A Streetcar Named Desire Movie Analysis Essay

📌Category: Entertainment, Movies
📌Words: 754
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 03 April 2022

The film A Streetcar Named Desire is based on the play Tennessee Williams wrote. In Elia Kazan’s film A Streetcar Named Desire, the setting, decorations/costume, and lighting all contribute to the theme of superiority and illusions.

This film takes place in a poor section of the city names Elysian Fields in New Orleans. Kazan exemplifies the low-class streets of Elysian fields by making it seem dirty and with Blanche’s behavior. When Blanche arrives, she is roaming in disgust of the city, looking for Stella. She avoids talking to anyone except for when she must, seeing them as beneath her. As though she is getting dirty and corrupted just walking through Elysian fields. Blanche lectures Stella throughout the movie that they were born to a luxurious lifestyle, and she deserves better than Elysian fields. Her superiority complex leads to conflict with Stanley because she degrades him and his home multiple times and tries to manipulate it to fit her desires. 

Elia Kazan utilizes the paper lantern and Blanche’s elegant clothes to symbolize her false illusion. Blanche attempts to conceal the Shabby appearance of Stella’s home by cleaning and putting little items around the apartment. Such as lace covering the seats and a Chinese paper lantern light bulb cover. Symbolizing her creating an air of luxury. If she makes the house look better, then she can pretend that she is not in a disheveled, falling apart house. She is too delicate to handle the truth that she has completely lost her old life and is forced to live with her sister now. The first decoration she puts up is the light bulb cover. It hides her wrinkles and creates the illusion that she is still young and desirable. It is taken off by Mitch when he confronts her about the truth of her past. And again, later as Blanche is being institutionalized, it is another breaking point for her, and she becomes aggressive trying to fight back the reality of being taken away instead of going away with her old millionaire friend. 

When Blanche is getting settled into Stella’s place, she brags about the nice clothes she brought to meet Stella’s friends in. She wants Stella’s neighbors to think she is proper and a lady, that she has class and comes from money to prove she is superior to them. Stanley sees her fancy clothes and assumes she sold Belle Reve because where else would she get the money. Stella however defends Blanches “luxurious” outfits because she knows they are not authentic. But as the film progresses and the truth about Blanche’s life comes to the surface her clothes become more of a shield and defense. After her big confrontation with Mitch, she quickly uses her clothes to comfort herself. She deluded herself into believe that she was going a fancy cruise and needed to prepare an outfit for the occasion. But in reality, she was trying to prove to herself that she was not the terrible person everyone made her sound. The dark truth about herself was too much and she was in too fragile of a mental state. Her clothes are a tool used to feed the illusions she spins for herself to escape the harsh reality. 

The director uses lighting in the film to so show the contrast between Blanche’s created world and reality. The darker lighting is Blanche’s fantasy. She is ashamed of her past and hides in the shadows. When she first interacts with Mitch it is in the back room where the light bulb is covered. He is whisked away to her intriguing world of class and superiority. When they go on dates together, it is only at night because Blanche does not want her illusion to be ruined. If Mitch were to see her in the light of day, he might see that she is older, and her fancy clothes are not real. Shattering her illusion and revealing her lies. When they do confront, Mitch tears down the paper cover claiming to want to see her under the light for a good look because he wants reality. The tearing down of the paper lantern is a symbol of him tearing away her fantasy world. She says she doesn’t want realism but magic, acknowledging that her delusions only exist in the dark. Light symbolizes reality and truth to her, and the director uses this to have the big truth revealing moments be set in bright lighting. When he finally gets her under the light, she tells the truth about her life before she moved to Elysian Fields. By the time Stanley arrives home the lantern is back on and she in her most fancy clothes. The delusion has become more intense as her emotional state is becoming more fragile.

Kazan masterfully uses the setting, costume/props, and lighting to represent the themes of superiority and illusions that Williams has created for A Streetcar Named Desire.

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