The ‘I coulda been somebody’ scene, perhaps Brando’s finest (credit: Reuters)
Marlon Brando lived. Did he ever. And we are some lucky sons of bitches that he did. He enriched our culture with his portrayals of average Joe heroes raging at the machine. He emblazoned the big screen for five decades and bestrode the earth like an acting colosus. OK, I’d better tone down the rhetoric, but you catch my drift.
I adore Brando’s performances in Streetcar and On the Waterfront. But I don’t think I saw those on the big screen. The first film of his I saw in a theater was Last Tango. It was 1973 and I was living in Jerusalem studying at the Hebrew University. I went to see the last showing of the night in the heart of downtown. Last Tango was an unbelievable viewing experience which left an indelible impression. It was deeply distressing, troubling and yet powerfully sexual. It provided some of the most frightening scenes I’d ever watched in cinema up to that time. The sado-masochism was terribly troubling to this 21 year old virginal, inexperienced fellow from a small-town suburb of New York City. I was moved, I was shocked, I didn’t know what to make of it.
(credit: Everett Collection)
At the end, I remember walking out of the theater with a friend who parted with me to go to her bus home. After she left me, I realized I didn’t know who I was, where I was or how to get home. I was lost, I was at sea. I was emotionally untethered. And that is precisely the feeling that Brando would’ve wanted me to have. That was part of his slightly maddening genius.
Charlie Rose did another amazing interview last night with Sean Penn that was entirely devoted to discussing their respective friendships with the Great One. I sometimes find Sean Penn strangely opaque and elliptical in interviews, but when Rose talks with him Penn seems eloquent, profound and deeply persuasive. The most powerful observation he made about Marlon was:
“Young people may go out watch his movies. God knows, it’s an especially good time to get in touch with anything that has a revolutionary sense of truth.”
Yes, that was Brando at his finest–a revolutionary sense of truth.
The Times’ Rick Lyman wrote quite a good obituary, Marlon Brando, Oscar-Winning Actor, Is Dead at 80. One of the things I learned about Brando was that both his parents were alcoholics and that he grew up as an emotionally neglected (and therefore abused) child.
For many years, I’ve wondered (as I also did regarding Orson Wells’ career): how could such greatness have been stifled and betrayed? Where were the great roles that should have happened after On the Waterfront? Why for his final great role do we have to go all the way back to Godfather and Last Tango in 1973? For me, such botched greatness was unexplainable until I read the following quotation:
The impression given by many of the finest Method actors — like Mr. Brando and his fellow student James Dean — was that they needed to act, as a way to purge their inner demons. Mr. Brando echoed this, saying that a childhood with remote and alcoholic parents had driven him to pretending.
“When you are a child who is unwanted or unwelcome, and the essence of what you are seems to be unacceptable, you look for an identity that will be acceptable.”
“I suppose the story of my life is a search for love,” Mr. Brando said. “But more than that, I have been looking for a way to repair myself from the damages I suffered early on and to define my obligation, if I had any, to myself and my species.”
And then, in an instant, I understood completely. I too am an abused child and I understand how such abuse can cause the kinds of rage and self-destruction that they did for Brando. I understand how you can sometimes be your own worst enemy and how it can prevent you from realizing your best potential for good. And I, for one, completely understand his last sentence: “I have been looking for a way to repair myself from the damages I suffered early on and to define my obligation, if I had any, to myself and my species.” This spirit infuses my own life as well (though I have none of his greatness). In fact, I’ve written about it here in my long post about my own experience with child abuse.
If you ever had any doubt about the profoundness of Brando’s commitment to social justice, you must read his largely undelivered speech to the Motion Picture Academy on the 1973 night he won the best actor Oscar. It is profound. It is eloquent. It is full of righteous fury and indignation and it is Brando at his finest. This is a man of whom we can be proud.
The following link will allow you to view Barry Levinson’s favorite scenes from On the Waterfront.
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