A Letter to Elia (2010)

Director Martin Scorsese speaks candidly and passionately about one of his formative filmmaking influences: the late Elia Kazan.

Utilizing precisely chosen clips from Kazan's signature films including "On the Waterfront, " "A Streetcar Named Desire, " "Gentleman's Agreement, " "Baby Doll, " "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, " "A Face in the Crowd, " "America, America, " and "The Last Tycoon, " and interview footage of the director himself, co-directors Scorsese and Kent Jones recount the director's tumultuous journey from the Group Theatre to the Hollywood A-list to the thicket of the blacklist. But most of all, they make a powerful case for Kazan as a profoundly personal artist working in a famously impersonal industry.