DIRECTORS COMMENTS ON CHARACTERS

Elia Kazan on Blanche

“Blanche is dangerous. Blanche is destructive. She would soon have him and Stella fighting. Phony, sick, corrupted, destructive woman.”

Elia Kazan on Stanley

“He’s got things the way he wants them around there and he does not want them upset.[…]This makes Stanley right! Are we going into the era of Stanley! He may be practical and right[…]”
“The rape is his final act in destroying her”

Rodger Boxhill (critic) on Stanley

“Defender of hearth and home against a hysterical intruder”

Harold Cluman on Blanche

“Delicate and sensitive woman pushed into insanity by a brutish environment.”

Michaela Magdics on Stella’s Gender stereotyping

“Escaped her old life onto to create an exact version of it.”
“She is neither a Southern Belle nor a Modern Woman”

Leonard Quinto on Stanley

“The master of games is Stanley Kowalski”

Elia Kazan on Mitch

“Perhaps Blanche could of never been saved, but, I certainly think it should look that way with the moment with Mitch.”

Kronenberger on Blanche

“Blanche is the most demonically driven kind of liar - the one who lies to the world because she must lie to herself.”

Mary Ann Corrigan on Blanche

“We cannot understand Blanche’s behaviour until we see how the past can affect the future.”