Like The Beatles, Elvis or even the birth of Jesus the constant telling and retelling of the basic known story tends to - initially - put off the would-be consumer to a "new" product. But please don't be. True, Brando's troubled background (both parents being alcoholic) and sudden rise to fame in "Streetcar" (Named Desire) are the stuff of showbiz legend.
(To be snobbish to other reviewers I have also read his own autobiography Songs My Mother Taught Me which is required reading if full context and detail is wanted or required. His wives apart.)
Yet, despite my doubts, this is an amazing documentary. Indeed it breaks through to another level of understanding and comprehension. Rather like the Watergate Tapes did for our understanding of Nikon.
Brando had himself digitised for the video game The Godfather (how they persuaded him to do so is unexplored - money probably) and in this guise he repeatedly speaks his own lines to camera. A device which - like a magician's trick - gets a bit tiresome when over-repeated. The only real fault I can lay at the door of this production apart from the difficulty of actually catching what he said.
(Frank Sinatra didn't call him "Mr Mumbles" for nothing.)
The central problem with Brando is that he liked to think of himself as an intellectual or even a philosopher, but he simply didn't have the brains for it. Not that he was in any way stupid. Only mediocre.
Monty Clift (glimpsed in passing) was a far smarter man and probably a better all-round actor. Shouting and roaring (and doing so as a thick set man) is no real achievement and although he could be subtle he rarely was. Accents weren't his thing either and his appalling British accent on Mutiny of the Bounty showed. Maybe the worst accent this side of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
(Let us throw a complete blanket over his refusal to learn lines later in the his career - although not glossed over in this documentary.)
Healthy genes, a wide smile and devil-may-care attitude attracted many women. And some men. But was there anything more than the passing or cheap thrill about the man? No grade A actress ever did more than have a fling with him and his marriage partners remain a mystery. Nothing here gives us a grain of help - although his good words about Tahitians maybe explains one of his later marriage choices. Not that it didn't - again - fail.
Accusations of being difficult on set are treated as being misguided, although he undoubtedly was very difficult and on the set of Last Tango and possibly even criminal. You have no right to go beyond to what is agreed in the script or a rehearsal - even if it does create realism.
Finally we have to throw in that overused word "complex." But in lifestyle he wasn't a complex man at all. He liked cheap food (and lots of it), wore cheap clothes and preferred the company of cheap women. His relationship with Michael Jackson is unexplored or even mentioned. Maybe he had lost his mind by then?
He does make sense when says that you have to be your own psychiatrist and know your own foibles and their possible causes. I knew that without spending a penny though...
He was only a dabbler in politics, although the things he supported were ahead of their time. However his greatest art was to be a one-off and an immortal. The recipe for which remains, as yet, unknown. However one of the key ingredients is to be different...
(To be snobbish to other reviewers I have also read his own autobiography Songs My Mother Taught Me which is required reading if full context and detail is wanted or required. His wives apart.)
Yet, despite my doubts, this is an amazing documentary. Indeed it breaks through to another level of understanding and comprehension. Rather like the Watergate Tapes did for our understanding of Nikon.
Brando had himself digitised for the video game The Godfather (how they persuaded him to do so is unexplored - money probably) and in this guise he repeatedly speaks his own lines to camera. A device which - like a magician's trick - gets a bit tiresome when over-repeated. The only real fault I can lay at the door of this production apart from the difficulty of actually catching what he said.
(Frank Sinatra didn't call him "Mr Mumbles" for nothing.)
The central problem with Brando is that he liked to think of himself as an intellectual or even a philosopher, but he simply didn't have the brains for it. Not that he was in any way stupid. Only mediocre.
Monty Clift (glimpsed in passing) was a far smarter man and probably a better all-round actor. Shouting and roaring (and doing so as a thick set man) is no real achievement and although he could be subtle he rarely was. Accents weren't his thing either and his appalling British accent on Mutiny of the Bounty showed. Maybe the worst accent this side of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
(Let us throw a complete blanket over his refusal to learn lines later in the his career - although not glossed over in this documentary.)
Healthy genes, a wide smile and devil-may-care attitude attracted many women. And some men. But was there anything more than the passing or cheap thrill about the man? No grade A actress ever did more than have a fling with him and his marriage partners remain a mystery. Nothing here gives us a grain of help - although his good words about Tahitians maybe explains one of his later marriage choices. Not that it didn't - again - fail.
Accusations of being difficult on set are treated as being misguided, although he undoubtedly was very difficult and on the set of Last Tango and possibly even criminal. You have no right to go beyond to what is agreed in the script or a rehearsal - even if it does create realism.
Finally we have to throw in that overused word "complex." But in lifestyle he wasn't a complex man at all. He liked cheap food (and lots of it), wore cheap clothes and preferred the company of cheap women. His relationship with Michael Jackson is unexplored or even mentioned. Maybe he had lost his mind by then?
He does make sense when says that you have to be your own psychiatrist and know your own foibles and their possible causes. I knew that without spending a penny though...
He was only a dabbler in politics, although the things he supported were ahead of their time. However his greatest art was to be a one-off and an immortal. The recipe for which remains, as yet, unknown. However one of the key ingredients is to be different...