Who is the Next Marlon Brando?
Well, just who is the next Marlon Brando?" It's a question that's been playing on your mind as well, I know! However, before we blurt out an answer let us delve a little deeper into what "being the next Brando" actually means.
Am I speculating on who will be the next actor to wear a tight white t-shirt and mumble through a scene with spellbinding magnetism? Of course not!! That would be nothing more then re-selling a cheap parody of an image now over fifty years old.
Do I mean who will be the next marquee name actor to expand his waistline as if in preparation for digital wide screen? Wrong again, the muscle to fat ratio of your Hollywood A-lister is for the gossip magazines to chew over.
No...
to fully understand the question we must travel back in time to 1951 (the year, the film A Streetcar Named Desire was released no less) and explore what that performance, as Stanley Kowalski, did for modern cinema.
When Tennessee Williams wrote "Streetcar" for the stage (and also adapted it for the big screen) he could not have possibly envisaged the acting revolution it would bring about.
The Eliza Kazan film was a dramatic piece without any real precedent in cinema and went on to unsettle audiences long after the final line about the kindness of strangers had been wistfully uttered.
It was a heady combination of sexual tension, violence and unfulfilled longing which was as bold and as it was shocking at the time.
However, through 21st century eyes it lacks the cutting and gritty social realism that we have become accustomed too.
It still has the power to engage though it can only be viewed as a period piece due to the florid dialogue and sickly sweet aroma of melodrama which lingers just below the surface.
The one element though that has not dated a jot is the characterisation of the temperamental Polish salesman by a young actor named Marlon Brando.
While the rest of the cast (in particular Vivien Leigh) performed their roles admirably, Brando doesn't look as if he was performing for anyone and that, ultimately, was the crucial difference.
It could almost seem to someone with no knowledge of the casting process that they had not hired an actor but just pulled some guy off the street and asked if he wouldn't mind having a chat with a couple of ladies.
In short, here was an actor who didn't look as if he was acting at all!! Not even for a second.
He was doing all those things, be it playing poker, getting drunk or hitting someone, for real and it just happened to be captured on film.
That was the only explanation, surely?! Nobody can memorise words on a page and then make them sound this spontaneous! He's just making it up..
..
he must be! But of course he wasn't and cinema would never be the same again.
The after effects of this acting earthquake would be felt by his peers immediately and then by every subsequent generation for the rest of the century.
Every drama school, amateur production and high school show would now have a gum chewing, brooding presence lodged in the corner of the rehearsal room.
No longer was poor diction an overwhelming burden in communicating the sub text but instead, a new way to "naturalise" a part.
Acting was out, baby and "being" was in! He was helped by the fact that he did have genetics on side.
I mean would he really have burned himself onto the collective conscious of impressionable youths had he been a squat, chunky little thing with a double chin and false eye? The answer is..
..
highly unlikely, as the job requirements of being a movie icon do demand a certain aesthetic appeal and he, for a while, was happy to oblige.
He was not without his detractors (stand up comedians impersonating a mumbling Hamlet when it was announced he would be doing Shakespeare were two a dime) but he became, with astonishing speed, the poster boy for a new type of movie star.
Of course, for every trailblazer who lights the road of artistic endeavour with his or her talent come the pale imitators but that's to be expected: Imitation really is the highest form of flattery.
It all ended far too quickly in a messy, vomit coloured cocktail of self sabotage, lazy performances and Hollywood indulgence but, and here is the rub, even at his lowest ebb and in his worst of worst movies (and boy, were there some stinkers) he was still totally engaging.
How his apathy towards his craft must have infuriated the rest of the acting world who were chasing to catch up and then carry on what he started.
No matter how much he tried, his genius just couldn't be denied (as any bumper sticker company would rightly declare).
The true gift Marlon Brando gave to film was the gift of the new, of the daring, of the dynamic and that is what being the next Marlon Brando will demand.
So to complete the task of answering the above question we now need to survey the current cinematic landscape.
Christ, it's a barren, featureless desert out there.
Don't get me wrong, this new century has been blessed with some talented actors and wonderful filmmakers but what we seek is revelation and that is where the Hollywood machine breaks down.
It has nothing new to offer us anymore, nothing unexpected or without precedent.
It's a case of been there, seen that, got bored with the t-shirt.
However, a more fundamental hindrance to the movie industries lack of imagination is the fact that we (the movie going public) don't really expect it to anymore.
We know the drill to well to ever again buy into the Hollywood magic with the same unabashed spirit that those post war generations did.
A torrent of re-makes, poor sequels and over hyped flops by marketing men stuck with the task of polishing a turd have left us cynical and unreceptive to believing in the power of radical reinvention.
That's not a failing of ourselves but nor is it completely Hollywood's fault either for we live in very different times to those so called "golden years".
Choice is now king, nay God, in the new internet, broadband, I-pod and mobile age in which we live.
We simply don't have to follow the timetable of some multi stranded studio for when we decide to dip into the world of entertainment anymore.
We can now decide, to a greater extent then ever before, the context in which we absorb our evenings entertainment and it will only continue this way.
The summer/Christmas blockbuster has also played it's part in diluting the genuinely adventurous by promising bigger and brighter flashing lights to thrill and spill you with then the ever before.
It insists you constantly discard the old in favour of the new: "if it ain't now, it's nowhere" or so the media would have you believe.
It's a self defeating promise which bestows on every new big release the longevity of a pint of milk and lays another brick on the foundations of this disposable, throw away culture we are now building as our new home.
Yes, it's easy to look back on a by gone era with a moist eyed affection for something that did not really exist, for with every classic film comes a multitude of dross least we forget.
However, if the cultural environment for creating art that lingers in the heart and mind morphs once and for all into it's current state then it really will be time to declare "That's a wrap" on meaningful works in cinema.
So instead of scantily picking at a predictable buffet, always half distracted by what might be on the other table, maybe we should instead gather together for feast of exotic dishes of which we know not much about.
Perhaps, instead of searching for a new Marlon Brando we should instead search within for the thing we all lose as childhood leaves us behind, the ability to see simple truths...
and be amazed.
Am I speculating on who will be the next actor to wear a tight white t-shirt and mumble through a scene with spellbinding magnetism? Of course not!! That would be nothing more then re-selling a cheap parody of an image now over fifty years old.
Do I mean who will be the next marquee name actor to expand his waistline as if in preparation for digital wide screen? Wrong again, the muscle to fat ratio of your Hollywood A-lister is for the gossip magazines to chew over.
No...
to fully understand the question we must travel back in time to 1951 (the year, the film A Streetcar Named Desire was released no less) and explore what that performance, as Stanley Kowalski, did for modern cinema.
When Tennessee Williams wrote "Streetcar" for the stage (and also adapted it for the big screen) he could not have possibly envisaged the acting revolution it would bring about.
The Eliza Kazan film was a dramatic piece without any real precedent in cinema and went on to unsettle audiences long after the final line about the kindness of strangers had been wistfully uttered.
It was a heady combination of sexual tension, violence and unfulfilled longing which was as bold and as it was shocking at the time.
However, through 21st century eyes it lacks the cutting and gritty social realism that we have become accustomed too.
It still has the power to engage though it can only be viewed as a period piece due to the florid dialogue and sickly sweet aroma of melodrama which lingers just below the surface.
The one element though that has not dated a jot is the characterisation of the temperamental Polish salesman by a young actor named Marlon Brando.
While the rest of the cast (in particular Vivien Leigh) performed their roles admirably, Brando doesn't look as if he was performing for anyone and that, ultimately, was the crucial difference.
It could almost seem to someone with no knowledge of the casting process that they had not hired an actor but just pulled some guy off the street and asked if he wouldn't mind having a chat with a couple of ladies.
In short, here was an actor who didn't look as if he was acting at all!! Not even for a second.
He was doing all those things, be it playing poker, getting drunk or hitting someone, for real and it just happened to be captured on film.
That was the only explanation, surely?! Nobody can memorise words on a page and then make them sound this spontaneous! He's just making it up..
..
he must be! But of course he wasn't and cinema would never be the same again.
The after effects of this acting earthquake would be felt by his peers immediately and then by every subsequent generation for the rest of the century.
Every drama school, amateur production and high school show would now have a gum chewing, brooding presence lodged in the corner of the rehearsal room.
No longer was poor diction an overwhelming burden in communicating the sub text but instead, a new way to "naturalise" a part.
Acting was out, baby and "being" was in! He was helped by the fact that he did have genetics on side.
I mean would he really have burned himself onto the collective conscious of impressionable youths had he been a squat, chunky little thing with a double chin and false eye? The answer is..
..
highly unlikely, as the job requirements of being a movie icon do demand a certain aesthetic appeal and he, for a while, was happy to oblige.
He was not without his detractors (stand up comedians impersonating a mumbling Hamlet when it was announced he would be doing Shakespeare were two a dime) but he became, with astonishing speed, the poster boy for a new type of movie star.
Of course, for every trailblazer who lights the road of artistic endeavour with his or her talent come the pale imitators but that's to be expected: Imitation really is the highest form of flattery.
It all ended far too quickly in a messy, vomit coloured cocktail of self sabotage, lazy performances and Hollywood indulgence but, and here is the rub, even at his lowest ebb and in his worst of worst movies (and boy, were there some stinkers) he was still totally engaging.
How his apathy towards his craft must have infuriated the rest of the acting world who were chasing to catch up and then carry on what he started.
No matter how much he tried, his genius just couldn't be denied (as any bumper sticker company would rightly declare).
The true gift Marlon Brando gave to film was the gift of the new, of the daring, of the dynamic and that is what being the next Marlon Brando will demand.
So to complete the task of answering the above question we now need to survey the current cinematic landscape.
Christ, it's a barren, featureless desert out there.
Don't get me wrong, this new century has been blessed with some talented actors and wonderful filmmakers but what we seek is revelation and that is where the Hollywood machine breaks down.
It has nothing new to offer us anymore, nothing unexpected or without precedent.
It's a case of been there, seen that, got bored with the t-shirt.
However, a more fundamental hindrance to the movie industries lack of imagination is the fact that we (the movie going public) don't really expect it to anymore.
We know the drill to well to ever again buy into the Hollywood magic with the same unabashed spirit that those post war generations did.
A torrent of re-makes, poor sequels and over hyped flops by marketing men stuck with the task of polishing a turd have left us cynical and unreceptive to believing in the power of radical reinvention.
That's not a failing of ourselves but nor is it completely Hollywood's fault either for we live in very different times to those so called "golden years".
Choice is now king, nay God, in the new internet, broadband, I-pod and mobile age in which we live.
We simply don't have to follow the timetable of some multi stranded studio for when we decide to dip into the world of entertainment anymore.
We can now decide, to a greater extent then ever before, the context in which we absorb our evenings entertainment and it will only continue this way.
The summer/Christmas blockbuster has also played it's part in diluting the genuinely adventurous by promising bigger and brighter flashing lights to thrill and spill you with then the ever before.
It insists you constantly discard the old in favour of the new: "if it ain't now, it's nowhere" or so the media would have you believe.
It's a self defeating promise which bestows on every new big release the longevity of a pint of milk and lays another brick on the foundations of this disposable, throw away culture we are now building as our new home.
Yes, it's easy to look back on a by gone era with a moist eyed affection for something that did not really exist, for with every classic film comes a multitude of dross least we forget.
However, if the cultural environment for creating art that lingers in the heart and mind morphs once and for all into it's current state then it really will be time to declare "That's a wrap" on meaningful works in cinema.
So instead of scantily picking at a predictable buffet, always half distracted by what might be on the other table, maybe we should instead gather together for feast of exotic dishes of which we know not much about.
Perhaps, instead of searching for a new Marlon Brando we should instead search within for the thing we all lose as childhood leaves us behind, the ability to see simple truths...
and be amazed.
Source...