If u ask anyone including Brando himself as to who directed him best, the answer would be Kazan. Brando called him the best director ever. Brando acted with some luminary directors in his stellar career.
Kazan - Streetcar, Zapata, Waterfront
Coppola - Godfather, Apocalypse Now
Bertolucci - Tango
Pontercorvo - Burn
Huston - Reflections
Mankiewicz - Julius & Guys and Dolls
Some really great directors and Brando has always been very candid about his personal favourite directors - Kazan, Pontercorvo and Bertolucci
My personal favourite director who directed Brando is Marlon Brando. One Eyed Jacks is the movie.
It was a great movie and Brando got a great performance from himself, the subtext of the movie was Brando's triumph as a director and also the fact that Karl Malden who has always played nice guys played a gray character who leans to the dark side so beautifully.
Brando has only repeated around 3 director in his life - Kazan, FFC and Mankiewicz and there have been around 33 other movies by other directors, some Brando openly said were so bad they could not direct traffic ( Sidney J. Furie - Apaloosa).
So what made this uniquely gifted actor so indifferent to nearly every other director. My guess is nobody collaborated with Brando to develop a performance unlike his personal 3 directors.
Brando always tested a new director by giving 2 takes for the first shot. one take was Brando on the job and the second take was Brando phoning his performance and if the director could not tell the difference, then Brando said if he cant tell, than why should he (Brando) give it his all.
I wish Brando had directed after Jacks, but alas…
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
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3 comments:
One-Eyed Jacks was such a great film. I agree Brando directed himself to another fine role, but Karl Malden is just mesmerizing in it. 'Shakespearean' is the adjective that comes to my mind whenever I recall his marvellous job as the outlaw-turned-sheriff Dad Longworth. And Malden himself was outspoken in his praise for Brando the director.
It's also a pity that the Kazan-Brando team only lasted 3 movies --3 masterpieces indeed. That's the harm broken friendships and other damaged relationships can make to our world culture. It sucks!
another good one, kbr. but what about arthur penn? the chase and misouri breaks? i like penn and i think brando did, but certainly the results were more mixed than with the others you mention.
christian, the 3 with kazan came early on and close together. and of course he had worked with him in the theater on streetcar.
so brando went on to different things from shakespeare to musical comedy, which was great. but then kazan slowed down and stopped makin movies, tho he wanted marlon for the film version of his novel, 'the arrangement'.
i dont think that they never worked together due to personal antagonism. brando had already chosen to work with kazan after he gave testimony (named names) in the communist witchhunt crap. tho brando was very upset about it, he did make waterfront after that had happened and in fact waterfront was a not very thinly disguised rationalization for kazan namin names.
brando turned down 'the arrangement' because of the timing. he was very involved politically and i think he either didnt want to work at all or wanted to work on 'burn' since it had a message he liked, especially at that time.
well i forgot penn, i thought both the movies, had interesting portrayals from brando...
on the arrangment bit, brando turned down arrangment an dopted for Burn, coz Dr. King had just been assasinated and brando wanted to do a film on a subject which dealt with the issues of race equality
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