I know very little about the man, I’ve never seen The Godfather movies, just Apocalypse Now. I’ve always heard him spoken about in a negative light, due to his erratic behaviour on-set later in life. So I was pleasantly surprised when I watched this interview. He was ahead of his time really, at least in this regard, and I recommend everyone gives it a watch. Of particular note is how his detractors have the same complaint that’s bandied about today.
Clint Eastwood and John Wayne can piss right off, too.
Sorry if it seems like I’m derailing the thread, but I think Marlon Brando’s image, like the image of a lot of Old Hollywood, is pretty fucking complicated. The “butter scene” in Last Tango In Paris has always been a lightning rod of controversy, for example, especially now after an interview with Bernardo Bertolucci resurfaced where he may have admitted that he and Brando planned it without Maria Schneider’s consent: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2018/11/26/story-behind-filmmaker-bernardo-bertoluccis-last-public-controversy/
Like, Bernardo, my man, they’re actors. Channeling humiliation is literally what they do.
And, while I think this bit of activism on his part is cool, I think it would have been even more cool if he actually stood with Sacheen while she delivered her speech. Not because his perspective needed to be heard, but because a small showing of solidarity would have gone a long way in my mind.
I mean, what’s Eastwood gonna do? Get into it, onstage, with the “greatest actor of his time”?
Fuck Bertolucci forever for that scene (Schneider wasn’t even made aware the scene itself was happening until the day of) and double fuck Brando forever for going through with it without letting her know at any point.
I mean obviously it’s nice that he was very progressive in a lot of ways, and there’s an endless amount of anecdotes of him pissing off directors, producers, and actors that are too far up their own ass or too controlling, which is always great great.
I’ll say the obvious and point out what that says a lot that the latter is a much bigger part of why he was held in a “negative” light by Hollywood instead of the former - NO ONE believed Maria Schneider’s account of the former and this had a huge effect on her career. That said, IIRC her and Brando did remain friends for a long time after. This always made me wonder, Bertolucci never actually told this story until years after both Schneider and Brando died so like, triple fuck Bertolucci.
Schneider herself did a lot of work to advocate for women to get more creative roles in films and actually get into the director’s seat, which was overshadowed at the time since people only really focused on her as a sex symbol and as a drug addict because people are trash. Like what Bertolucci+Brando did was revealed years ago by her, but it just wasn’t “revealed” as in publicly believed until the Twittersphere “discovered” a 2013 interview with Bertolucci like three years ago.
My favorite instance of the latter is definitely when Brando was briefly on screen with Ron Perlman in The Island of Dr. Moreau. I forget which podcast but Ron Pearlman has an incredible anecdote about working with Brando and how awestruck/intimidated he was with doing so. Anyway early on they’re shooting the scene where Perlman’s SAYER OF THE LAW character and Brando are together and Brando says shit about the sun’s rays being bad for you and then Perlman Says the Law and like the day they filmed it everyone gets into place and right before they start shooting out of nowhere Brando’s like wait wait wait this guy? while pointing at Perlman, who is this idiot, what’s his point just get him out of here man.
Steve (Richard Frankenheimer was directing at this point but Brando was just calling him whatever name to fuck with him because Frankenheimer was an asshole to the rest of the cast) what are you doin’ to me man just get rid of this guy.
And Perlman was of course devastated and terrified by this but after much consternation they convince him that it’s okay for Perlman to be there and he’s part of the story and they do like a bazillion takes of this scene at Brando’s insistence and he delivers everything the EXACT same way every time. Anyway like hours and hours later they finally get it and then out of nowhere Brando’s turns to Perlman and is like, wait, are you blind? Are you playing it blind? And he’s like yeah the character’s blind and Brando’s like this kid’s a genius get the camera back up we gotta do this again this is a whole new thing it’s like new worlds man and they do like another few takes where there’s zero difference in anything and afterwards Brando was gushing to Pearlman about how cool he is and how they need to hang out and talk about music and stuff.
There’s also the anecdote from The Score, Brandos last on screen role I believe, starring De Niro and Ed Norton and directed by Richard Frank Oznowicz. For some reason Brando just didn’t give a single shit about Oznowicz at all and didn’t respect him in the least, so he wouldn’t take any directions from him what so ever. He did, however, like and resect De Niro well enough, so Oznowicz fitted De Niro with an ear piece and fed him all the directions for Brando so De Niro could relay them to Brando as friendly suggestions.
Brando was a legendary asshole to his very last days.
This reminds me of how Wesley Snipes hated David S. Goyer so much that he only communicated with him via post-it notes signed “Blade” and also only showed up in his presence when he was needed for a closeup, and would often not even open his eyes. There’s a part where he awakens in the movie, look carefully, his “opening eyes” are CG.
Snipes lack of effort also resulted in this outtake reel, because Ryan Reynolds could say anything and Blade’s stoic reaction would simply be added later
