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Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan

Director · 1909 – 2003 · Constantinople, Ottoman Empire [now Istanbul, Turkey]

Elia Kazan ( September 7 , 1909, Kayseri – September 28, 2003) was a Greek-American director and actor, described as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". He also produced, and wrote screenplays and novels. Born in the Kayseri, Ottoman Empire to Greek parents, they emigrated to New York when he was four. After two years studying acting at Yale, he acted professionally for eight years before becoming a stage and film director. Kazan co-founded the influential Group Theater in 1932 and Actors Studio in 1947, and together with Lee Strasberg, introduced Method acting to the American stage and cinema as a new form of self-expression and psychological "realism". Having been an actor himself for eight years, he brought sensitivity and understanding of the acting process, and was later considered the ideal "actor's director". He himself acted in only a few films, including City for Conquest (1940), alongside James Cagney. Overall, Kazan influenced the films of the 1950s and 1960s by his run of provocative, issues-driven subjects, and acting. Moreover, his personal brand of cinema, employing real locations over sets, unknowns over stars, and realism over convenient genres, proved influential to a whole generation of independent filmmakers in the 1960s. Film author Ian Freer concludes that "If his achievements are tainted by political controversy, the debt Hollywood — and actors everywhere — owes him, is enormous." In 2010, Martin Scorsese co-directed the documentary film, A Letter to Elia, as a personal tribute to Kazan, who he credits as the inspiration for his becoming a filmmaker.

Movies22

  • Movie6.9

    Panic in the Streets

    1950 · 170 votes

  • Movie9.0
  • Movie9.0

    Empire City

    1985 · 1 votes

  • Movie7.2

    Marlon Brando, un acteur nommé désir

    Marlon Brando: An Actor Named Desire

    2014 · 18 votes

  • Movie6.9

    City for Conquest

    1940 · 37 votes

  • Movie6.7

    Hello Actors Studio

    1988 · 3 votes

  • Movie6.0
  • Movie
  • Movie5.3

    Sis

    Mist

    1988 · 4 votes

  • Movie6.2

    Blues in the Night

    1941 · 31 votes

  • Movie7.1

    Arthur Miller: Writer

    2017 · 21 votes

  • Movie6.5

    A Letter to Elia

    2010 · 23 votes

  • Movie6.5
  • Movie6.8
  • Movie
  • Movie6.1
  • Movie6.5
  • Movie6.8

    Strangers All

    1935 · 2 votes

  • Movie7.0

    The Screen Director

    1951 · 2 votes

  • Movie6.0

    Un Américain nommé Kazan

    An American Named Kazan

    2019 · 3 votes

  • Movie6.7

    Liv till varje pris

    Life at Any Cost

    1998 · 3 votes

  • Movie

Series9

  • TV5.8

    The Mike Douglas Show

    1961 · 11 votes

  • TV6.8

    The Merv Griffin Show

    1962 · 12 votes

  • TV6.8

    The Dick Cavett Show

    1968 · 22 votes

  • TV7.3

    Die Drehscheibe

    1964 · 3 votes

  • TV7.0

    The Oscars

    1953 · 84 votes

  • TV9.5

    Spécial cinéma

    1974 · 2 votes

  • TV8.5

    Apostrophes

    1975 · 4 votes

  • TV7.4
  • TV8.7

    Cinépanorama

    1956 · 3 votes