MarlonBrando hated publicity and tried to hide his face from the public. But thereclusive Brando, whose greatest gift was acting, was forced to be a creaturein the spotlight. And even when he established sanctuaries for himself, tragedyforced the spotlight into his privacy. His son was sentenced for killing hissister’s boyfriend inside Brando’s gated estate. His daughter later killedherself.
Theprivate versus the public Brando is a recurring theme in Stevan Riley’sdocumentary, Listen to Me Marlon. After Brando’s death in 2004, an archive ofaudio recordings was discovered in which the actor poured out hissometimes-contradictory thoughts. Those tapes form the spine of this remarkablefilm, visualized through home movies, archival TV footage, screen tests andon-set documentaries, still photographs, deftly woven recreations of histroubled childhood and the actor’s digitalized face reciting some of thecontents of the tapes. The child of alcoholics, Brando despised his womanizing,unkind father, but was forced to realize that he recreated many of the oldman’s mistakes.
TheBrando that emerges in Listen to Me Marlon was thoughtful, even erudite. Hisability to analyze people, to know more about them than they knew aboutthemselves, was an asset in a career more diverse than many people realize. Inthe public eye, Brando was often confused with Stanley Kowalski (A StreetcarNamed Desire) or Terry Malloy (On the Waterfront). The private Brandounderstood those men well, but was considerably brighter, focused, more open toa wider experience of the world. Listen to Me Marlon is one of this year’s bestdocumentary films in a year of superb documentaries.
Opens Sept. 11, OrientalTheatre.