On The Waterfront

The movie “On the Waterfront” was a movie in which I wasn’t interested in during the beginning. As being from a younger generation, this is the first chance for me to watch a classical film. I was first skeptical and negative about having to watch this movie but in the end I enjoyed this classical film and it kept my attention throughout. As I had a negative thought prior to watching the film, this was a challenge of film analysis for me as I was at first unwilling to give this movie my continuous high level of attention.

During the beginning of the film, after Joey was killed, I was immediately in tuned to this movie which was the turning point for me to continue watching. I overcame my personal biased of what I thought classical film were to be, boring. This wasn’t true and I enjoyed the movie and the plot of the movie. 

While I was watching the movie, I tried to focus on what the plot was and the theme. During the movie, I enjoyed that they went back to their religion and that they had Father Berry set up a meeting with the thugs and try to get them to talk about the murders. I find this ironic that these days nothing like that would happen. I also find that the characters in movie had complex human relationships. What I mean about this is that during the movie the director focus on Terry and him falling in love with Edie. Also I think that the turning point of Terry to go against Jonny was when Charley was killed. These relationships had a huge factor in Terry going against Jonny.

I liked this movie because it showed courage on Terry’s part to break up the longshoreman’s union. I also believe that this movie’s plot was on nature of power. During the beginning of the movie, Johnny was infatuated with power that he didn’t even care about money. But during the movie when he orders his killings, even his top aides such as Charley start to question his authority and why he does it.

After I was done watching the movie, I still had some questions about some aspects in the movie. When Terry tells Edie about his involvement in Joey’s death, I find it ironic that the director didn’t allow us to hear the conversion. Also I think about the fact that if Charley wasn’t killed, I wonder if Terry would have testified against Jonny. Overall this was a great and interesting movie.