Editing Elia Kazan (section)

===Use of “method” acting===

As a product of the Group Theatre and Actors Studio, he was most noted for his use of [[method acting|"Method" actors]], especially Brando and Dean. During an interview in 1988, Kazan said, "I did whatever was necessary to get a good performance ''including'' so-called Method acting. I made them run around the set, I scolded them, I inspired jealousy in their girlfriends{{nbsp}}... The director is a ''desperate beast!''{{nbsp}}... You don't deal with actors as dolls. You deal with them as people who are poets to a certain degree."<ref name=Kazan1/> Actor [[Robert De Niro]] called him a "master of a new kind of psychological and behavioral faith in acting".<ref name="Rothstein"/> Kazan was aware of the limited range of his directing abilities:

{{blockquote|I don't have great range. I am no good with music or spectacles. The classics are beyond me{{nbsp}}... I am a mediocre director except when a play or film touches a part of my life's experience{{nbsp}}... I do have courage, even some daring. I am able to talk to actors{{nbsp}}... to arouse them to better work. I have strong, even violent feelings, and they are assets.<ref name="Rothstein"/>}}

Kazan explained that he tried to inspire his actors to offer ideas:

{{blockquote|When I talk to the actors they begin to give me ideas, and I grab them because the ideas they give me turn them on. I want the breath of life from them rather than the mechanical fulfillment of the movement which I asked for{{nbsp}}... I love actors. I used to be an actor for eight years, so I do appreciate their job.<ref name=Stevens/>}}

Kazan held strong ideas about the scenes and would try to merge an actor's suggestions and inner feelings with his own. Despite the strong eroticism created in ''[[Baby Doll]]'', for example, he set limits. Before shooting a seduction scene between [[Eli Wallach]] and [[Carroll Baker]], he privately asked Wallach, "Do you think you actually go through with seducing that girl?" Wallach writes, "I hadn't thought about that question before, but I answered{{nbsp}}... 'No'." Kazan replies, "Good idea, play it that way."<ref name=Wallach>{{cite book |last=Wallach |first=Eli |title=The Good, the Bad, and Me: In My Anecdotage |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |year=2005 |page=172}}</ref> Kazan, many years later, explained his rationale for scenes in that film:

{{blockquote|What is erotic about sex to me is the seduction, not the act{{nbsp}}... The scene on the swings (Eli Wallach and Carroll Baker) in ''Baby Doll'' is my exact idea of what eroticism in films should be.<ref>{{cite book |last=Young |first=Jeff |title=Kazan: The Master Director Discusses his films – Interviews with Elia Kazan |publisher=Newmarket Press |year=1999 |page=224}}</ref>}}