Marlon Brando who died in 2004 left behind hundreds of hours of audio recordings on tape where he discusses various aspects of his life, the highs, the lows and his acting career. Some of it is incoherent as he rambles and mumbles in a bewildering manner.
The film is topped and tailed by a digitised head of Brando created for some unspecified movie. Brando revolutionised screen acting by popularising techniques he learned from Stella Adler, the Method which wowed the stage and he then brought it on screen. You can hear him tell us how exhilarating it felt was to finish a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire, getting on a motorbike, riding around New York in the early hours, then heading to a club in Harlem and party the rest of the night.
We see interview footage, documentary clips and clips from films like On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Godfather, Mutiny of the Bounty, The Formula, Apocalypse Now, Last Tango in Paris.
It is insightful to see him playing Don Corleone and hear the man how he prepared for the role, his motivation. In a sense an acting masterclass when he tells how easy it is to slap Johnny Fontaine on the screen but to stay still, silent when he hears the news that his son Sonny is killed, that was difficult.
Brando was also a political activist, he had strong views of race, the shoddy treatment of native Indians. Less interesting to me was his haphazard and in some sense tragic personal life, especially as his son was accused of murder.
This is not a complete picture though. As an actor Brando started the 1950s as a trailblazer but also acquired a reputation of being difficult and lazy. The 1960s were dogged by movies that were critical and commercial failures until he won his second Oscar for The Godfather.
Then apart from Last Tango, he made cameos vast amounts of money such as Superman and The Formula. By which time he was obese, not bothering to learn his lines but get fed them via an earpiece.
I wanted to know more about this, we get little. It is left to Francis Coppola in his own documentary footage to tell us about the frustrations of working with Brando for Apocalypse Now.
His final acting years where he would make fitful appearances are glossed over. I would like to have heard him talk about his significant role in A Dry White Season, a film he worked for almost no pay and for which he got his final Oscar nomination.
I was never too enthused by this film. I still felt I got to know very little about Brando but it was nice to hear from him even though some of what he said was less than compelling.
The film is topped and tailed by a digitised head of Brando created for some unspecified movie. Brando revolutionised screen acting by popularising techniques he learned from Stella Adler, the Method which wowed the stage and he then brought it on screen. You can hear him tell us how exhilarating it felt was to finish a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire, getting on a motorbike, riding around New York in the early hours, then heading to a club in Harlem and party the rest of the night.
We see interview footage, documentary clips and clips from films like On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Godfather, Mutiny of the Bounty, The Formula, Apocalypse Now, Last Tango in Paris.
It is insightful to see him playing Don Corleone and hear the man how he prepared for the role, his motivation. In a sense an acting masterclass when he tells how easy it is to slap Johnny Fontaine on the screen but to stay still, silent when he hears the news that his son Sonny is killed, that was difficult.
Brando was also a political activist, he had strong views of race, the shoddy treatment of native Indians. Less interesting to me was his haphazard and in some sense tragic personal life, especially as his son was accused of murder.
This is not a complete picture though. As an actor Brando started the 1950s as a trailblazer but also acquired a reputation of being difficult and lazy. The 1960s were dogged by movies that were critical and commercial failures until he won his second Oscar for The Godfather.
Then apart from Last Tango, he made cameos vast amounts of money such as Superman and The Formula. By which time he was obese, not bothering to learn his lines but get fed them via an earpiece.
I wanted to know more about this, we get little. It is left to Francis Coppola in his own documentary footage to tell us about the frustrations of working with Brando for Apocalypse Now.
His final acting years where he would make fitful appearances are glossed over. I would like to have heard him talk about his significant role in A Dry White Season, a film he worked for almost no pay and for which he got his final Oscar nomination.
I was never too enthused by this film. I still felt I got to know very little about Brando but it was nice to hear from him even though some of what he said was less than compelling.