In general, this film perfectly plays out the confrontation between man and the system. This applies not only to the hero Marlon Brando, but also to other dockers who are tired of the hard life, who do not want to remain silent, and protest, thereby paying with their lives. It's the exact opposite of Milos Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." If there, albeit under other circumstances, the system won, then in this case the person won. Both of these films are valuable in their own way, but Elia Kazan’s film also shows how one should not act in such circumstances. From this point of view, the film is divided into two parts. On the one hand, if you can say so, "bad" Terry, on the other hand, is "good." Terry. And you can immediately see how clearly the changes taking place with society, not immediately, but still taking place. They're completely opposites. And although justice did prevail, but clearly not for those dockers who suffered, and of course will continue to suffer, as for Terry himself.
In this film, in my opinion, there are two absolutely amazing male roles. This, of course, is Marlon Brando and Carl Molden. The first, in my opinion, deservedly awarded the Oscar for Best Actor. Well, the second was nominated for the same award for the male role of the second plan. Both clearly show a separate social system. It doesn't matter if it's the docks in this case, it could be any place, the important thing is that they both really did a great job of showing the world inside and the world outside of this system. The two protests against the system eventually led to widespread discontent, and I think the actors were able to demonstrate that perfectly. I can’t help but mention the excellent female role, by the way, also awarded an Oscar, and a couple of male supporting roles, especially Lee J. Cobb, who played the main gangster.
In general, I really liked the film, I think quite deservedly received an Oscar for the best film of the year, it is definitely worth watching, at least on how a new genre of cinema was born, because this is the first representative of its kind.
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