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In Reply to: Re: Was he THAT good as an actor? posted by patrickU on July 02, 2004 at 08:43:36:
Marlon was as good as they come. If the script was good enough ("A Streetcar Named Desire", "Julius Caesar", "Guys and Dolls") he stayed away from improvising and concentrated on the reality the words and actions in the script portrayed. When given the chance to improvise in a film where he already trusted the script ("On the Waterfront") he brought nuances to a character the screenwriter and director had not even thought of. When asked to improvise within a framework he was uncomfortable in, he could deliver a performance as great as the one in "Last Tango in Paris" or as bad as the one in "The Island of Lost Souls".The Group Theatre brought a different kind of acting to the American stage in the early Thirties. Instead of worrying how handsome or glamorous you looked, the concern became: Does it look real? Is it real? Brando brought that kind of acting to the American screen and fathered two or three generations of actors with the same concern for realism: James Dean, Dennis Hopper, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Harvey Keitel, Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson.
My mother told me once how shocked she was when she first saw "A Streetcar Named Desire"...she leaned over and whispered to my father, "I'm glad we're married---I would be so embarrassed watching this with just a date!" Brando was so vulgar and sweaty and....
In real life, he is said to have been quite cultivated, knew a lot about classical music and paintings, enough to laugh when anyone called a movie "art". He also knew his way around a great deal of Shakespeare, and could quote huge chucks of him on request. A shame we have so little of Brando doing Shakespeare on film, but that is Hollywood. Instead of "Hamlet", let's do "Desiree" or "Land of the Egyptians" (those who know Brando's bio will know the situation he was in during 1954).
Did he abuse his talent? Did he piss on other actors, directors, producers? No doubt about it. But from 1943-1949 on stage, and from 1950-1954 and 1967-1973 on screen, it is hard to find a greater, or braver, actor.
Playing The Mad Hapsburg in "Bed Time Story"
Putting on face cream in "Reflections of a Golden Eye"
The goofball pronouncments in "Candy"
His behavior in front of the children in "The Nightcomers"
His last scene in "The Godfather"
Telling Maria Schneider about his prom dance and going around the bars looking for his drunk mother in "Last Tango"These moments mean as much to me as any on film. As much as seeing the sorrowful, resentful Brando screaming, "Hey, Stella! Stella Baby! Stella!"
I hope he finds a peace in death that I do not think he had in life.
Follow Ups:
his performance as Dr. Moreau was laughable, probably worst of his
career, The Great Kabuki! Burt Lancaster was OK in the
1967 role, but Laughton remains best in Isle of Lost Souls. Like Brando's
performances in Waterfront, Streetcar and Wild One. - AH.
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/entertainers/actors/marlon-brando/Your posting is fair & detailed.
Merci, patrickU.I enjoy discovering new things about films, aspects I had not even considered before, new ways to look at and approach material. Vigorous and healthy disagreements are fine, but I no longer enjoy insults and attacks. If we can't enjoy differing opinions (and some differing opinions do make me smile!), then all one is left with is the desire to have everyone think like he or she does. It is much more interesting to find out why somebody else thinks the way they do...what is behind their opinion. I enjoy reading the various back-and-forths on this board very much. There are posters on this and the other audioasylum boards, such as J, Moderate Mart, Dr. Quad, Kentaja, Estat, Pdl, DonT, Duilawyer, Audiophilander, Victor, and yourself, whom I really, really enjoy reading! It is wonderful to have the ability to exchange different impressions about something we all love.
Take care and have fun!
That has always the most interesting post over here.
Take a look at.
Cheers,
Patrick
Merci, Gee!
Every post of every one is like a kailedoscope, and it comes out like a whole or at least some part of it. Of course we have to combat our own ego and worst some from others people who don´t have the cultural background, I know it may sound coarse or arrogant, but so it is.
In all fairness, the thirst to learn something about somewhat, in our short moment, is the main point, yet some seems to live in a close circle. In a long run they will die of thirst, I suppose that is called " getting old ." Beware.
Don´t read LOTR exchance on this Forum it may take out some innocence out of your post, and give you a mirror image of the society as it is.
Of course, I undertsand what you aim at, and I feel the same.
You too!
Oh, I took a look at it, and the "Farenheit" trademark exchange. I enjoyed the fights from a seat in the back of the auditorium! I just don't care to get caught up in fights over LOTR or Ray Bradbury. (Did I like LOTR? Yes. Were there serious faults in LOTR? I think so,particularly in the last half of "Return of the King". I think we all will survive, though!) (Yes, Michael Moore is using Bradbury's title to give the audience a certain context for his film; if Bradbury's upset, ask him why he titled 2 of his works "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and "I Sing the Body Electric".) I have also seen however, that given the opportunity, almost everyone is happy to lay down arms and quietly explain what shapes their ideas on a subject---and THAT is what interests me! What I seek to get out of this forum is not based on innocence of it (I have seen the long, long threads with insults over the smallest things), but rather, it is based on reading the incredible connections that I have seen from people all over the world (I am in Louisiana as I write this) bringing to film---a subject all of us are passionate about. I love this!
You see everybody is entitle to his taste, but LOTR is nothing worth to be happy with. I mean if you are in a good mood and particulary happy the day you see it, and you absolutely wants to have fun...Why not? But a film in the way I understand films, it is not.
All the rest have been said.
And yes, if you beware the form, this a big window.
And like Hitch´s " Rear Window " let us enjoy our voyeurism.
probing, factual, fair, and ultimately sympathetic to the man--I learned a lot. Are you some kind of movie critic?
Thank you C.B., for your kind words. I'm sorry that it has taken me a while to find a moment to respond.I am not a movie critic. I am a middle-aged college student who is studying English and Social Studies at a small university in the South with the idea of becoming first a high school teacher, then (hopefully) a college instructor. But film and theatre have always been tremendous enthusiasms of mine, and in my much younger days I spent a (too short) period of time in New York around several people who knew Brando quite well. Since the news of Brando's death broke Friday morning, many memories of that time have resurfaced.
My local paper printed Bob Thomas' obituary of Brando from the Los Angeles Times. It is frustrating to think that this is what his friends and co-workers in Hollywood read on Saturday morning. I counted 2 inaccurate statements in one paragraph alone!
It is unfair to call Brando "the greatest actor ever". There are many stage actors that many people have either never seen or no longer remember, and there are many great actors in other countries that are just as influential in their circles as Brando was in his.
(I am sure Victor and Patrick could help me out here on some names!)
But it is fair to call Brando "as good as they get". He WAS that good. And to the list of moments that I indicated earlier, from his later films (his early ones being so iconic--"Stella! Whaddya got? I coulda had class!"), let me add 3 more:The wry irony of his lawyer in "A Dry White Season"
Skating on the ice in "The Freshman"
...and a moment every acting student should study:
Wiping the makeup off of his dead wife's face in "Last Tango". Shattering.He may not have been a good husband. He may not have been a good father. He may not have been the most congenial worker, especially late in his career. But who judges a chair by the character of the worker who built it? (Uh oh, this could be dangerous: Wagner territory dead ahead!)
Jack Nicholson said, "When Brando goes, we all move up one step." Knowing his opinion of Brando, I am certain that he is sorry that today he can take that step.
Movie actors were what Jeans are to fine clothes, just second choice. The real thing was Theater. So it did start in the Thirties when Cinema became fashionable. In the mean time the facility and vulgarity ( often ) offered by movies have swept over the classical stage. Like pop music over classical. These did happen in the late Fities, whose children we still are.
Movies actors are the " illegitimes " children of theater actors.
Look at the history in England or Germany or France, and of course, of America too, on this field.
I cannot comment expertly on acting in Europe, although I love the fact that an actor in England can do a television show, a movie, and a season in rep in one year, and there is apparently no caste system between "TV actors" and "the Stage". In America there is still a bit of the caste system between "TV actors" and "Movie actors" (and now between them and "People from Reality TV Shows"). Today, young actors usually learn their chops and pay their dues by doing theatre. But few return to the stage once they've started working in films. In another generation or two, who will be the illegitimate children of whom?
Who knows?Michel Simon I should not forget in the field of the very best. ( knows mainly in your country for his role in L ´Atalante from J.Vigo . a MUST to see if you have not )
L'Atalante!A great, great film! I saw it in a small college auditorium when a local film society brought the movie to town a few years ago. I love it very much...I wish I could see "Zero for Conduct"!
Why not?
Just go to Amazon...and buy it.
I wish I could, but I am a student now. Many lusts, few fulfillments...just like the first time I was in college! Only now my lusts are more for DVDs and CDs and vinyl...lots and lots of vinyl.My wife tells me, "Only a year and a half to go!"
Well, almost...
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