Piecing
together performances from throughout the decades with never-before-seen
footage and a series of original, in-depth interviews featuring not only
a host of his Hollywood peers but also family members and childhood
friends, TCM, along with The Greif Company (Steve McQueen: The Essence
of Cool), has worked to unmask the man behind the exceptional talent,
captivating persona and apathy (and frequent aversion) toward his
profession that was Marlon Brando.
The film
investigates the challenges he faced in almost every personal and
working relationship throughout his life: the hatred toward his
hard-to-please, womanizing father and the sadness for his alcoholic
mother; the repeating pattern of determined pursuit of a woman who
interested him and, once he captured her heart, the inexplicable
distance and rejection that always followed; the disagreeable on-set
behavior in the 1960s that led almost every major studio and prominent
filmmaker to reject him until he staged a comeback with The Godfather
(1972); and the rift he caused with the Academy when he sent a
representative to reject his Best Actor win at the annual awards
ceremony because of what he considered Hollywood’s persecution of
Native Americans.
But even
when controversy reigned, through it all, Brando’s outstanding talent
and ability to mesmerize an audience was never questioned. He is
the marker. Theres before Brando and after Brando, says Martin Scorsese
in the documentary. And I think it’s time, especially for
younger people, to go back and understand that, and see those pictures
in the order in which they were made. Mainly because, I
think, now they’re too hip to feel these emotions that were exploding
on the screen with him. It’s about being human.
Before
Brando, actors acted. After Brando, they behaved, Michael Winner,
who directed him in The Nightcomers (1972) says in the film. That
is the difference – an extraordinary effect on the history of drama
and the history of movies.
BRANDO
highlights his performance in Broadway’s Truckline Café, which first
gained him major recognition, and the phenomenon he later created with A
Streetcar Named Desire (1951) that put him over the top. The film
also explores the classical acting in Julius Caesar (1953) that silenced
his critics who labeled him a mumbler, his awe-inspiring work in The
Godfather and what was arguably his most intimate effort on screen in
Last Tango in Paris (1972).
BRANDO,
in addition to documenting his efforts on behalf of Native-American
causes, also studies his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement and
support for the Black Panthers. In his later years, as he further
lost interest in acting, his curiosity about other aspects of life only
increased. The film features his efforts to develop
Tahiti
, including a tour of a school for marine biology he constructed that
never opened its doors, as well as some of his inventions.
Accompanying
the two-night premiere will be a celebration of Brando’s work,
including A Streetcar Named Desire; On the Waterfront (1954), which
earned him his first Oscar® for Best Actor; The Missouri Breaks (1976);
The Wild One (1953); Guys and Dolls (1955); The Teahouse of the August
Moon (1956); and Sayonara (1957).
