Listen to me Marlon (15.)
Directed by Stevan Riley.
Featuring Marlon Brando. 95 mins
There’s no rest for the deceased these days. Before he died Robin Williams filed a deed restricting the use of his image for 25 years after his death. When Marlon Brando died aged 80, a very good age for someone morbidly obese, he left behind hundreds of hours of cassette recorded reflections he made during his career which have been carefully edited down to make this film; effectively a talking book autobiography narrated from beyond the grave. The audio material is illustrated with home movies, library footage, movie clips and some new shots using Brando’s digitized head. Despite his much proclaimed hatred for fame and celebrity, I don’t think he’d have objected. Well, it's better than advertising chocolate.
Sanctioned by the Brando estate, Listen to Me Marlon is a straightforward, chronological telling of his life story, growing up with little education in Nebraska with two violent alcoholic parents, going to New York, joining the Actors Studio, becoming a star on Broadway and transferring his fame to the silver screen. The Brando story has been covered in numerous biographies, as well as Marlon's own effort Songs My Mother Taught Me, so there's little new here. It covers the scandals and tragedies, his love affair with Tahiti, his love affairs with most any woman he met (you see him flirting with some interviewers) and his various political commitments. Familiar ground but still interesting; it is notable that while the film pays enormous tribute to his acting coach Stella Adler, it ignores Actors Studio guru Lee Strasberg and that while Brando felt Bertolucci had tricked him into the self-revelatory fireworks of Last Tango In Paris, his interpretation of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now was apparently all his idea.
Brando was the pioneer for a generation of young method actor and he was also the model for the actor as reluctant celebrity and dilettante political activist. This is a portrait of a restless ego and talent in search of mayhem and amusement; a man repelled by his own failings who reflected that back as a firm commitment to right the wrongs of others. Despite all that I thinks he comes across quite well, always eloquent. What struck me most was that for all his reputation as a mumbler, in this film where he is all voice, he is revealed as a great orator, a voice always worth listening to.
Listen to me Marlon (15.)
Directed by Stevan Riley.
Featuring Marlon Brando. 95 mins
There’s no rest for the deceased these days. Before he died Robin Williams filed a deed restricting the use of his image for 25 years after his death. When Marlon Brando died aged 80, a very good age for someone morbidly obese, he left behind hundreds of hours of cassette recorded reflections he made during his career which have been carefully edited down to make this film; effectively a talking book autobiography narrated from beyond the grave. The audio material is illustrated with home movies, library footage, movie clips and some new shots using Brando’s digitized head. Despite his much proclaimed hatred for fame and celebrity, I don’t think he’d have objected. Well, it's better than advertising chocolate.
Sanctioned by the Brando estate, Listen to Me Marlon is a straightforward, chronological telling of his life story, growing up with little education in Nebraska with two violent alcoholic parents, going to New York, joining the Actors Studio, becoming a star on Broadway and transferring his fame to the silver screen. The Brando story has been covered in numerous biographies, as well as Marlon's own effort Songs My Mother Taught Me, so there's little new here. It covers the scandals and tragedies, his love affair with Tahiti, his love affairs with most any woman he met (you see him flirting with some interviewers) and his various political commitments. Familiar ground but still interesting; it is notable that while the film pays enormous tribute to his acting coach Stella Adler, it ignores Actors Studio guru Lee Strasberg and that while Brando felt Bertolucci had tricked him into the self-revelatory fireworks of Last Tango In Paris, his interpretation of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now was apparently all his idea.
Brando was the pioneer for a generation of young method actor and he was also the model for the actor as reluctant celebrity and dilettante political activist. This is a portrait of a restless ego and talent in search of mayhem and amusement; a man repelled by his own failings who reflected that back as a firm commitment to right the wrongs of others. Despite all that I thinks he comes across quite well, always eloquent. What struck me most was that for all his reputation as a mumbler, in this film where he is all voice, he is revealed as a great orator, a voice always worth listening to.
