Post by Torgo on Jul 3, 2004 4:40:44 GMT -5
MightyJack said:
Pardon me my friends, but I'm gonna get very long winded here. As family and friends can attest, Brando meant a lot to me. And getting old is hell kids, especially when the folks you grew up with and admired, start dying. I feel very sad and old right now. I also feel like I lost a part of me, a part of my youth.
Brando for acting, like the Beatles for music, defined an era and tho his best work came in the 50's, the shadow Marlon cast on the film world reached out to me in the 60's and 70's. He was my favorite actor.
His performance in "On the Waterfront" is the Greatest work of acting ever present on the silver screen, period! Watching it even today, sends chills down my spine. Yet, it's not the bluster that so many focus on (tho the raw, sexual power of his Stanley Kowalski in "Streetcar" is both devisating and attractive) but the subtle touches that grabed me.
On the Waterfront:
1) Terry Malloy's clumsy attempts at wooing Eva Marie Saint. She drops her glove (this was an accident but Brando rolled with it) and Malloy picks it up, puts it on his hand. It's subtle, but a tender moment. He's trying to keep her there, talking, and to have something of hers close to him. And damn if it isn't one of the most beautiful courtships ever filmed.
2) In the bar, Eva's character pleads with him to tell him the truth about her brother, Only half of Marlon's face can be seen, but the moment is heartbreaking. You know he wants to tell her, to free his soul, but he's struggling with the decision. Again, not an explosive moment, but tender, subtle and powerfull.
The Wild One:
All hells broken lose and the townsfolk are after the bikers. Brando's character flees on his Bike but is cornered and there's a brief moment there were you see him starting to crack, he's trying so hard to maintain that "Cool", but he's starting to drift between laughter and tears. Panic, as I've never seen an actor do. He nails it, that traped animal, the verneer starting to fade. No actor has ever captured those small truths of character like Brando does.
Mutiny on the Bounty:
Marlon takes his knocks for this one. Unjustly. It is a richly nuanced perfomance and the critics of the era were in "teardown" mode at the time.
His Fletcher Christian starts off as a fop, a dandy who doesn't take anything seriously. But he is forced to be a man due to Blyes cruelty. To make a stand and show some integrity even if it will damn him for all time. The transformation is stunning.
Godfather:
James Caan was all fury and on first viewing it is he who captures your eye. But watch it again and Brando's subtle power is capivating. It's a role that improves over the years.
Last Tango In Paris:
This is so raw, such a blunt force. But there are these scenes where a distracted Brando keeps standing by these doors as if he's listening for something. He also keeps tightening spigots on leaky fawcets. At first I wondered what the hell he was doing, were his lines written near there? Why wasn't he paying attention to what the other characters were saying.
Then it hit me the 2nd time I saw it. When his wife commited suicide, before he broke in and found her - he could hear the dripping fawcet of the tub behind the bathroom door where she was.
In any other film there would have been a big dramatic monologue about how the sound of dripping fawcets hauted him. But this way was better, it respects the audiences intellegence and allows Brando to express himself without words, just the slight hurt and vacant distracted stare of a man who has lost much.
Thanks for allowing me to go on. I don't know if anyone will read all of this, but it felt good to get it out.
You had a troubled life at times, so rest in peace Marlon. And thank you for touching me with your art.
What? No Island of Dr. Moreau?