[Mb-civic] Marlon Brando news all the way from Cuba :-)

[mb-civic at islandlists.com]

This does not appear to be accurate according to U,S. news but thought I
would send anyway, it is amusing.
barbara

Havana. July 12, 2004
Tímeless Marlon Brando
BY ROLANDO PEREZ BETANCOURT-Granma daily staff writer-

ENTIRE generations who admired him throughout half a century and did not
hesitate to transform him into a legend, are today mourning the loss of
Marlon Brando, who died from lung disease in Los Angeles, aged 80.

He had fallen seriously ill recently and was plagued by poverty. In the
last few days, a new and controversial biography entitled Brando in
Twilight by U.S. author Patricia Ruiz revealed that the man who
revolutionized cinematic acting had debts worth $20 million and was
surviving on social security payments and a pension from the actors'
union.
For a long time, Brando had barely acted and only accepted small roles
in exchange for money that would allow him to keep afloat a life that
was marked by more than a few tragedies. Amongst those was the suicide
of his daughter and the imprisonment of a son charged with homicide, the
trial of whom - according to the book - drove him to ruin.

Despite these long absences from the screen and an inconsistent
filmography marked by extra-artistic motives, there are few who would
hesitate to call the actor a genius. The essence of such an affirmation
stems from the past:

When Brando arrived in New York at the age of 19, he had the fortune of
falling into the hands of famed teacher Stella Adler, a pupil of
Stanislavsky. The young man had problems with his diction and used to
mumble (he always mumbled!), didn't know how to read scripts and had a
terrible memory. But she was to teach him something that would later
materialize when he joined the Actors' Studio: acting is more than just
reciting lines or mastering mimicry. Acting is feeling, applying
emotions and sentiments. Years later, Adler wrote that she had taught
him nothing, merely increased his capacity to think and feel, and by
opening those doors he did nothing more than journey within himself in a
magnificently natural way.

Firstly playing the role on stage for a year and a half, and later on
screen in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Brando demonstrated that with
him was born a new style of acting characterized by delayed entrances
into dialogue, hidden sensuality following a reaction of brutality, the
mumble as expression and slow understanding. Others (James Dean, Paul
Newman) would follow him, but there is no doubt that Marlon Brando was
the patron of Method acting, the first to bring a fresh style to
teaching level.

There are testimonies from directors who worked alongside him that
affirm he could be docile, cooperative and very professional when he
took part in serious films, but cynical and even a troublemaker during
those projects that would just provide him with box office receipts.
(Famous are the cutting room scissors that had to be applied to the film
Desirée, due to the fact that his Napoleon appeared in several scenes
attempting to conceal the fact that he was chewing gum).

He was famous as a man who fought for the poor and spent years searching
for producers to make films that dealt with important social and
political aspects of his country: the dispossession of Native Americans,
the repression of Blacks, the arms race and environmental pollution, all
issues for which he was an activist. But Hollywood wasn't interested in
films tackling those subjects, especially from an individual who never
wasted an opportunity to stand up to the institution, such as the time
he sent a Native American to pick up the Oscar that he won for The
Godfather.
 
His role in  Apocalypse Now as Colonel Kurtz, a military deserter who
leads a camp in the heart of the Cambodian jungle, will continue to be
one of the most enigmatic creations in the history of cinema.

Likewise his performance as a man in love with a woman 20 years his
junior in Last Tango in Paris, a story that shocked many people for his
ability to disrobe both mentally and physically.

For others however, Marlon Brando will always be the Godfather from the
Coppola classic.
 
In 1956, Truman Capote interviewed him in Japan and described him thus:
disorganized, sentimental, fickle, a bon vivant, philosophical,
confused, egocentric, solitary, mysterious, indifferent, quick-tempered,
kind, childish, carried away by fame¼ in short, an intense enigma, an
irresolvable equation, an impeccable and inscrutable man of his time.

Almost 50 years since that portrait was painted the actor is dead. For
Brando, further analysis or criticism of his life and work could be
viewed as a challenge but there is no doubt that both he and his legend
will continue to provoke both in the future.