Elia Kazan is remembered as one of Hollywood's and Broadway's best directors, creator of award-winning films like "On the Waterfront and "East of Eden" AND, depending on your political viewpoint, as either a McCarthy-era Judas who destroyed the careers of Hollywood colleagues or as a truth-telling hero during the government hunt for Communists.

On Monday, Nov. 22 at Schermerhorn Hall, Kazan's art and politics will be the focus of a discussion by Andrew Sarris, New York Observer film critic and a Columbia film professor; Victor Navasky, publisher of The Nation, author of Naming Names, a book about the McCarthy period, and a Columbia journalism professor; and other experts on Kazan and the Hollywood blacklist.

The program, "Elia Kazan: A Retrospective of His Art and Politics," is sponsored by the Hellenic Studies Program of the Classics Department (Kazan was born Elia Kazanijioglou of Greek background and came to the United States when he was 4) and the Film Division of the School of the Arts. Lewis Cole, chairman of the Film Division, will be the moderator. The program begins at 7:30 P.M. and will take place in Schermerhorn Hall, Room 501. The public is invited.

Other participants will be Jeanine Basinger of the Wesleyan University Film Studies Program; Jeff Young, author of Kazan: The Maser Director Discusses His Films; and journalist and biographer Patricia Bosworth.

Contention over Kazan's actions in 1952 in informing on Hollywood colleagues who he had known when he was a Communist Party member during the 1930's were rekindled last spring when Kazan, at age 89, received an Academy Award for lifetime achievement. Some well-known actors in the audience sat stone-faced in protest while others applauded the award as long overdue in recognition of Kazan's critically acclaimed films like "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," and "Gentleman's Agreement," for which he won his first Academy Award for best director. "On the Waterfront" gained him a second Oscar.

Martina Kotzamani, assistant professor in the Hellenic Studies Program, said the discussion will attempt to come to an understanding of Kazan's work and politics in the context of his times.