Listen To Me Marlon
Brando on Brando.
Arriving shortly after Anton Corbijn’s Life, which dealt with the short-but-explosive career of James Dean, comes Stevan Riley’s doc about that other towering Method actor of the era: Marlon Brando. Unique and utterly engaging, Listen To Me Marlon has a major ace up its sleeve; some 300-odd hours of private audio recordings made by Brando, unearthed from his personal archive. As the opening caption tells us, these have never been heard in public.
As a result, Riley, who previously directed celebratory 2012 James Bond doc Everything Or Nothing and West Indian cricket team tale Fire In Babylon, sets out to tell Brando’s story in his own words. Talk about a voice from beyond the grave. Hearing the distinct cadence of his tones, the effect is nothing less than eerie; more so when Riley cuts some of these ramblings to a digitised head of Brando (taken from a time he had his face scanned, when such technology was still in its infancy).
Largely using archive footage to complement Brando’s words, Riley doesn’t set out to deliver a soft-soap Hollywood bio. Distressing moments in the actor’s life, from the arrest of his son Christian after a shooting at Brando’s home, to the suicide of his daughter Cheyenne, are touched on, alongside the highs and lows of an undulating career that went from iconic performances like A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront to disasters like Mutiny On The Bounty.
Among the revelations are his private feelings towards Francis Ford Coppola when Brando followed his Oscar-winning performance in The Godfather with his turn as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. While Coppola spread the story that Brando arrived on set overweight and unprepared, Brando contests this here. Sadly, Riley overlooks the final act in Brando’s career – a nod to The Island Of Dr. Moreau would’ve been great. But, for the most part, this is an illuminating look at the man behind the myth. James Mottram
THE VERDICT Putting a hugely fresh spin on the idea of a talking-head doc, Listen To Me Marlon makes you an offer you can’t refuse: the chance to wallow in Brando’s psyche. Fascinating.
› Certificate 15 Director Stevan Riley Starring Marlon Brando Screenplay Stevan Riley, Peter Ettedgui Distributor Universal Running time 98 mins