Listen to Me Marlon (2015) Movie Script

(TAPE RECORDER CLICKS)
BRANDO:
This is the beginning of the tape.
We're on mono and we're on microphone 1.
Okay.
Now listen,
let me tell you something that I did.
I've had my head digitized.
And they put this laser
and it goes around you like this...
and they digitized my face.
And I made a lot of faces
and smiled and...
and made a sad face and...
So they've got it all on digital.
And actors are not going to be real,
they're going to be inside a computer.
You watch, it's gonna happen.
So maybe this is the swan song
for all of us.
(ELECTRONIC NOISES)
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...
creeps in this petty pace
from day to day,
to the last syllable of recorded time;
and all our yesterdays
have lighted fools the way
to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle.
Life's but a walking shadow,
a poor player, that struts
and frets his hour upon the stage,
and then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot,
full of sound
and fury,
signifying...
nothing.
POLICE OFFICER: Copy. All available
units responding to a shooting.
MALE REPORTER:
Police came to a call to 911,
but this was no ordinary address,
the caller no ordinary citizen.
Marlon Brando was on the line
to report a shooting at his home.
Misery...
has come to my house.
FEMALE REPORTER: Brando won an Oscar
for his performance in the 1954 film
On the Waterfront.
He was already being acclaimed
as the greatest American
film actor ever.
You take the good goods away,
and the kickbacks
and the shakedown cabbage
and them pistoleros and you're nothin'.
Hey, Stella.
INTERVIEWER:
You can bet that Marlon Brando's impact
on the world of movie acting
will still be felt 500 years from now.
I'm gonna make him an offer
he can't refuse.
MALE REPORTER: Marlon Brando was here
at his home at the time of the shooting,
but police who questioned the actor
say he did not witness it.
MALE REPORTER 2: The shooting
put a spotlight on the private life
of one of Hollywood's
most reclusive stars.
BRANDO: And it's been a struggle
to try to preserve sanity
and sense of reality
that is taken away from you by success.
BRANDO: It will be
a highly personalized documentary
on the life activities of myself,
Marlon Brando.
We establish that he is a troubled man,
alone, beset with memories,
in a state of confusion and sadness,
isolation, disorder.
He's wounded beyond being able
to be social in an ordinary way,
he becomes like a mechanical doll.
Maybe he felt that he was treated badly.
And that he's angry about the treatment.
He's collecting bits
of information here, odd bits of film
to try to explain why are you this way?
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
Now let your mind drift
back,
way back in time
to a time when you were very young,
when you used to wake up in the morning,
put on your clothes
while everyone was sleeping,
and walk down the sidewalk in Omaha
and sit underneath that big elm tree.
With the wind blowing the light,
the shadow of leaves.
It is like a wonderful, soft dream
and that soft wind calling.
That's a wind that you can trust.
You are the memories.
I've always in my life had
a strong sense that I had to be free.
Standing on that train, I was free.
I used to love to stand in the car
and listen to the rails.
(MIMICS RHYTHM OF A TRAIN'S MOVEMENT)
You know?
It's an eccentric kind of rhythm.
I arrived in New York with holes
in my socks and holes in my mind.
I remember getting drunk,
lying down on the sidewalk
and going to sleep.
Nobody bothered me.
I was always somebody who had
an unquenchable curiosity about people.
I liked to walk down the street
and look at faces.
I used to go to the comer
of Broadway and 42nd Street
in an Optimo cigar store.
I would watch people for three seconds
as they went by
and try to analyze their personality
by just that flick.
The face can hide many things.
And people are always hiding things.
I was interested to guess
the things that people
did not know about themselves.
What they feel, what they think,
why they feel.
How is it that we behave the way we do?
What is the answer?
Is there any answer?
There is something
that you need very deeply.
Some kind of contact,
some experience
to give you a sense of fulfillment.
I had a great feeling of inadequacy,
that I didn't know enough,
that I didn't have enough education.
I felt dumb.
I became an actor
pretty much by accident.
I went to the New School
for Social Research,
which is an extraordinary institution
of learning.
My teachers were all Jewish,
because the New School
was a clearing house
for Jews that escaped from Hitler.
They were very respected people.
The cream of academia.
Control over your lives
begins with this class.
BRANDO: I studied with a woman
by the name of Stella Adler.
She was a fine actress,
a really wonderful actress.
The smell of the greasepaint
and lure of the theatrical experience
came out in her teaching technique.
ADLER:
The play has nothing to do with words.
You do not act words,
you act with your soul.
BRANDO: I was very shy when I was a kid.
Sensitive, very sensitive.
ADLER: In the theater,
the actor is the boss.
It's against the nature of human life
to withdraw.
BRANDO: "Don't be afraid," she said.
"You have a right to be who you are,
where you are and how you are."
ADLER:
Be in a state of honesty up there.
BRANDO:
Allowing yourself to feel things,
to feel love or to feel rage.
ADLER: Speak out the thoughts
that are tormenting you.
BRANDO: Everybody's got a story to tell,
something they're hiding.
ADLER: Do not bring anything
in the present
that doesn't have the past.
BRANDO: We develop the technique
of acting very, very early.
Even from the time we're a kid,
where we're throwing our oatmeal
on the floor
just to get attention from our mothers.
Acting is surviving.
Yeah, that's my mother.
That photograph there.
This is a portrait of my mom
when she was about forty.
And she was a marvellous person.
For instance, she dressed up a pet goose
we had for Santa Claus.
She made a Santa Claus out of it,
made a little red costume for it
and a beard and everything.
She was a very inventive
and artistic woman.
And I miss her very much.
I was given by my mother
a sense of the absurd.
She had false teeth.
Once in a while she'd laugh.
While she was laughing,
her teeth would come off her gums.
And the more I laughed,
the more she thought it was funny
and we both ended up laughing real hard.
My mother taught me a love for nature,
and a sense of closeness with animals.
You couldn't think of a tune
she couldn't play on the piano.
Not one.
I like remembering about her.
I used to love the smell of liquor
on her breath.
And her breath becomes very, very sweet.
It's a lovely fragrance.
My mother was an alcoholic.
We lived in a small town
and my mother was the town drunk.
She began to dissolve
and fray at the ends.
When my mother was missing.
Gone off someplace,
we didn't know where she was.
I used to have to go
and get her out of jail.
Memories even now
that fill me with shame and anger.
ADLER: You have to constantly act.
It is not important
to defend your faults in the theater.
It's important to overcome them.
BRANDO: Stella very kindly invited me
into her home.
I then became part of her family.
When I was really suffering
and disjointed, disoriented with life,
she was always very loving towards me.
I'd never done anything in life
that anybody ever said I was good at.
She put her hand on my shoulders
and said, "Don't worry, my boy."
"I have seen you,
and the world is going to hear from you."
INTERVIEWER:
From the T-shirt clad Stanley Kowalski
in Streetcar Named Desire,
the role which catapulted him
to international fame,
we're very pleased
to have with us this morning
as our guest Mr Marlon Brando.
BRANDO: Streetcar Named Desire
was very satisfying to be in,
because I thought
it was a wonderful play.
The story was superb
and the production was wonderful.
You must be Stanley.
Oh, hiya. Where's the little woman?
BRANDO: It was a very explosive part
and it electrified everybody.
You want a shot?
BLANCHE: No, I rarely touch it.
Well, some people, they rarely touch it,
but it touches them often.
BRANDO: I was quite nutty
when I was young
and I would have a lot of energy.
Rain forever.
BRANDO:
'Cause you couldn't come out flat,
you couldn't come out slow.
After the play was over,
I felt like a million bucks.
I was off into the night
with sparkles and zest
to see whatever I could find.
How wonderful it was to drive around
on a motorcycle with just a T-shirt on.
Two, three, four o'clock in the morning.
Some small club
in the black section of town.
And I was screaming
when they were playing those drums.
I'd hear that shit,
it just used to take me to another land.
This is my moment,
I want to take this moment
and that was wonderful.
And then your life changes.
Suddenly, there's a lot more girls
saying, "Hi, Mar."
When I was younger,
I was a fairly attractive kid.
I had a lot of derring-do and panache.
I was unpredictable and stimulating
for a lot of young girls.
(MIMICS CAT'S SCREECH)
BRANDO: I was young and destined
to spread my seed far and wide.
Girls and fun and good food
and sense of health and purpose...
It can't get better than this.
Nothing in life
could be better than this.
I was always making jokes and teasing,
playing practical jokes on everybody.
(LAUGHS)
To be able to have money.
I never had any money.
My father was a traveling salesman.
I was making more in six months of work
than he made in ten years.
He measured everything by money.
He couldn't understand
how this ne'er-do-well son of his
could possibly do that.
If I have a scene to play
and I have to be angry,
there must be within you trigger
mechanisms that are spring-loaded,
that are filled with contempt
about something.
I remember my father hitting my mother.
I was fourteen.
Now that's how
I'm gonna clear the table.
Don't you ever talk that way to me.
BRANDO: My old man was tough.
He was a bar fighter.
He was a man with not much love in him.
Staying away from home,
drinking and whoring
all around the Midwest.
He used to slap me around,
and for no good reason.
And I was truly intimidated by him
at that time.
Now what kind of a queen
do you think you are?
You know that I've been onto you
from the start,
and not once did you pull the wool
over this boy's eyes.
BRANDO: When things
are extremely painful to you,
you don't want them
in your consciousness,
you want to forget about them.
And you are the Queen of the Nile,
sitting on your throne,
swilling down my liquor.
You know what I say? Ha-ha!
BRANDO: You can imagine
having to go someplace every night
and go through all that,
get yourself upset...
To have to cry or to scream
or to be ruined in some way,
that's work.
That's hard work.
People invariably associated me
with the part I played,
so that it was difficult to believe
that I didn't eat off the floor,
or that I, you know, didn't run up
the street with my shoes off,
and so it's been a hard thing
sort of living that down.
There is nothing about me
that is like Stanley Kowalski.
I hate that kinda guy.
I absolutely hate that person
and I couldn't identify with it.
The brute, dark character that
represented the beasts and the animals.
They sent me to a psychiatrist.
They thought I was going nuts,
losing my mind.
Stella told me,
if you come to the theater
and you feel a hundred percent,
show eighty.
If you come and you feel sixty percent,
show forty.
If you come to the theater
and you only feel forty percent,
best to turn around and go home.
INTERVIEWER:
I was wondering if you have any plans
to return to the stage
in the near future.
BRANDO: No, I don't have any immediate
intentions of returning to the stage.
(TAPE RECORDER CLICKS)
BRANDO: The shouts of freedom
are also the rattling of chains.
BRANDO:
You seem to be such a restless man.
Eyes always darting.
BRANDO: I don't know,
I guess I've just got loose feet.
INTERVIEWER: I infer from that that you
do not thoroughly enjoy your profession.
Or you don't enjoy it at all.
BRANDO: No, I think that people
do what they enjoy,
or else they don't do it.
People do what they want to do.
If there are adverse conditions
that surround my work,
they are not adverse enough
to make me change activities.
If I hadn't had the good luck
to be an actor,
I don't know what I would've been.
I'd have probably been a con man.
A good con man.
Tell smooth lies, give impressions
of things that he thinks,
or appears to think
that he doesn't think.
Since I don't do anything else well,
and up to this time I haven't decided
what else I would like to do,
I might as well put all my energies
into being as good an actor as I can.
WOMAN:
Now will you turn your head for us?
Sure.
WOMAN: Now around the other way.
Now all the way around.
All right. Thank you and stay around.
BRANDO: Shakespeare said,
"There is no art to find
the mind's construction in the face."
And there should be such an art.
When the camera is close on you,
your face becomes the stage.
Your face is the proscenium arch
of the theater, thirty feet high.
And it sees all the little movements
of the face and the eye and the mouth.
You have the intensity to act.
I wanted very much
to be involved in motion pictures,
so I could change it
into something nearer the truth.
And I was convinced
that I could do that.
About my playing the tuba...
Seems like a lot of fuss
has been made about that.
BRANDO: In the '30s and '40s
you had a particular kind of acting.
You knew who you were gonna get
when you went to the movies.
Gary Cooper oats.
Shredded Wheat Bogart.
Clark Gable Crunchy Fruit Loops.
They were just like breakfast cereals.
The same in every role.
Gestures of anguish and despair,
and that kind of acting became absurd.
The astounding thing
most people don't realize.
All motion pictures today,
all acting today,
stems from Stella Adler.
INTERVIEWER: Stella, so much
has been talked about Method acting.
What exactly is the Method?
All right, let's start at the beginning.
BRANDO: Stella went to Paris
and studied
with Konstantin Stanislavsky,
the great Russian teacher,
brought back
her experience and knowledge
of this particular form of acting.
Reality, realness, carried by an actor
to achieve the truth.
This is the most modern technique.
BRANDO: Everything that you do,
make it real as you can.
Make it alive, make it tangible,
find the truth of that moment.
Mr Stanislavsky understood that.
BRANDO: And the style of acting
changed completely.
The first movie I ever did
was called The Men.
L played a paraplegic
and lived in a hospital
with paraplegics for three weeks.
Physicality is a tough thing.
I spent a lot of time just studying
everything they do.
I wanted to see how
they got in and out of their chairs.
The manner in which you crawled
from one place to another.
Paraplegics,
they do the most amazing things.
Races without their chairs,
I've seen guys walk on their hands.
They can do one-armed pull-ups,
they can do everything.
You have to know your subject,
you have to know your character.
Putting yourself
in a different state of mind.
What they felt like,
what their frustrations were
knowing that they couldn't have sex.
BRANDO AS KEN:
What am I gonna do, where am I gonna go?
I can't go out there anymore.
BRANDO: He just sits there
and he marinates his mind.
In the intellect; that's all he's got.
Put your heart into it.
Get yourself up emotionally.
At night I think about it,
dream about it
and I wake up being absorbed by it.
People have routines:
acting routines, dancing routines,
painting routines.
The same thing over and over again.
Everything is a clich.
When an actor takes a little too long
as he's walking to the door,
you know he's going to stop
and turn around and say...
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
BRANDO:
Jersey Joe Walcott, terrific fighter.
He'd be boxing, he'd be throwing
some punches and bing!
He'd have his fist in somebody's face.
You'd think it was coming out
of the southwest
and there it comes out of the northeast.
He would never let you know
where he was going to hit you.
You.
BRANDO: Never let the audience know
how it's gonna come out.
What is your name?
BRANDO: Get them on your time.
Emiliano Zapata.
BRANDO: And when that time comes
and everything is right,
you just fuck, let fly.
O judgment, thou art fled
to brutish beasts,
and men have lost their reason.
BRANDO: Hit them, knock them over.
With an attitude,
with a word, with a look.
I don't like cops.
BRANDO: Be surprising.
Figure out a way to do it
that has never been done before.
You gotta put something down,
you gotta make some jive.
Don't you know what I'm talking about?
BRANDO: You want to stop that movement
from the popcorn to the mouth.
Cry "Havoc,"
and let slip the dogs of war.
BRANDO: Get people to stop chewing.
That this foul deed
shall smell above the earth.
BRANDO: The truth will do that.
Damn, damn, damn, damn.
When it's right, it's right.
You can feel it in your bones.
Then you feel whole,
then you feel good.
It was pre-sixties.
People were looking for rebellion,
and I happened to be at the fight place
at the right time
with the right state of mind.
In a sense, it was my own story.
Rebelling for the sake of rebelling.
WOMAN: Hello, Mr Brando.
I hope you don't think
I'm too crazy for making this recording.
I wrote you a fan letter once,
but I don't know if you received it.
Once I saw a picture of you
with a white cat. Was it yours?
I'll bet you're one of the kindest,
most interesting fellows in Hollywood.
I suppose I'm judging the book
by the cover,
but perhaps I'm not too far wrong.
Mr Brando?
I hope this isn't too personal,
but I always say what I think,
so I won't stop now.
I admire you very much,
both as an actor and a person.
Many, many other people
feel the same way.
I think one of the main reasons
that I admire you
is because you aren't afraid
to be yourself,
instead of being a carbon copy
of everyone else.
It would be a pretty dull world
if everyone behaved in the same way,
so three cheers for you, Mr Brando.
BRANDO: I didn't intend to have
that extraordinary effect.
I became, very quickly, a cult hero.
And now I know that you're as anxious
as I am to find out what actor
has won the Oscar
for the best perfonnance of this year.
The winner is
Marlon Brando for On the Waterfront.
REPORTER: Marlon Brando,
an actor of very considerable talent.
The youngest actor
ever honoured in this way.
BRANDO: When I saw the picture finally,
I was so embarrassed,
so disappointed in my performance.
It's much heavier than I imagined.
It's like carrying a monkey around
on your back.
They're asking me to put the finger
on my own brother.
BRANDO: It's a very strange thing
this business of storytelling.
You don't always know when you're good.
You wanna hear my philosophy of life?
Do it to him before he does it to you.
BRANDO: People will mythologize you
no matter what you do.
There's something absurd about it,
that people go with hard-earned cash
into a darkened room
where they sit
and they look at a crystalline screen
upon which images move around
and speak.
And the reason they don't have light
in the theater
is because you are there
with your fantasy.
The person up on the screen
is doing all the things
that you want to do,
they're kissing the woman
you want to kiss,
hitting the people you want to hit,
being brave in a way
that you want to be brave.
The audience will lend themselves
to the subject.
They will create things
that are not there.
Listen to me, Terry, take the job.
Just take it. No questions, take it.
BRANDO: There are times I know
I did much better acting
than in that scene
from On the Waterfront.
You don't understand.
I coulda had class.
I coulda been a contender.
I coulda been somebody.
Instead of a bum.
Which is what I am, let's face it.
BRANDO: It had nothing to do with me.
The audience does the work,
they are doing the acting.
Everybody feels like they're a failure,
everybody feels
they could've been a contender.
Inferiority.
I've been very close to it all my life.
ED MURROW: Marlon,
I know your dad is in town tonight.
Is he hiding out somewhere?
BRANDO: No, I'll get him in here. Pop?
Come on out.
ED MURROW: We'll ask Mr Brando
some questions about his son
and I'm sure we'll get
the blunt and direct answers.
Good evening, Mr Brando.
I imagine you're just a bit proud
of your son right now, aren't you?
Well, as an actor not too proud,
but as a man, why, quite proud.
ED MURROW: Mr Brando, tell me this.
Was he hard to handle as a child?
FATHER: I think he had the usual...
childhood traits.
I think he had probably a little more
trouble with his parents
than most children do.
ED MURROW: Marlon, in the interests
of justice and fairness,
would you like 30 seconds
to defend yourself?
Well, I don't feel
I need to defend myself.
I can lick this guy with one hand, so...
Let it go.
BRANDO: We had an act
we put on for each other.
I played the loving son
and they played the adoring parents.
There was a lot of hypocrisy.
When what you are as a child
is unwanted, it's unwelcome,
then you look for an identity
that will be acceptable.
So I had a wide variety
of perfonnances in me.
ED SULLIVAN: I'm very anxious for you.
I know you haven't seen
all of the footage,
but your light comedy performance
in Guys and Dolls
is really terrific, Marlon.
Well, I hope so.
I'm very anxious to see it.
In fact, I'm dying to see it.
How was Vegas?
Paradise. For two weeks I gambled
in green pastures,
the dice were my cousins
and the dolls were agreeable
with nice teeth and no last names.
You don't believe I'm a sinner, do you?
I'm prepared to believe that you are the
biggest sinner I ever met in my life.
BRANDO: It's part of an actor's trade
to be able to play in a light vein
and be an entertainer
as well as a serious storyteller.
And I feel that I perhaps have neglected
that part of my career up to this point.
When I go to set I have a lot of fun,
because it's a gay affair.
It's pleasant to look forward to,
it's a nice way to spend your day,
rather than be in the middle of a miasma
of seriousness and gravity.
As a kid, when I used to sell bottles
and cut lawns
to get my ten cents to go to the movie,
and I would escape everything.
That sense of good feeling,
that got me through the week.
Those moments were magical.
REPORTER: The glittering world premiere
at New York's Capitol Theater
for Samuel Goldwyn's multi-million
dollar production of Guys and Dolls.
# Your eyes are the eyes
it of a woman in love
it And oh, how they give you away
it Why try to deny...
BRANDO: Most actors
want to get their name in the paper.
They like all that attention.
I very often am struck
with the illusion of success.
Sometimes it's difficult
when you meet people
because you see
that they have prejudged you,
not to be treated normally.
To have people staring at you
like an animal in a zoo,
or some strange creature
from a distant land.
What it does is remove you from reality.
(FANS SCREAM)
I can't stand it. I hate it.
I had no idea of how discomforting it is
not to be able to be
just an ordinary person.
You can't imagine
how much of a panic it is.
Really, it scared me to death,
because they were hanging on,
they could've been run over or crushed.
It really is...
I've never seen
a really hysterical crowd.
It's a frightening experience.
BRANDO: Relax, Marlon.
And breathe deeply now.
You don't need to feel frightened,
you don't need to be nervous.
You're very, very comfortable.
Deeply safe,
like when you were with Ermi,
when you slept in her arms,
when you received affection.
Remember those feelings.
She was a governess
hired by my mother.
Lovely Oriental skin.
She had very fine hair.
She was sleeping,
and through the windows
came the moonlight,
and illuminated her body.
I remember arranging myself
on her, over her,
and thinking that she was all mine,
that she belonged to me alone.
Everybody wants a guarantee
that their love is going to be returned.
"I'm going to love you till I die
and we're going to love each other
forever."
All of those adolescent and childish
concepts of what love ought to be.
I remember the night she left.
She went away to get married,
but to a seven-year-old mind,
having been with someone intimately,
it was tantamount to desertion.
In a sense, my mother left me,
because she was alcoholic.
And so did Ermi.
It was from that date that I became
a miscreant, badly behaved.
- CAMERAMAN: Okay.
- Okay.
I'd like to begin by asking you
what consumes your thoughts
in your spare time, when you have any?
Well, my thoughts are...
INTERVIEWER: What do you do?
I'm interested in your face.
You're one of the prettiest
interviewers that I've...
INTERVIEWER: Thank you.
You're one of the most gracious hosts
I've ever met.
- Oh really?
- INTERVIEWER: Yes.
I hope to see you in Chicago.
(LAUGHTER)
- We'd like to see you in Chicago.
- We?
Is that the collective "we"
or is that the...
There are many people
who would like to see you in Chicago.
- But you don't?
- Certainly, I do.
Well, I'm representing WNAC in Boston
and our viewing audience
would love to know why you're here
and for you to tell us
about your latest movie.
Excuse me,
I didn't mean to touch your ankle.
Well, what can I tell you about it?
INTERVIEWER:
Oh, just some interesting things
that our audience would like to hear...
You talk out of the side of your mouth,
did you ever notice that?
- INTERVIEWER: No, I...
- You talk... It's channing.
NTERVIEWER: Unintentional.
It's a physical idiosyncrasy,
but it's a charming one.
We can't see your right eye.
Talking from the side of my mouth?
Wouldn't want to do that.
Would you like to tell us about behind
the scenes while making the picture?
How far behind the scenes?
(LAUGHTER)
BRANDO: Answer me something, is it true?
There are some rumors about you
and Marlon Brando having a romance, huh?
WOMAN: Oh no, we're just good friends.
BRANDO: Just good friends?
Well, it seems the other night,
you were going into Mr Brando's room
and not coming out until early morning.
Is that true?
WOMAN: Well, yes, it's true,
but he is a perfect gentleman.
BRANDO: He's a perfect gentleman. I see.
Is it true there was some love making
going on there?
The people in the next room seem to
have heard some thumping about and...
and some rattling of the bed itself.
WOMAN: Well, I slept with him.
BRANDO: You slept with him?
Well, I don't...
WOMAN: In the same bed.
BRANDO: Well, I don't know if we can
talk about this over the air, I mean...
I hope you folks listening in
will not be...
WOMAN: Just close your ears.
WOMAN 2:
You have what most men want.
You have a lady to fuck,
you have a woman who loves you,
you have a...
(BRANDO LAUGHS)
WOMAN 2: Guilty, aren't you?
BRANDO: I'm not guilty.
It's just the... It's the tequila.
- WOMAN 2: It's the what?
- BRANDO: It's the tequila.
WOMAN 2: I got it.
BRANDO: Past a certain point,
the penis has its own agenda.
It has nothing to do with you
and a lot of your decisions are made
by your penis and not by your brain.
REPORTER:
I'd like to show you a wedding picture.
A wedding that took place
on October 11th, 1957.
The man is Marlon Brando.
The woman? A young Indian actress
and a model, Anna Kashfi.
BRANDO: A good con man can fool anybody.
And the first person that you fool
as a con man is yourself.
She found out about other women
in my life
and I had women coming in the door,
going out the window...
The beast aspect of my personality
held sway
and overtook anything that was
reasonable, rational, moral or decent.
Because if you haven't ever been loved,
or ever known love,
you'll never know where it is.
You don't know what it looks like
or sounds like.
You look in the most unlikely places
to find it.
REPORTER:
Marriage lasted but a few months,
but a child was born out that coupling.
Christian Devi.
BRANDO:
I can remember the baby breathing...
(BREATHES GENTLY)
Little tiny baby like that...
Then listening to the heart.
I didn't want my father
to get near Christian.
The day he was born, I said it to myself
with tears in my eyes in the hospital,
"My father is never going
to come near that child,
because of the damage he did to me."
INTERVIEWER:
Can I move on to your own acting career
and how your moral beliefs
have affected it?
For example, we associate you
with roles like On the Waterfront,
where you are a man
who is fighting a righteous cause,
a sort of underdog,
you've got the whole union machine
against you,
and then there's the roles
like the rebel leader in Viva Zapata!
Where you are for the poor.
Do you deliberately choose these roles?
Over your career you've deliberately
chosen roles that have
gone along with your political beliefs?
Yes, I think so.
NARRATOR: On December 23rd, 1787,
His Majesty's ship, Bounty,
sailed from England
bound for the South Seas,
culminating in the most famous mutiny
in history.
CAPTAIN BLIGH:
You can put it in one word. Fear.
Fear of punishment so vivid in his mind
that he fears it even more
than certain death.
In my years of service,
I have never met an officer
who inflicted punishment upon men
with such incredible relish.
It's sickening.
Then go and be sick in your cabin,
Mr Christian.
BRANDO: Human hatred.
What is the answer?
Is there any answer to injustice?
I wanted to make pictures
that are meaningful to me.
CAPTAIN BLIGH:
You'd best join my war, Mr Christian,
for if I don't start winning soon,
the casualty list will be real enough.
BRANDO: You bring part of yourself
to every character,
but some parts
are closer to us than others.
Is the story true about
you going to school in Minneapolis?
I went to a military academy called...
Well, I won't tell you the name.
I had a terrible time there.
BRANDO: My father sent me
to military school, away from home,
the one he had attended.
It was a cruel and unusual punishment.
The mind of the military has one aim:
to be as mechanical as possible.
To function like a human machine.
Individuality simply did not exist.
I had a lot of loneliness.
I spent most of the time
up in the library
reading the National Geographic
magazine about Tahiti.
I was entranced
by the expressions on their faces.
They had unmanaged faces,
no manicured expressions.
A kindness.
That's where I want to go,
that's where I want to be.
When I made Mutiny on the Bounty,
finally I got a chance to go to Tahiti.
I'd fallen in love with Tahiti.
It was everything I longed for,
everything I hoped it would be.
As soon as they'd say cut,
I'd take off my jacket,
dive into the water
and swim under the boats
and play on the beach.
The sky... I've never see a sky like it.
And the sunsets defy words.
My God.
I've only been here a short time.
I have been puzzled
every time I see Tahitians,
because I can't figure out
what they're thinking.
When you watch Tahitians,
it's like watching a wave,
or the wind in the palm tree,
or the palm tree itself.
They'll bring their drums
and their skirts,
and they'll laugh and dance
and drink and make love.
Full of laughter.
CAPTAIN BLIGH: Mr Christian.
Kindly satisfy your lust elsewhere.
Quite actually, sir,
we were simply discussing...
Acknowledge the order.
Lust to be satisfied elsewhere, sir.
Report on board immediately.
You bloody fool.
BRANDO: Mutiny on the Bounty
was perhaps my very worst experience
in making a motion picture.
I never want to do that kind of picture
again as long as I live.
Nobody was agreed when we went in.
We all knew that it was impossible
to shoot that story.
It won't work. That will never work.
You can't have Christian standing aside
not doing anything.
Keep him alive in the story.
I was never consulted
before the writing was done.
And I cared a great deal
about this picture.
You put your life in the hands
of the director,
because the director can screw you up.
You're going too lightly, Quintal.
Lay on with a will
or you'll take his place.
BRANDO: They can't direct actors,
they don't know what the process is.
How delicate it is
to create an emotional impression.
They cover up their sense of inadequacy
by being very authoritative,
commanding things.
INTERVIEWER: Didn't he say he wanted
to talk to you and explain it to you?
BRANDO: He wanted to give me
a long "no", and I favor short "noes".
INTERVIEWER: No, I did...
BRANDO: You can't argue with somebody
who's made up their mind.
Don't ever be intimidated by directors.
You bloody bastard.
You'll not put your foot on me again.
There was a great deal of friction,
confusion and desperation,
disappointment and disgust,
there were fist fights.
Ship's company!
I'm taking command of this ship.
Mr Friar, I'll have the keys
to the arms chest.
You'll give him nothing!
BRANDO:
Hey! I'm not your fucking stamp licker.
You're making a huge error.
Don't make it again.
I don't care if it costs me my job.
Marlon, talk about rage.
Talk about your own rage.
All my life I've questioned
why I should do something.
I had contempt for authority.
I would resist it, I would trick it,
I would outmaneuver it, I would do anything
rather than be treated like a cipher.
REPORTER:
Marlon Brando has been the subject
of a good deal
of controversial publicity.
He's been called a supreme egotist,
uncooperative, temperamental.
I've rarely seen
such a range of vicious critiques.
BRANDO: They were blaming me
for all the delays and everything.
They had to blame it on somebody,
so they blamed it on me.
Well, everybody has to have
a whipping boy and certainly the studio.
They have to find a scapegoat,
they have to find somebody.
I was the most logical person.
The sickening and endless variety
of lies.
They can hit you every day
and you have no way of fighting back.
I was very convincing
in my pose of indifference.
But I was very sensitive
and it hurt a lot.
There are times when you think,
"What the fuck is all this for?"
"Christ, nobody's listening."
There's an old adage in Hollywood,
they say "if you have a message,
go to Western Union."
I didn't make any great movies.
There's no such thing as a great movie.
In the kingdom of the blind,
the man with one eye is the king.
There are no artists.
We are businessmen, we're merchants.
And there is no art.
Agents, lawyers, publicity people...
It's all bullshit.
Money, money, money.
If you think it's about something else,
you're going to be bruised.
I do want to ask you one thing
before we run out of time, Marlon.
You've been quoted
in the papers as saying
that you are going to abandon acting.
Are you really going to do that?
I feel that I'd like to pursue some
other interests that I have long had.
And within two or three years,
I will have come to the end
of my career.
We're all gonna talk about civil rights,
we're all gonna go on the television
and say what we know,
because the country is ignorant.
(APPLAUSE)
lam really moved and motivated
by things that occur that are unjust.
I've always hated
people trampling on other people.
I was in a quandary,
a philosophical quandary,
because I thought
if I am not my brother's keeper,
who am I?
Where does my life end and my sense
of responsibility for other lives begin?
Black bodies swinging
in the summer breeze,
and the smell of burning death.
You could stand so much of it
and to see these people
being beaten and kicked and spit on.
That could've been my son lying there.
And I'm going to do as much as I can.
I'm going to start right now
to inform white people
of what they don't know.
The white man can't cool it
because he's never dug it.
And I am here to try to dig it.
King was in Memphis at the time.
He was striking for a small wage
increase for garbage collectors,
which was one of the best jobs
a black man could get.
But I want you to know tonight
that we as a people
will get to the Promised Land.
BRANDO: That speech where he says,
"I've been up to the mountain
and I've seen the Promised Land."
So I'm happy tonight,
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man.
BRANDO: "I don't know
if I'm gonna get there with you,
but I am not afraid tonight."
God, I still remember that.
Ah, Jesus. That's terrible.
He knew he was going to get killed.
REPORTER: Have you considered that
you may suffer bodily harm yourself?
Yes.
BRANDO: I'm standing up,
not for the black race,
I'm standing up for the human race.
All men are created equal.
This is life and death,
this is real life.
We're talking about human relations,
we're talking about human rights,
racial issues and that's why I care.
Get any and all reports from the
South Pacific Commission in respect to
discovering what plants grow well
on atolls.
How to grow more vegetables
than you can imagine.
And whatever there is on wind power.
We'll get the full library
of information
from the South Pacific Commission.
It was after Mutiny on the Bounty.
I was up in the mountains on Tahiti.
And this guy said, "Do you see
that little island out there?"
And I said, "No, I can't see it."
He says, "Can't you see it?"
"it's called Tetiaroa."
I never was in a place that told me
to quit running the way this place does,
the way these people do.
If I've come closer to a sense
of peace, it would be there.
I didn't think of myself
as an owner of the island,
I just thought that I'd paid
for the privilege of visiting there.
I had nothing to give to them.
They had everything to give to me.
They don't care who you are,
they don't care what you do.
They don't know
that you're a movie star.
They couldn't care less.
You cannot lay dollars down
on the table and buy their soul.
Very warm, loving people.
They come up and put their arm
around you,
come and kiss you for no reason at all.
They just take love for granted.
INTERVIEWER: ls there any actress
that you've especially enjoyed
working with, and why?
(BRANDO LAUGHS)
BRANDO: That is funny.
Don't look at me.
If you took some kid
and you brought him up in Tahiti,
he'd be a completely different kid.
He wouldn't have this cruel, mean
society killing him every day,
killing the life out of him.
All these kids of mine
are filled with love from Tahiti.
Here comes Cheyenne.
Hi, honey. She's going to give you
a little song here.
- Ready?
- (CHEYENNE SPEAKS FRENCH)
(CHEYENNE SINGS IN FRENCH)
(CHEYENNE LAUGHS)
BRANDO: Ah, beautiful.
That's my very favorite song.
I love to hear you sing that.
Tahitians have the beauty
of sleeping children.
And when they waken,
they will waken into the nightmare
that the white man lives in,
the nightmare of the want of things.
MAN OVER PHONE: Hello. Don Wagner.
If you're back from vacation,
give me a call.
(HANGS UP)
WOMAN OVER PHONE:
I want to get a script to Marlon Brando.
United Artists gave me your number.
(HANGS UP)
WAGNER OVER PHONE:
We're trying to locate you, Marlon,
and I don't know where you are.
If you get the message,
can you talk to us a little bit?
(HANGS UP)
AN OVER PHONE: Hello?
Hello? I can't believe
there isn't somebody there. Hello?
H it-
BRANDO:
I'm interested in making enough money
so I can say "fuck you" to money,
but that's all.
Acting afforded me
the opportunity of time.
I didn't have to do anything.
I only had to do it once a year
for three months at the most.
It became just a way of making a living.
LAWRENCE JAMESON:
You're certainly unprincipled.
Lying and cheating
come naturally to you.
You're completely without moral qualms.
Yeah, you see, everybody's got
a good side if you look for it.
BRANDO: Lying for a living,
that's what acting is.
All I've done is just learned
how to be aware of the process.
All of you are actors.
And good actors,
because you're all liars.
When you're saying something
you don't mean,
or refraining from saying something
that you really do mean,
that's acting.
Let me give you an example.
You're coming home, four o'clock
in the morning, reeking of whiskey,
and there she is, waiting at
the top of the stairs, your wife.
You wouldn't believe me, sweetheart.
You wouldn't believe
what happened to me.
Your mind is going 10,000 mph.
You're lying at the speed of light.
You're lying to save your life.
The last thing in the world
you want her to know is the truth.
You lie for peace,
you lie for tranquility,
you lie for love.
So, we all act.
Some people get paid for that.
In my experience, with the camera,
if you're a liar
or you're telling a lie,
you better be able to do it
with consummate skill.
If you're not thinking properly,
if you're not in your part,
it just shows up and there's nothing
you can do about it.
(BUZZER)
I was ridiculous in the part
that I played.
Everything went bad.
Take off those pajamas.
This is silly.
We'll see how silly this is.
(SQUEALS)
What is your name?
Candy.
BRANDO: Probably the worst movie
I ever made in my life was called Candy.
Oh Jesus, Mother Mary.
How can you do that to yourself?
Haven't you got any fucking pride left?
I've lost the audience.
You can see it
when you walk into a restaurant.
"Are you still making movies?"
If you've made a hit movie,
you get the full 32-teeth display.
You gotta be somebody.
If you're not anybody,
you've committed a sin.
And you're on your own.
You're on a goat trail way up,
and you're alone.
= RANDO: Hello?
Hello?
Sensitivity is too high.
The sensitivity is too high.
The neurotic individual's entire
self-esteem shrinks to nothing
if he does not receive admiration.
To be admired and to be respected
is a protection against helplessness
and against insignificance.
And because
he's continually sensing humiliation,
it will be difficult for him
to have anyone as a friend.
I used to think I'd never grow up.
I thought that life would go on forever.
And then I worried,
somewhere in the middle years,
life is going away and I haven't done
this and I haven't done that.
I've been denied that experience,
I've denied myself that experience.
There was a famous dancer, Ulanova.
And she asked what would be her dream.
"If I can dance for one minute,
perfectly...
that is all I would ever ask."
Francis Coppola wanted me
for the part of the The Godfather,
but the studio was fighting it.
It was demeaning to do a screen test,
but I needed a part at that time.
I wasn't sure
I could play that part either.
I got some cotton and I put some here,
little bit of cotton down there.
(SPEAKS HOARSELY)
And the first thing you know,
I'm talking like this.
(NORMAL VOICE) Like I took a shot
in the throat or something.
(MUMBLES)
Mumbled my way through it.
The greatest fear an actor has is fear.
How you're gonna be judged.
I don't wanna get caught trying,
I don't wanna get caught being afraid
that my story, my pretending,
my lie
is going to be disbelieved.
That's gonna steal
your performance away.
You have to look at the cameraman,
the producer lurking in the comer
and say,
"I don't give a fuck about any of you."
And if by chance an honest man
like yourself should make enemies,
then they would become my enemies.
And then they will fear you.
BRANDO: Putting on a mask,
building a life...
Little by little I got into this part.
And then suddenly,
something gets a hold of you.
What is the nature of criminality?
Where does it come from?
We have this antiquated belief
in the myth of goodness and evil.
I don't believe in either one of those.
And I thought it would be interesting
to play a gangster,
not from the point of view
that he was the bad guy,
but that he was very gentle.
A hero.
It is not hard to do the big things.
You can act like a man...
BRANDO: To scream and yell,
to get mad and to let somebody have it
right in the mouth.
It's much harder to do nothing.
They shot Sonny on the causeway.
He's dead.
(SIGHS)
BRANDO:
Just to sit there and think is a lot.
I want all inquiries made.
I want no acts of vengeance.
This war stops now.
BRANDO:
Shakespeare addressing all artists.
Suit the action to the word
and the word to the action.
To hold the mirror up to nature,
to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image
and the very age and body of the time
its form and pressure.
There wasn't enough time, Michael.
There wasn't enough time.
We'll get there, Pop.
BRANDO: Everything that we do
should reflect the atmosphere
of our lives.
We're living now
in this mad, crazy, murderous world.
If I were brought up in that society,
I'd be like them.
Under certain circumstances,
you could do the same thing.
If anybody would ever try
to take advantage of my children,
hurting somebody that I love,
I'd fight for them,
I would kill them.
(TAPE RECORDER CLICKS)
CHRISTIAN OVER PHONE: Hi, Dad,
I hope you're feeling fine and, uh...
I don't know.
I'm just here. I'm working really hard.
When you come down, I was wondering
if you would send my schoolbooks,
'cause I'm kinda getting behind
on my schoolwork and... You know?
Well, I'll see you whenever
you come, if you come.
(HANGS UP)
FEMALE REPORTER: Marlon Brando's son
Christian has been kidnapped.
Police initially suspected
mafia involvement
following Brando's portrayal
of godfather Vito Corleone.
MAN: Marlon Brando told me,
"Mr Annes, we want him found,
we want him brought back
to Los Angeles,
no matter what it takes."
FEMALE REPORTER:
Annes flew into Mexico in a helicopter
and recovered the 13-year-old boy.
ARMES: Christian was found
with a bunch of hippie characters.
He had a terrible case of bronchial
pneumonia and he could barely speak.
Why did they say they had him there
in the first place?
They stated they had the boy there
because Anna,
being the mother of the boy,
promised them 10,000 dollars
to hide him out from Marlon Brando.
MALE REPORTER: Christian Brando was
the source of a lengthy custody battle.
FEMALE REPORTER:
A history which saw Christian
used as a pawn in a bitter divorce
and a string
of scandalous public headlines.
ANNA OVER PHONE:
I just happen to be his mother.
You are not anybody, is that clear?
(HANGS UP)
BRANDO: When it comes to my son
and my children,
you're speaking to someone
that has a different impulse.
FEMALE REPORTER:
For the very private Marlon Brando,
the public spotlight
was once again painfully bright.
(DOG BARKS IN THE DISTANCE)
BRANDO: This is the to-do list.
Check Christian's house
and get the door fixed.
Change the locks.
Make them larger.
Install camera
at the gate with radio transmission
at both gates.
Put lights on so we can see at night
who the fuck it is out there.
I'm not going to lay myself
at the feet of the American public
and invite them into my soul.
My soul is a private place.
If they think I'm going to bare my soul
for the next movie,
they're gonna choke
on their shrimp salad.
I don't know what to call you.
I don't have a name.
- You want to know my name?
- No, I don't want to know your name.
You don't have a name
and I don't have a name either.
No names here. Not one name.
BERTOLUCCI: I was curious
about the person in front of me,
and the person in front of me
was Brando.
BRANDO:
Bertolucci wanted to get a perfect
autobiographical sketch of myself
in this film.
He wanted me to be me.
BERTOLUCCI: I want the person I see
when I go to have dinner with him,
when we talk and quarrel and discuss.
BRANDO: And I thought,
"I'm not going to do that."
"I'm not going to do that for you."
"What the fuck do you think I am?"
BERTOLUCCI: He was obsessed by privacy.
He never wanted anybody
to go deep inside him.
BRANDO: Smart con people find out
where you want to go emotionally.
They find out what your direction is
and then they help you along with that,
reinforcing it,
guiding it to their own sweet ends.
Marlon, there is nothing to fear.
It's very important
to trust in this process.
BERTOLUCCI:
Marlon, say something about your past.
Show in my film what you really are.
My father was a drunk.
Tough.
Whore-fucker, bar fighter,
super masculine.
And it was tough.
My mother was very...
very poetic.
But also a drunk.
BERTOLUCCI: Go deeper and deeper...
Every time more and more real.
Marlon was invading
the character of Paul.
BRANDO:
You lied to me and I trusted you.
You lied and you knew you were lying.
Go on, tell me something sweet.
Smile at me and say...
I just misunderstood.
Go on, tell me.
BRANDO: Maybe you're desperate for love,
always have been in your life.
But you've been distrustful of people.
Is there anything about them
that scares us,
that's dangerous, that's gonna hurt us?
'Cause a lot of people
are frightened to death of love.
(TRAIN APPROACHES)
Fucking God!
BRANDO: Last Tango in Paris
was a very hard film for me.
I realized,
"You know you're naked, Marlon."
BERTOLUCCI: When he saw the movie,
he was shocked.
He felt betrayed by me,
because I stole from him
so many sincere things.
REPORTER: After his comeback
as the ageing romantic hero
of Last Tango in Paris,
and as the Godfather,
Marlon Brando is once again
the brightest
and most bankable of Hollywood stars.
(FANFARE ON TV)
PRESENTER:
Live, the Academy Awards presentation.
The winner is...
Marlon Brando in The Godfather.
(APPLAUSE)
PRESENTER: Accepting the award
for Marlon Brando in The Godfather,
Miss Sacheen Little-feather.
Hello. I'm representing Marlon Brando
this evening
and he has asked me to tell you
that he very regretfully cannot accept
this very generous award.
And the reasons for this being
are the treatment
of American Indians today
by the film industry... excuse me.
(BOOING AND APPLAUSE)
I beg we will meet
with love and generosity.
Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando.
INTERVIEWER: Tell me then, way back,
when you were interested
in the Indians' fishing fights
before it was fashionable to be so,
what triggered that?
What we have learned about the Indians
has been largely taught to us
by Hollywood and by motion pictures.
Seeing Indians represented as savage,
as ugly, as nasty and vicious.
Everything we are taught about
the American Indian is wrong.
There have been 400 treaties
written by the United States
in good faith with the Indians
and every single one of them was broken.
We like to see ourselves
as perhaps John Wayne sees us.
That we are a country
that stands for freedom,
for tightness, for justice.
It just simply doesn't apply.
And we were the most rapacious,
aggressive, destructive,
torturing, monstrous people,
who swept from one coast to the other
murdering and causing mayhem
among the Indians...
(ONE PERSON APPLAUDS LOUDLY)
There is one Indian in here.
(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
But that isn't revealed,
'cause we don't like
that image of ourselves.
I don't think the Americans
want to face the truth.
(WHISPERS)
We are all living on stolen land.
I've seen so many of my friends killed.
Shot. Stabbed.
Where do you draw the line?
At what point do you say,
"God damn it, this is my turf."
"I was here first."
"One more step on this land
and you're gonna get it."
I was with Indian armed resistance
in Kenosha, Wisconsin...
insisting a piece of land
belonged to them.
(GUNSHOT)
Then I heard the rifle shot
from the National Guard.
(GUNFIRE)
Bullets started sizzling by me.
(MIMICS THE HISS OF PASSING BULLETS)
Four feet away from death.
There was an effort
on the part of the government
to cover up the military involvement.
And any cover-ups
are going to be looked into.
After Watergate and all that corruption
going on, we just can't afford it.
INTERVIEWER:
Are most Indian phones tapped?
BRANDO: Of course.
- INTERVIEWER: ls yours?
- BRANDO: Of course.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think that you
are considered a dangerous person
to the FBI?
BRANDO: I'm putting myself on the line
and I have to make it my business
to find out,
and all these bones
are gonna come out of the graves.
So they lie.
Congressmen, presidents, all of them.
They lie when they're alone,
they lie when they're asleep.
They never see faces
without lies anymore,
except the dead ones.
They're the true assassins,
the true murderers.
Are you an assassin?
I'm a soldier.
You're neither.
You're an errand boy.
Sent by grocery clerks.
To collect a bill.
BRANDO: These are random notes
on the subject
of the picture Apocalypse Now.
Find out the details
of actual special forces operations
in the jungle of this kind.
I want to get
as many reports as possible.
Check the gruesome pictures
in Life magazine.
Also the pictures
that Larry Burrows took.
People talk about how proud they are
of their son who died in Vietnam,
fighting for his country.
They had parents so hogwashed
that rather than alter
their belief system,
would kill their children.
Conviction of the myth is everything.
We need myths,
we live by myths.
We die for myths.
I read the script and it was stupid.
It was awful.
I told Francis, "You are making
an enormous error."
This guy , Kurt, don'! misuse him.
I rewrote the entire script.
And I have it all on tape.
I have a tape of everything.
Here is a story note.
The guy has to be intelligent.
He is without mercy,
not because he's a merciless man,
but simply because
that's the logic of it.
If you're gonna have a war,
you get all in or all out.
To kill without feeling,
without passion...
without judgment, without judgment...
BRANDO:
I told Francis how I wanted to be lit.
Half shadow and half light.
He should be mysterious,
a mythological figure.
He is the heart of darkness.
BRANDO AS KURTZ: Horror has a face,
and you must make a friend of horror.
Horror and moral terror
are your friends.
BRANDO: And I felt myself coming apart,
splitting in two, and it scared me.
And yet I've gone so far.
I don't think...
that I can ever return.
BRANDO: And then I said to myself,
why are you so frightened?
Let the fear take you.
The horror.
BRANDO: And go with the fear.
The horror.
My film is not about Vietnam.
(TRANSLATES INTO FRENCH)
- It is Vietnam.
- (TRANSLATES INTO FRENCH)
It was crazy.
REPORTER: Director Francis Ford Coppola
had to contend with shooting
in the Philippine jungle,
a raging civil war and Marlon Brando.
Coppola was appalled
when Brando arrived grossly overweight
and had to be filmed in shadowy light.
COPPOLA:
He was already heavy when I hired him.
But he was so fat,
he was very, very shy about it.
REPORTER: But that was the least
of the director's problems.
Pulling his notorious delaying tactics,
Brando was up to his old tricks again
with endless script conferences,
costing the production
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
COPPOLA: Clearly he had just
kind of left me in a tough spot.
BRANDO: Francis Coppola, he's a prick,
a card-carrying prick.
I mean the cocksucker.
How could he do that to me?
I saved his fucking ass
and he shows his appreciation
by dumping on me.
Let the tension flow out of you.
Let it flow out of your mind.
Five, four...
Going down in an airplane.
Softly coming in.
One, zero.
You hear the Tahitians singing.
Far, distant laughter.
And it's just after the sun
has gone down.
A star comes.
The first star of the evening.
Peace and love.
And I'm looking
at this very deep, indescribable night.
I think, "God, I've no importance."
"Whatever I do or don't do,
or what anybody does
is no more important than
the grains of sand that I'm lying on."
(SPORTS COMMENTARY ON TV)
BRANDO: I've had 110 fights.
Lost twelve.
I'm really...
I've taken too many fucking punches.
I don't want to be stressed anymore.
(SPORTS COMMENTARY ON TV)
BRANDO: You want me to play this guy?
I'll play that guy.
I'm just a service person.
Now, no more bullshit.
We come to
how are you going to fill up my pockets?
What are you gonna give me?
I've made as much as 14 million dollars
for 12 days' work
on a rather silly movie.
My friends, you know me to be
neither rash nor impulsive.
And I tell you that we must evacuate
this planet immediately.
BRANDO: I used to paste the cue card
on actors' faces.
It saved me a lot of time.
And I had things that I'd much rather do
other than studying the fucking lines.
I have found this other way to do it.
I had a pocket recorder
and I had a thing in my ear,
like a hearing aid.
Let's take a little walk.
Do you mind if I get on this side?
I got bum ears.
- Sure.
- My machine is on this side.
BRANDO: I'd get fed lines,
just a suggestion of a line,
and then I'd take the line and mould it.
It's effective.
I was using it in that movie.
I can't even remember the name of it.
Your eyes are closing,
getting heavier and heavier.
Just think of all the good things
that you like.
Like apple pie and ice cream
and brownies and milk.
But you must eat them
not quite so often.
Day by day, minute by minute,
second by second, you will lose fat.
When you get as fat as me,
you gotta start thinking,
"Well, what's the matter
with the machine?"
The machine isn't working right.
It's something out of balance here.
Food was always a friend.
When I was a kid,
I'd come home from school
and I'd open the icebox
and there'd be apple pie in there
and cheese and...
They'd say to me, "Come on, Mar,
why don't you be a pal and take me out?"
"I'm freezing in here."
The dishes were in the sink
and the house was unkempt.
I had the fear that everybody was dead
and pretending to be alive.
One time, my old man
was punching my mother
and I went up the stairs
and I went in the room.
And I had so much adrenaline,
and I looked at him
and I fucking put my eyes
right through him
and I said, "if you hit her again,
I am going to kill you."
(GUNSHOT)
(POLICE SIREN)
POLICE OFFICER: Copy. All available
units responding to a shooting.
REPORTER: The son of actor Marlon Brando
facing murder charges this morning.
32-year-old Christian Brando accused
of shooting his half-sister's boyfriend.
REPORTER 2:
Ayoung man, Christian Brando.
His half-sister, Cheyenne Brando.
And her boyfriend.
It was a triangle that proved fatal
and brought tragedy to the home
of one of the world's most famous stars.
LAWYER: "I shot him, man."
"But not on purpose."
"it was an accident."
REPORTER: The two men had quarreled
over Drollet's treatment
of Cheyenne Brando.
Mistreatment police say allegedly
included physical beating.
LAWYER:
"Two guys with a loaded gun, wrestling."
"it goes off and he's dead."
I saw Dag laying there
and I breathed into his mouth
and I called 911.
REPORTER: Asking leniency for his son,
Brando said Christian's life had been
filled with struggle and unhappiness,
traumatized by a bitter divorce.
I think that
perhaps I failed as a father.
And certainly there were things
that I could've done differently,
had I known better at the time.
I am at fault in this.
And if I could trade places with Dag,
I would.
The total sentence imposed
is ten years in the state prison.
REPORTER: Cheyenne Brando is suffering
from mental and physical problems
and cannot travel here
to testify about what she knows.
Cheyenne is doing her best...
Excuse me... sorry.
REPORTER: Another personal tragedy
for actor Marlon Brando.
His 25-year-old daughter Cheyenne
has committed suicide at her home
in Tahiti.
Cheyenne Brando reportedly
had made several suicide attempts
before hanging herself yesterday.
REPORTER 2: For Marlon Brando,
Tahiti will never quite be
the same again.
When in disgrace
with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
and trouble deaf heaven
with my bootless cries,
and look upon myself and curse my fate.
BRANDO: There are times
when you wake up in the morning
and you turn over and feel,
"Shit! What a life."
God, I can't figure it out.
Why did it have to be this way?
I've had a hard year.
Maybe harder
than you could possibly imagine.
You try to be as strong as you can be,
but everybody reaches break point
sooner or later.
Pain - I knew I had to deal with it.
I've spent thousands upon thousands
of dollars on psychoanalysts
and those guys do absolutely nothing
but stick pliers and screwdrivers
in your brain.
Life will have given me the truth
and taken in exchange
what's left of my youth.
It took me a while to realize,
you gotta be your own analyst.
Unless we look inwards,
we will not ever be able
to clearly see outwards.
Nobody is born evil.
Most people are simply
getting over bad emotional habits
established in the first ten years
of their life.
Christian was burdened
with emotional disorders
and psychological disarray.
The kind of trouble that I had in life.
I never tried to be like my father,
but one inadvertently takes on
the characteristics of one's parents.
When my father died,
I imagined that he was slump-shouldered,
walking to the edge of eternity.
He looked back and said,
"I did the best I could, kid."
Finally I forgave my father,
because I realized
that I was a sinner because of him.
But he was a sinner,
because his mother left him
when he was four.
He didn't have a chance.
And through introspection
and the examination of my mind,
I feel as though I'm coming closer
to the common denominator
of what it means to be human.
Everybody is capable of hatred,
everybody is capable of love.
If we stretched ourselves
one way or another,
we could become murderers
or we could become saints.
I've done a lot of meditation.
The result is that
I have felt much calmer
and I've had moments
of real tranquility.
Don't you realize that you're thought of
as the greatest actor ever?
Tim's the greatest actor ever.
He pretends he loves me when he wants
something to eat. Get outta here.
BRANDO: Many times
I remember being down in the dumps
and then I saw a movie
that took me away for a few hours
and I was completely restored.
And I realized, oddly enough,
that actors make a contribution
to people's lives,
giving us a gift that you can't buy.
Something that they can imbue
with power and beauty and magnificence.
Something beyond themselves
and we do need that.
Acting is just making stuff up,
but that's okay.
Life is a rehearsal,
life is an improvisation.
I'm gonna have a special microphone
placed in my coffin,
so that when I wake up in there,
six feet under the ground,
I'm gonna say, "Do it differently."
Anthony. Come here, come here.
BRANDO: The death scene.
That's a tough scene to play.
You have to make them believe
that you're dying.
I would hope it would be
with one person.
It would be something simple,
like playing tiddlywinks
or... I don't know, jackstraws.
(MOANS)
- (ANTHONY CRIES)
- CORLEONE: Oh, no! (LAUGHS)
(CORLEONE LAUGHS)
BRANDO: Try to think
of the most intimate moment
that you've ever had in your life.
Run down in there. Run in there.
ANTHONY: Where are you?
(LAUGHS)
(COUGHS)
BRANDO: Marlon. Listen to my voice.
Just let go.
Just letting go.
Drift.
Drift like a cloud in the sky.
Drifting into that special state,
the state of peace
of the boy that you remember,
watching the elm leaves come down.
Don't hang on to thoughts,
don't hang on to anything.
They're old tapes,
no longer usable,
no longer useful.
Chuck 'em.
Put 'em aside. You don't need 'em.
You're there, you have arrived.
Your mind is becoming quieter
and quieter.
Bliss is coming over you...
Now.
Until the next time.
Sleep.