Marlon Brando Dies Aged 80

The film world was sad to learn of the death of Marlon Brando this week after he passed away in a Los Angeles hospital at the age of eighty.

The film world was sad to learn of the death of Marlon Brando this week after he passed away in a Los Angeles hospital at the age of eighty. It was well-reported that the screen legend had been suffering through ill-health of late but news of his death was still great with shock when it was announced. Brando has been a recluse in recent times, but it is a measure of the man that the world remained interested in his activities despite shunning Hollywood for almost twenty five years.

The actor led a turbulent life and had problems in the homeplace growing up and in his personal life as he grew older. The fact that his father was a womaniser and his mother an alcoholic was probably always going to sow the seeds of discontent for him later in life. He was married three times and had eleven children, the issues he carried over with him from childhood passed over to his next of kin and Brando's clan were to endure disruptive events during his lifetime. The most infamous event occurred when one of his sons' killed his sibling's fiancee and served five years in jail as a result, his half-sister ended up committing suicide in light of her lover's death.

However Brando will not be remembered for the events in his personal life but for the tremendous acting ability he was able to draw from them through method acting. He was to become the discipline's most famous students and even early on in his career the actor was able to climb the ranks quickly due to his extraordinary talent. Brando's breakthrough came when he was cast as Stanley Kowalski in a Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire, the role led to starring parts in movies which made him a Hollywood superstar.

The actor made four movies between 1952 and 1954 which were the highlight of his early career and cemented his status as a legend. The films - Viva Zapata!, Julius Caesar, The Wild One and On The Waterfront - were a huge success and Brando even won an Oscar for his role as Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront. Despite their age some of the movies still retain their tremendous influence on modern culture, the image of Brando's character Johnny in The Wild One remains an iconic image to this day. Their influences are there for all to see: indie rock act BRMC are named after the gang in The Wild One and Martin Scorsese pays tribute to Brando's first Oscar winning performance in Raging Bull with the "I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender" reference.

What goes up must invariably come down and sure enough so did Brando's star. The Hollywood legend was to endure many barren years with all but a few of his offering discounted by the critics. It was at this point that Brando began to become disillusioned with his lifestyle and famously dismissed acting as 'a bum's life'. However 1972 marked a critical point in his career, he won his second Oscar for his role in The Godfather but also came under heavy criticism for The Last Tango in Paris. Most film fans will remember Marlon Brando for his portrayal of Don Vito Corleone in one of Hollywood's most celebrated movies, but many will be shocked to hear that he didn't show up at the Oscar ceremonies to collect his award. Instead he sent a American Indian to collect the statuette as protest against the American government's treatment of the native people.

He garnered further controversy in the same year for his role in The Last Tango in Paris which was banned because of the sex scenes involved, the end result of which was Brando's disenchantment with Hollywood. As a result little was seen of the acting legend in the coming years, however he gave what went on to be my personal favourite Brando performance as that of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. The film elicited striking performances from Martin Sheen, Dennis Hopper and Robert Duvall but Brando's presence just blew them away; his truly haunting manner on screen set the tone for a movie that truly stood apart from its peers.

Tales of the Hollywood star's excesses and strange behaviour became commonplace and his behaviour was erratic to say the least. He stayed away from acting as much as he could but was always drawn back by the money, his credibility as an artist suffered as he signed on to movies like Superman; a brief ten minute cameo in the superhero flick landed him a cool three million dollar fee and a percentage of the profits. One of the saddest points of his career was his appearance in The Island of Dr Moreau; the film was critically mauled and truly marked the depth of his descent.

Whether you were a fan or not it is hard to find a cinema-goer who has not heard the name of Marlon Brando. His performances on screen were so stunning that they are recognisable to this day; Brando has left an imprint on modern cinema and will rightly be remembered as one of the finest actors that ever lived. It is such a shame that a celebrated icon should have fallen from grace, but they say true genius has its drawbacks.

Piaras Kelly
Editor, Kikizo Movies