“Most of the successful people in Hollywood are failures as human beings.”
Since the days of Shakespeare, actors have always been in the public eye. The ability to transform and become someone else has always been an art in itself. Actors have the ability to show us a wide range of emotion and personality that we can all con-nect with. Good actors can put on a show. Great actors become the show. One man would change the way movies were made. No other actor before Marlon Brando had such impact on Hollywood through one performance. Widely regarded as one of the best actors of all time, Marlon Brando changed what was required to be a great actor. Without his performances and acting methods, we would have a very different breed of actor today.
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Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska raised by Marlon Brando Sr. and his wife Dorothy. Brando was raised in Illinois by his two alcoholic parents. When describing his mother he wrote "She preferred getting drunk to caring for us”. (Brando) It was at this time that he learned how to act. He would act in order to amuse his mother, whether he was trying to gain her affection or the keep her from going out to the local bar. (BIOGRAPHY) Because of his upbringing Marlon was a lonely child, his two sisters had grown and moved out leaving him with his two parents and nanny. After being expelled from school Marlon followed his two artistic sisters to New York City. Eventually, Brando enrolled in Erwin Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop at New York’s New School. Under the guidance of Stella Alder Brando was introduced to several act-ing techniques. These techniques required Marlon to use personal experience in order to convey actions and characters realistically. (BIOGRAPHY) After spending time in theater productions, Brando showcased his acting method in his first film “The Men”. He spent a considerable amount of time making his performance real. He spent weeks lying in bed, living in a paraplegic facility, as well as working in a wheelchair. While his performance was adequate it did not do much for his film career. It was his theater career that probably threw him into one of his greatest film roles. In 1947 Brando played the stage Stanley Kowalski in the “A Street Car Named Desire”. His role in the play gained critical acclaim and Hollywood scouts had their eyes on him. Brando played the character with extreme force. People feared the Stanley Kowalski that Brando portrayed on stage. A one point during a performance of “Truckling Cafe” a critic named Pauline Kael thought he was suffering a seizure. (Schulberg) (today.com) Marlon brought something to the table that audiences had never seen before. Because of his experience in the original version of “A Streetcar Named Desire” Marlon was considered for the film role. “Streetcar” was a success and sent Brando soaring to new heights as an actor. His performance was mesmerizing and real, encompassing a violent and cruel character that hadn’t been seen on screen before. Brando’s Stanley Kowalski was dangerous, sensitive and emotional, strutting across the screen like a lion stalking its prey. Through one performance Brando revolutionized the typical Hollywood actor. Through Stanley Kowalski a new form of masculinity was introduced; a type of man that viewers couldn’t take their eyes off of. “Streetcar” a popular and critical suc-cess that earned four Academy Awards. (Schulberg) Marlon Brando’s incredible method acting would push him into other great roles. After “Streetcar” he played Terry Malloy in “On The Waterfront”. “On The Waterfront” was a huge success and went on to win 8 Oscar awards. Marlon Brando won his first Oscar for best actor in a leading role for his work. (Schulberg )Brando would star is a few more successful movies, however after these films Marlon’s reputation gradually de-clined. He would star in box office flops, sacrificing his talents for shallow roles that did not suit him. His career eventually became a disaster; film after film was a failure. To add to the acting troubles Brando's personal life was also suffering. Brando said, “Most of the successful people in Hollywood are failures as human be-ings”.
He would eventually prove himself correct. During his life Brando had multiple wives, and a total of 16 children and was known to have family problems. (wiki) As years went on, Marlon developed an eating problem and gained a massive amount of weight. At one point, Marlon’s wife was convinced that household staff members were stealing food. She put a lock on the refrigerator and found that it had been broken the next day. A maid said that Marlon had raided the fridge and left teeth marks in a large wheel of cheese. A 350-pound man replaced the once athletic physique of Stanley Kowalski that was Marlon Brando. …show more content…
(BIOGRAPHY) As his personal life took a hit, so did his professional life. Brando had always been a good actor, but over time his eccentricities took over his career. He demanded large amounts of money for small roles, refused to learn lines, and was generally difficult on set. (wiki) (independent) Joanne Woodward, who co-starred with him in The Fugitive Kind said “I hated working with Marlon Brando - because he was not there, he was somewhere else. There was nothing to reach on to.” (independent) The question is how can Marlon Brando be called one of the greatest actors of all time when his ratio of good films to bad is severely unbalanced? How can someone even consider this thought when the majority of his films were not successful? The answer is simple. One role had changed Hollywood so much that no one could resist or deny Marlon’s method acting.
People demanded more actors like Marlon Brando. He was new and dif-ferent from actors like Cary Grant, Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda.(today) Brando intro-duced the anti hero to the big screen, and people everywhere demanded it.
Because of Brando’s performances in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, “On the Waterfront”, and “The Wild One” other actors would soon crawl out from his shadow. The start of Brando’s career was so magnificent that actors such as James Dean, Paul Newman and others tried to imitate him. In fact, Brando became worried that Dean was copying his lifestyle and acting method.(BIOGRAPHY)
Later in his career Marlon said that everyone was an actor. We all learn how to adapt our personalities to certain situations and people. We may not take it to the extent of a Hollywood actor, but we all know how to act in some shape or form. "We couldn't sur-vive a second if we weren't able to act, acting is a survival mechanism. It's a social un-guent and it's a lubricant. We act to save our lives, actually, every day. People lie con-stantly every day by not saying something that they think, or by saying something that they didn't think.” (Cavett) Brando used this line of thought to reinforce his type of meth-od
acting. Brando’s method acting became popular and is now emulated and used by actors like Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn, Harrison Ford, Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Johnny Depp, and Christian Bale. Some of the greatest actors of our time would not exist if it weren’t for Marlon Brando. The beginning of Marlon Brando’s career was enough to leave a mark on history. The countless films he made after his successful run don’t matter. Quality always beats quantity, and the quality of his acting was enough to change the game.
Clurman, Harold. “Actors-The Image of Their Era.” The Tulane Drama Review 4.3 (1960): 38-44. JSTOR.
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
The change in the U.S. can be said to be a social revolution. People were growing sick of the same old movies, they wanted a change and Hollywood needed to deliver or else they would lose their audience to the TV. In the early 60's, the studios were still afraid of the blacklisting so the films were still very safe. An example of this is the film Sound of Music (1965). This was a film about a musical family that needed to escape the Nazi presence. Although the movie is based on a true story, they still follow the same old idea of a nice family, who must escape from the clutches of evil. Basically, the movie is saying good guys win and bad guys always lose. Sure this how most films are made but there is no sense of change, no differences in the style or way it was made. Since there was no change, the public was not interested. The TV was much more convenient and kept the publics interested.
One of the major strong points of The Fifties is the author's ostensible need to include every detail that could have impacted the formation of any aspects that pertain to the developments that shaped the fifties. This is most notable in the characterization of major figures of the time such as Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley. For example, in reference to Brando, Halberstam (1993)
Not all films which adhere to the classical Hollywood paradigm eschew issues. The film Singin’ in the Rain follows Don Lockwood, a popular silent film actor, as he attempts to maintain his star status during the advent of “talkies”. Lockwood’s journey manifests fame’s capricious temperament, the studio’s commercial interest, and the influence of outside variables on a film. Singin’ in the Rain uses Lockwood’s struggle with celebrity to expose the importance of public image and self esteem.
One of the most prominent and influential directors in New Hollywood was Italian-American Martin Scorsese. His first major critical success, and what is often considered his “breakthrough” film, was 1973’s Mean Streets. This film helped to establish Scorsese’s signature style in regards to narrative and thematics as well as aesthetically. Scorsese developed a unique and distinct directorial flair to his films, with reoccurring themes, settings, cinematography, and editing techniques, among other elements. This led a number of film critics to declare Scorsese an “auteur,” similar to Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, and other auteur directors of the French New Wave.
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It is no doubt that Martin Scorsese has heavily influenced the emulating of American film making from European influences. He is a prime example of a ‘New Hollywood Cinema’ director, not only from his ethnicity and background, but from his sheer interest in this form
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Another key factor in having an impact on audiences is the quality of the actor’s
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The name most associated with excellence in theatre is William Shakespeare. His plays, more than any other playwright, resonate through the ages. It may be safe to say that he has influenced more actors, directors, and playwrights than any thespian in the history of the stage. But what were his influences? During the Middle Ages theatre was dominated by morality, miracle, and mystery plays that were often staged by the church as a means to teach the illiterate masses about Christianity. It wasn’t until the early sixteenth century that Greek tragedy experienced a revival, in turn, inspiring a generation of renaissance playwrights.