary. The performance was performed in crowded halls. Critics who hurled accusations of immorality, the flame of public interest fanned out.

Despite protests from overseas, Vivien Leigh rethought the image of her heroine. She turned the heroine into a victim of circumstances, a hunted animal who asks for protection everywhere and sees only the greedy eyes of predators. The London press dubbed the production “A Streetcar Named Vivien,” hinting that the actress was “pulling the blanket over herself” and other actors were invisible in her shadow.

At first they wanted to make the film an exact copy of Elia Kazan's play. And this would have been possible if Vivien Leigh had no other plans. She managed to convince the director that her interpretation of Blanchnamny’s character was more interesting and, most importantly, more humane. Kazan agreed with this not without an internal struggle. But Vivien was so convincing, proving that she was right, and played with such dedication that the director backed down. Therefore, an attentive viewer perceives a certain illogicality in Blanche’s behavior: at the beginning of the picture she is cunning and lustful, and at the end she is pure and defenseless.

Tennessee Williams' play turned out to be fateful for Marlon Brando. "Streetcar" took him from Broadway to Hollywood - critics called his performance brilliant. According to some, the 23-year-old with a bronze bust and powerful biceps looked perfect in the image of the egocentric male Stanley Kowalski. Brando said that he was simply playing himself in the given circumstances. This was not a sign of modesty. This was the first demonstration of character. He defiantly declared that he was not at all playing a ferocious, uncontrollable animal capable of destroying everything around him. He was just this animal.

On the set, a relationship developed between Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando that could be defined as “armed neutrality.” Both played passionately, but when the shooting ended, they went home, coldly nodding to each other goodbye. The actors did not flaunt their mutual antipathy, but they could not overcome or at least hide it from others. Elia Kazan's film was nominated for an American Academy Film Award in 12 nominations. Oscars went to: Vivien Leigh as best actress of the year, Karl Malden and Kim Hunter as best supporting actors.

Decades have passed since the premiere. Over the years, Williams was discussed in the press, he was praised, destroyed, called a genius, and buried alive. Everything was, and only A Streetcar Named Desire, with its disturbing romance and bitter reality, rolled across the stage of the world, only slightly slowing down in the 60s to burst into the 70s with a roar and noise. The playwright once again filled the stages of America and Europe. It seems that Blanche has settled on stage forever. Later in the USA she was played by Rosemary Harris at the Lincoln Center directed by Jack Gelber, and Shirley Knight in Princeton at the Michael Caen Theatre.

The author was previously accused of being partial to the sexual sphere. There were critics who explained the incomparable success of the play by this. But the playwright is always concerned with the themes of sensual life, associated with the problems of emotional freedom.

The heroine of the play - broken, sensitive, unhappy Blanche - is subordinate to internal aspirations, impulses and instincts. In them she escapes the general ill-being of her life. She lives outside the habits and traditions of the surrounding bourgeois life, with its vain fuss and wretched vegetation. It is not possible for her to find support from the outside. Blanche does not belong to the category of people who can endure the intolerable; she begins to drink, embarks on countless love affairs and inevitably goes to death. The only protection against ruin for her remains her ideal ideas about the world: “Yes, how far are we from considering ourselves created in the image and likeness of God. Stella, my sister! After all, there has been at least some progress since then! After all, with such miracles as art, poetry, music, some new light came into the world. After all, higher feelings arose in someone! And it is our duty to raise them. Do not sacrifice them, carry them like a banner on our journey through the darkness, no matter how it ends, no matter where it leads us...” In this monologue, Blanche is the key to understanding the play.

Williams does not idealize his heroine. On the contrary, he maintains an enviable objectivity. He does not forgive her for her whiskey addiction or her past sexual irresponsibility; unjustified arrogance - remnants of former aristocratic habits, impatience and intolerance cause him annoyance. And yet, the author’s sympathies are on her side. The gift of inner freedom, the ability to withdraw into oneself, to acquire purely individual motives of behavior, amazing spiritual subtlety and selflessness give charm and captivation to a lonely, vulnerable woman, hiding all the angular ugliness that sometimes comes to light. The fear of loneliness and death, which had previously thrown random people into the arms, drove Blanche to the house of Stanley Kowalski and forced her to build another “castle in the air” when she met Mitch. “All my life I have depended on the kindness of the first person I met” - Blanche’s phrase, which can be used as an epigraph to the entire work of Tennessee Williams. Out of desolation and desolation, Blanche sought salvation in physical intimacy. But her debauchery reveals the contours of the universal situation of the world in which she lives. Love remained for her the only eternal value. Love is tenderness and respect for personal connections in a world where friendly personal connections are fragile and accidental; love is also “sexual freedom.” Blanche hoped to establish herself in her. “What is the opposite of death? Desire, love,” says Williams. She just didn't have to do it. And although the belief in a life without violence turned out to be a myth, Blanche retained it to the end. Until the last moment she fights for her place in the sun. It seemed that she had already reached the end line, then there was only madness. And suddenly Mitch. “You are kind...and I really need kindness right now,” Blanche says sadly, and it immediately becomes clear that she has hopes for the stranger. “If it burns out! I can leave you and not be a burden to anyone anymore,” she convinces her sister. And for the sake of this, she goes to any lengths of the enchantress’s tricks.

The feverish search for peace, alas, led nowhere. The past—unlived, unredeemed, buried alive—remained, lurking in the most inconspicuous corners of her memory. Like a mirage and a vision, feelings already experienced mixed with present feelings. Blanche is lonely and defenseless in the face of a world of cruelty and violence (in Vienna the play was performed under the title “The Last Rest of Loneliness”). “I thanked God that he sent you to me... You turned out to be so reliable - a saving cleft in the stone circles of life, a refuge that will not betray you,” she turns to Mitch. “Now it’s clear that I shouldn’t have asked so much from life, I shouldn’t have hoped.” Blanche dies. Her only dignity - “spiritual beauty, brilliance of mind, spiritual subtlety” - remained an unspent treasure in the world of “one hundred percent Americans” like Stanley Kowalski. Only with a paper lantern thrown over the lamp can Blanche isolate herself from the abomination of life that Stanley so enthusiastically affirms. The artistic value of the drama is largely determined by the passionate indignation with which the author condemns his triumphant victory.

The ending of the play is bitterly written. Sensing the approaching danger, Blanche rushes in tension from window to window, drawing the curtains, trying, like a child, to protect herself with her palms from the threats of the world outside the window. A doctor and a matron come to take Blanche away. The author’s remark: “The consciousness of the emergency of their mission pierces both of them, which, undoubtedly, should be attributed mainly to the impudence of awareness of oneself in a special position that develops among people in the service of the state " With a death grip, the matron takes Blanche’s hand, ominously throwing out the remark: “You’ll have to file your claws.” And there is no strength to wriggle out of her iron hands. Blanche sobs as if she is being torn apart; the doctor takes off his hat (according to the author, “the dehumanized official impersonality of his entire former appearance disappears”) and carefully lifts Blanche from the floor. Everything is over. Blanche left without looking back. Stella cries inconsolably; Stanley insinuatingly and tenderly reassures her: “Well, well, my love! Nothing...nothing." “Her crying,” says the author’s remark, “are already sweet tears!” - and his loving whisper can be heard weaker and weaker behind the chords of the “blue piano”, to which the trumpet sings along mutedly”; after Steve’s remark: “This change is seven for divorce,” the curtain falls.

And here is what the American theater critic Richard Gilman writes about Williams: “It should now be clear that the real theme of T. Williams is the pain, the torment (and not the tragedy) of existence and the fate of human dignity (and not the spirit) in the face of suffering. For Williams, everything is painful - sexuality, the transience of time, the loss of innocence, and communication between people.”

For Williams' poetic realism, the main thing is an incredible longing for spirituality. The plot of “A Streetcar Named Desire” is a metaphor that absorbs the most important thing for the author: an endless world of dreams, shying away from a wretched, penniless life, trying to fly away from it and ultimately breaking into pieces. In a letter to producer Cheryl Crowfodd, the playwright writes: “What is usually considered madness or neurosis - the simple internal distortion through which every sensitive, compliant creature passes in adapting to modern society - is the result of an unwillingness to swim on the surface.”

Until the 70s, it was customary for American actors in the role of Stanley Kowalski to emphasize rude instincts, not refined by the power of mind and cultural traditions. Marlon Brando is the best performer of this role in American theater and cinema. And Director Ellis Rabb interpreted this role somewhat unexpectedly in the 1973 production at Lincoln Center. Stanley was played by James Farentino, who received a special critics award for his performance of this role.

Let us turn to the statements of the actor himself: “I did not see Marlon Brando and went my own way to the role. For me, Stanley is first and foremost a nice guy who should not be perceived through Blanche's eyes. He is much more reminiscent of a cat than Stella, a pet, except for those moments when he plays cards. Yes, indeed, his intellect is limited, but his intuition is unusually developed, otherwise he would not have dug up all this rubbish about Blanche. I didn't want to make Stanley look like an ape; he has his own inner world, and he protects it. This was very important for me. Stanley treats Blanche as a person who has invaded his kingdom and can destroy it. For me, Stanley is a highly moral person; He puts up with Blanche's existence in his house for six months until the day he accidentally overhears her making a speech to him, in which she calls him “the ape-man.” Then he breaks down and gets rid of her. Stanley is not at all as clear-cut as is commonly believed.”

Kowalski, performed by G. Farentino, received a new interpretation. A vulgar, limited, self-confident person turned out to be much more complex than it seemed to the performers of this role in previous years. This interpretation immediately found followers. In the Los Angeles performance, Stanley was played by the famous Jon Voight, who played the leading role in the film “Midnight Cowboy” directed by D. Schlesinger. His Kowalski was close to James Farentino's understanding. Voight’s partner was Faye Dunaway, who made a name for herself in films playing leading roles in the films “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Oklahoma As It Is,” “Chinatown,” and “Three Days of the Condor.”

The historicism of Williams' play is obvious; its main characters are symbols of the time. And not only Blanche and Stanley. Stella is morally recruited by the world of the Kowalskis. She adapted to life with Stanley, to his motley company. “And you have come to terms with everything. And this is no good. After all, you are still young. “You can still get out,” Blanche says to her sister. “There’s no need!.. There’s no need for me to get out, I’m already doing well,” Stella answers. Look at that stable in the room. For empty bottles! They drank two cases of beer yesterday!.. Well, so what! Since for him this is the same entertainment as cinema and bridge are for me. So I’m convinced that we all need indulgence.” The loss of faith in the possibility of another life gave rise to Stella’s tolerance for the ugliness of the environment in which she lives. Believing that all earthly evil stems from natural human imperfection, Stella easily came to terms with Stanley’s antics. His vile ways seem like weaknesses to her, his meanness almost the norm. From such tolerance grows omnivorousness and unprincipledness.

In the final scene, Steve utters a short, meaningful phrase. In it, according to an incomprehensible logic of associations, there is a summary of the tragedy that was played out, compressed into a formula - Blanche is no more, she was taken to an insane asylum. So what? What actually happened? Everything goes as usual, as usual: the “poker night” continues – “this hand is seven for the taking.” Stella resignedly submits to her fate. Yes, Stella’s intellectual world is incomparably higher than Stanley’s. But it would be one-sided and erroneous to see intellectualism as an exhaustive quality of personality. Knowledge does not completely predetermine human behavior. It can be the basis of both sublime, spiritual activity and the most ordinary utilitarianism. In itself, it does not place a person above circumstances and can only serve as a means of adaptation to them. Knowledge devoid of moral guidance is often a source of outright egoism. That’s why Stella allowed her sister’s story to end cruelly and disastrously. Silence cannot be a virtue; In times of need, activity is necessary. People like Stella are poisoned by apathy and mental indifference. For her life with Stanley Kowalski, Stella paid severely: she lost her fortitude and moral purity. Everyday life, in which a person, included in a mechanical cycle, is, as it were, separated from himself, leads to the victory over cruelty and evil. Stanley, according to Williams, is evidence of man's ability to be aggressive and heartless. Times have changed, and so have people, but in Stanley's world, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

The march of A Streetcar Named Desire in the 70s was accompanied by lyrical assurances from critics that Tennessee Williams was loved exactly as before, with

Tennessee Williams has a play with a very memorable title, A Streetcar Named Desire, which was adapted into a Hollywood film of the same name.

The title contains the name of the tram on which the heroine was traveling to her sister, and arrived at the scene of her own crash. The storyline is indicated already at the beginning, in the remark: “They said, get on the tram first - in the local word Desire, then in another - the Cemetery.” If you took a ticket for the first tram, one day you will have to transfer to the other one. These are the rules of the game. Everyone knows them, and everyone gets on it - this streetcar named Desire.

Why and why such a tram image, and even with hints of the rules of the game? To figure it out, let's analyze it. Analysis is breaking down into elements that can be explained. We are smart enough for this. You don’t have to read the play or watch the movie, what follows is about the passions and cruelty of the world.

First, let's see that there is a tram. A vehicle primarily related to public transport. It stupidly rides along the rails in a given direction, the driver can only increase the speed or brake. There can be a lot of people, then everyone rides without choosing a seat, even standing. How to drive—boringly, or with the breeze from open windows and music—depends on us. From our mood. If there’s a fat woman nearby with herrings in a leaking bag, it’s just a sensation. If the graceful beauty winking at you next to you is completely different, you don’t even notice the time, you would drive and drive.

The second element examined is desire. What is desire? Stupid question! If you wanted something, here's your desire.

Where does desire come from? From where, from where - it’s clear that it’s not from a camel! Many are sure that they themselves are beginning to desire it. And only a few, very attentive to themselves, notice that this does not always happen. And even - not always. And more often desires come to us, and not we to them.

Try to be attentive and “catch” the next desire. And determine: where did it fall from? For those who haven’t tried it, I promise you an interesting experience. Or at least something to think about.

Can't pay attention? Then try to imagine that your neighbor works as a hammer drill on weekends from morning to evening. And as you imagine, wish to feel gratitude towards him... Well, how did it work out?

I hope that those who have shown interest in the topic of “desire” are aware that the desires that appear in us control us. We, of course, can also control desires, but we admit: we can control very “small” desires, not too significant for our body or sense of self. And there are such desires that you even forget about food and sleep...

But since there are still desires that control us, why are we so sure that it is we who write and launch this program, which we call “desire”? Yes, exactly the program that controls a person.

Let us note once again that a person begins to carry out a certain program only after he accepts it, that is, he determines its usefulness for himself. And which, already tested, will be performed automatically. But there are programs that completely captivate him and he begins to carry them out without the thought of weighing or evaluating anything.

Everyone has probably already seen from their own experience that two people, even with similar views, rarely have the same desires. For loved ones who live side by side, it would seem that desires should coincide more often. However, a paradox! In fact, they coincide even less often than NOT with loved ones!

When desire meets desire, it is analogous to one program trying to infiltrate another. If a collision occurs, the shock depends on the forces of the colliding desires. If one desire program is much stronger, it absorbs the weak one.

But it also happens that the desire of one fits well into the desire of another. Desires not only become integrated, they begin to resonate. This sometimes happens or happens! What’s there, you won’t understand, you won’t pass by... (sort of like in the song “Oh, rye, what are you singing about”).

Since we live in a complex system, there are always more powerful, ambitious desire programs around, which suppress some desires and excite others.

And thus desires become collective. Aspirations, movements... And even initially they can be formed as collective ones, immediately transferred to the level of ideas and ideologies...

If desires were produced and triggered only by people, one can imagine what would happen. Complete chaos, “law of the jungle” - I would just be on vacation. But somehow it works that force sooner or later runs into force, and everything balances out. Not without sacrifices, of course. And if you carefully weigh all the circumstances, then you come to the conclusion: there is a control program, thanks to which we are still alive.

Your little program can be trampled, knocked out by the current collective programs of society. And then these collective programs go under the steamroller of the global control program.

If your small program is integrated into collective programs, you will feel good in this team for some period. You can adapt to the program “we are liberals”, “we are Russians”, “we are a great power”, etc. (this is not a criticism, where I live, I write about that).

Or you can immediately join the program of understanding yourself and the universe, or more precisely, understanding why and for what you are in this universe, which encourages you to “enter” the improvement program.

By joining and integrating, you become part of the program. What program - in this case you are given freedom of choice. A selfish choice, because you cannot have any other choice. You will be trying to figure out which program is stronger.

And how can one find out in advance where a poor peasant should go?

You can find out more. But this will not be enough. You will still need to run your program. And be responsible for it. Because without your program you are nobody and no one can call you. You are not visible. Force can pick up and pull only that which has a designation and weight. And the roadside dust only raises, after which it settles again, but it settles not at all where it wants.

All changes in a person’s inner world occur when desires (programs) change. Some creatives noticed this long ago and began to actively use it. And they even quickly figured out to develop an industry for producing desires that were beneficial to them.

But there are also true desires that are translated into our inner space by the control program of our development. It is impossible to feel and recognize them in the turmoil of your own and imposed desires. You need to learn to recognize and choose.

So, what does the tram have to do with it? Yes, actually, nothing to do with it. An image has nothing to do with it, it just makes you think. That's all. But if you think figuratively, you understand that when desires end, the Desire tram has arrived at its final destination. Next – transfer to the “Cemetery” tram.

And while the main desire is still simmering, the spirit in the brain automatically asks the question: “How can we do this so that the desires do not end?”

And the skeptic in the brain answers him: “No way. Nothing is eternal under the Moon". Zhivchik is not satisfied with this answer, he begins to look for loopholes on how to survive. He thinks all the time, but does not think at all about the fact that on pleasure alone, earlier than on the cemetery, you will arrive at the place of the collapse of your own personality.

So let's talk about this more, but a little later. Come in, don't be shy.

Reviews

And I had a desire to watch the play or at least the film "A Streetcar Named Desires." But I read your “note” and became scared. I thought that the play would be mysterious and kind, but it turns out to have a hidden meaning. I will not analyze the work. I read it in one sitting. All clear. How you know how to choose a topic that touches the soul. A simple thank you.

Country of origin and year of manufacture: USA, 1951

Manufacturing company/distributor: Warner Bros.

Format: sound, black and white

Duration: 121 min (original version); 126 min (second version, 1993)

Language: English

Producer: Charles K. Feldman

Awards: 1951 - Oscar: Best Actress (Vivien Leigh), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration for a Black and White Film (Richard Day, George James Hopkins), Best Supporting Actor (Karl Malden), Best Supporting Actress plan (Kim Hunter);

1953 - British Academy Film Award: Best Actress (Vivien Leigh);

1952 - Golden Globe Award: Best Supporting Actress (Kim Hunter);

1999 - National Commission for the Preservation of Film Heritage, National Film Registry;

1951 - New York Film Critics Circle Award: Best Actress (Vivien Leigh), Best Director (Elia Kazan), Best Film of the Year;

1951 - Venice Film Festival Award, Special Jury Prize (Elia Kazan); Volpi Cup: Best Actress (Vivien Leigh)

Genre: drama

Starring: Vivien Leigh (Blanche DuBois), Marlon Brando (Steven Kowalski), Kim Hunter (Stella Kowalski), Karl Malden (Mitch), Rudy Bond (Steve), Nick Dennis (Pablo)

This film is an adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play of the same name, which brought him the Pulitzer Prize and success on Broadway. Director Elia Kazan took most of the actors from the theater and made only minor changes to the play, and then only to satisfy the head of the Motion Picture Compliance Administration (FCA), Joseph Breen. Set in the French section of New Orleans in the years immediately following World War II, A Streetcar Named Desire follows the life of Blanche DuBois, a frail and nervous former English teacher who comes to stay with her pregnant sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski from her hometown of Laurel. in Mississippi. She says she took time off due to "nervous exhaustion" but in reality she lost her job after molesting a 17-year-old boy whose father told the school principal. Blanche has no money, depends on her sister and brother-in-law for shelter, food and drink, but she plays the sophisticated Southern belle: she despises Kowalski's small apartment, the man who works to be able to pay for what little they have, and the obvious the passion her sister feels for him. Blanche states that her current situation is the result of a series of financial failures that befell their family plantation in Belle Reve. Stanley does not trust her and asks to see the mortgage, warning Blanche that “under the Napoleonic Code of Louisiana, the property of a wife is the property of her husband.”

Taking advantage of Kowalski's hospitality, Blanche tries at all costs to destroy their marriage. She is temporarily distracted by Stanley's friend, Mitch, as lonely as she is, who soon begins to respect Blanche as a beautiful and delicate woman. She feigns innocence in front of him, but this image is destroyed when rumors about her past reach New Orleans, with the help of Stanley. When Stanley takes Stella to the hospital where she will give birth, a drunken Mitch comes to Blanche and reveals that he knows everything about her. After he leaves, her thoughts are in disarray, and her mental state takes a turn for the worse when Stanley returns, drunk from celebrating the birth of his baby. The anger that has built up over many months finally boils over: Stanley throws Blanche's things around, terrorizes her and eventually rapes her, saying that they made this "date" for each other the first time they met. At the end of the film, Blanche is taken to a mental hospital, and Stella hugs her child and whispers that she will never return to Stanley.

HISTORY OF CENSORSHIP

Even before filming began, Joseph Breen, head of the AKSPK, told the producer that the play would not be released unless a significant portion of the scenes and dialogue were removed. After reading the script, Breen wrote a note to Warner Brothers on April 28, 1950: he would have to remove the "implied sexual perversion" in Blanche's line about her young husband and the "hint of nymphomania in relation to Blanche herself." In addition, Breen also predicted problems with the rape scene and suggested several possibilities, including that Blanche came up with the rape herself and Stanley "positively" proves that he did not do it. In negotiations between the censors and the studio, Brin eventually gave in as both Kazan and Williams stood firm and Warner Brothers championed the project—and a hefty investment that the already battered studio could not afford to lose if it wanted to survive. However, Bryn still won the rape argument: he convinced Kazan that Stanley should be punished in the finale by losing Stella's love - having her whisper to her child: “We will never return. We will never, never return, never return." As Schumach noted: “So twelve-year-olds can believe that Stella is leaving her husband. But others will understand perfectly well that this is just a flash of emotion.”

Once the film received Brin's approval, the director moved on to other projects, but Warner Brothers learned that the Society of Good Catholics (VPC) was going to give the film a "C" (prohibited) code, which would have cost it many Catholic viewers. At Warner Brothers' request, Kazan met with UEC's representative, Father Patrick Masterson, who told the director that he was not a censor and had no right to tell him what to do. When Kazan left, he thought the film would remain intact.

However, there is another step to feature film censorship that neither Kazan nor Williams took into account. In the film industry, a studio does not need permission from either the writer or the director to cut scenes from a film after filming has ended. The privilege of making changes to a film after filming is completed is called the “right of last scissors.”

Still from the movie A Streetcar Named Desire

After UEC put forward its demands to Warner Brothers, the studio cut scenes from the version of the film that Kazan and Williams considered final. Close-ups were removed to make the relationship between Stella and Stanley less passionate, as well as the words "on the lips" when Blanche asks the paperboy to kiss her. The censors also cut out references to Blanche's sexual promiscuity and Stanley's words before raping Blanche: "Why not really have some fun with you... well, I guess you'll do just fine...", as well as most of the rape scene.

In a 1993 review of the restored version, film critic Roger Ebert noted that five minutes of the film, which contained most of the emotional impact, were cut.

When A Streetcar Named Desire first came out, there was a lot of controversy surrounding it. Critics screamed that he was immoral, decadent, vulgar and sinful. And this is after the main frames were cut out at the insistence of Warner Brothers by the film industry censors themselves. Elia Kazan, the film's director, fought to restore this footage - and lost. For many years, the film, only five minutes long - but it was the main five minutes - was considered lost. However, a 1993 restoration returned the film to Kazan's version, and now we can see just how daring the film really was.

The final restrictions on the film were imposed by the UEC, not by the ACCPK and Brin, who was “slowly loosening the Rules” to keep the Warner Brothers studio, desperate for financial success, afloat.

Material taken from Don B. Sove's book 125 Banned Films: A Censorship History of World Cinema.