Kazan and Bud Schulberg's devastating portrait of mob controlled corruption and grinding working class struggle within the New Jersey longshoreman community was a landmark both in terms of its politics and its showcasing of Method acting—embodied by Marlon Brando as an intuitive yet carefully controlled mode of gestural performance. Rejected for fear of controversy by all the major studios, Kazan was forced to independently produce his hard-hitting and risky project, cutting costs by working with upcoming Group Theater actors such as Brando and Kazan regular Karl Malden. Featuring one of Leonard Bernstein's most accomplished scores and fabulous black-and-white cinematography by Soviet legend Boris Kaufman, On the Waterfront defines a beautifully moody and spontaneous updating of the Ash Can School that captures the hard-bitten poetry of cold water flats, lonely cafeterias and lives broken by years of hard, unhappy labor.