In our culture, many of us who are living otherwise ordinary lives seek vicarious thrills via the adoration of celebrities. Those who embrace this kind of fandom devour the tabloid newspapers and magazines that “report” on celebrity scandals, real or imagined. I must add here that, on one-too-many occasions, people who should know better have name-dropped celebs they might have met at a party or a premiere, as if this sort of thing would impress me. But the bottom line is that it is easy to fantasize about celebrities, and to assume that they all covet their fame and all the perks that come with it.
Well, in reality, the famous and the wealthy just may be vulnerable individuals who suffer the same insecurities or ill-luck as any person whose life is cloaked in anonymity. As evidence, take a look at AMY, directed by Asif Kapadia and newly-released to theaters: a potent documentary portrait of Amy Winehouse, the self-destructive, ill-fated singer. And also take a look at LISTEN TO ME MARLON, directed by Stevan Riley, a riveting but also controversial new documentary about Marlon Brando which momentarily will screen at Film Forum in Manhattan. (Film Forum also will be running a five-day, ten-film tribute to Brando in August.)
While AMY is deservedly earning major hype here in the U.S., one would hope that LISTEN TO ME MARLON will not go unnoticed simply because Amy Winehouse is a more “contemporary” personality than Marlon Brando. For one thing, LISTEN TO ME MARLON is not your standard by-the-numbers biography. While spotlighting Brando’s groundbreaking approach to acting, the film primarily is a psychological portrait of its subject.
It is reported that much of Brando’s worldview may be traced to his upbringing and the personalities of his parents: a brutal father with “not much love in him”; and a mother who is described as “the town drunk.” While so many crave fame and the kind of adulation that Brando was privy to, the actor ultimately is depicted as a victim of fame, a star who came to resent his celebrity because it ultimately took away his freedom. Brando muses on the “illusion of success,” of how it separates him from reality, and of how he found it discomforting “not to be able to be just an ordinary person.” People will prejudge you, he explains. You will be faced with “people staring at you like an animal in a zoo,” as well as “people (who) will mythologize you, no matter what you do. There’s something absurd about it.”
Brando also came to view acting as “lying for a living.” And his much-publicized involvement with the Native American and civil rights movements came out of his aversion to those who casually mistreat others, both in and out of Hollywood. Then there is Brando’s fascination with Tahiti. Here, he observes that “Tahitians have the beauty of sleeping children, and when they awaken they will awaken into the nightmare of what the white man lives under: the nightmare of the want of things.” Indeed, there is much to ponder in LISTEN TO ME MARLON.
Finally, what of the controversy in the film? At the outset, we are informed that during his lifetime Brando “made hundreds of hours of private audio journals, none of which have been heard by the public until now.” The key word here is: private. In LISTEN TO ME MARLON, which was produced in conjunction with the Brando estate, it is not made clear if the actor intended them to ever be made public or how he would respond if he knew that they were available for public consumption.
Brando passed away eleven years ago, so he cannot explain any of this. And so, does the inclusion of these tapes somehow makes LISTEN TO ME MARLON exploitive in nature? Is there a fine line between offering valuable insight into the life of a man of Brando’s stature and exploiting that stature? Also, less than three minutes into the film, a bit of Brando’s history is introduced. This has nothing to do with what earned him his fame: his legendary stage and screen performances in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, for example, or his work in ON THE WATERFRONT. It is a news report of a shooting in Brando’s home, and we are not told what that shooting is. For the record, it involves the killing of the boyfriend of Brando’s daughter by his son, all of which is detailed later in the film. This only is one example of the familial horrors that plagued Marlon Brando: horrors that many otherwise average individuals never experience.
Rob Edelman teaches film history at the University at Albany. He has written several books on film and television, and is an associate editor of Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide.
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