Elia Kazan's 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

Martin Scorsese cites the works of Elia Kazan as being highly influential on his life and career. Scorsese was the force behind the (controversial) lifetime tribute to Elia Kazan at the 1999 Oscars© and now he’s finished the film tribute, A Letter To Elia that will be available from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on November 9th.

A Letter To Elia will include 15 of Kazan’s most acclaimed and noteworthy films as well as the Scorsese documentary. The documentary itself will air on the PBS series American Masters on October 4th.

“It took many years,” Scorsese says. “I asked my old friend and collaborator Kent Jones to work with me, and we spent quite a long time looking at the films, talking about them, looking at the life, the fame, the infamy, and finding the tone, the balance that felt right for this picture.  I feel that the finished film speaks to the power of art, in this case the art of Elia Kazan.”

To support the Elia Kazan Film Collection and the American Masters airdate, the documentary, as well as some of Kazan’s films, will tour the country, playing at a variety of art house theaters, cinematheques and film societies. “…Getting the movies seen,” Scorsese said, “that’s what we’re all aiming for.”

For more than anything you ever wanted to know about this subject, click on www.letterstoelia.com.