This study investigates the way in which Marlon Brando worked with film scripts in an attempt to shed some light on the unique technique which has garnered him the title of one of America’s greatest actors. Most of the published material available on Brando focuses on his tumultuous personal life. While it may contribute to a paper on the cult of celebrity, this type of gossip does little to address Brando’s performances as an actor. So, where do the answers concerning Brando’s technique lie?
Robert Gessner, author of The Moving Image: A Guide to Cinematic Literacy, has suggested that a film script “is the key that can unlock most of the secrets of cinema” (13). In other words, a detailed look at a script in comparison with a finished film can offer answers concerning an actor’s performance. Specifically, this paper compares Brando’s performance in Last Tango in Paris (MGM: Bertolucci, 1972) with a draft of the script dated 1 Jan 1971 to reveal Brando’s tendency to recreate and rewrite scripts while acting. The script was provided to me by the University of California in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the published script available for Last Tango in Paris is “a curious amalgam of a shooting script (with extra scenes of little importance no longer in the film) and transcribed improvisations” (Thompson 42). Since this published script is at times just a word-for-word transcript of the finished film, and is of little help, a comparative look at the draft from 1971 along with his performance will help explain Brando’s method and how he earned his reputation as an actor among critics and his peers. Martin Scorsese has argued the case for a reconsideration of Brando’s work. I agree, and suggest that this should begin with a study of his work on words.
Works Cited: Gessner, Robert. The Moving Image: A Guide to Cinematic Literacy. London: Cassell & Company Ltd, 1968.
Thompson, David. BFI Modern Classics: Last Tango in Paris. London: BFI Publishing, 1998.
About the presenterDouglas Sherman Kern
I have been a lecturer for the English Department and writing tutor at the University of Maryland in College Park since the spring of 2008. At Maryland, I am an Assistant Director of The Writing Center and teach Scriptwriting, Introduction to Academic Writing, Introduction to Drama and African-American Literature and Culture. In 2009, I was awarded an international scholarship for my doctoral studies at the University of York, and was, until recently, spending half the year in York and half the year in the United States in order to research and write my PhD thesis on political drama dealing with race. Having passed my defense, I am now, permanently, back in Maryland. For my doctoral thesis I explored the representations of murder and killing in the revolutionary drama of Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones). My main research and teaching interests lie in English and American drama, African-American literature, creative writing, film and television drama.
I studied English and Film as an undergraduate at Maryland and then, in 2006, traveled to England to begin my graduate work in English: Writing and Performance at the University of York. My MA dissertation explores the interaction between scripts and performance in the films of Marlon Brando.
In general, I love to read, watch, and write drama. I wrote a full-length play based on the life of Marlon Brando titled Lying for a Living while at Maryland, and co-directed and produced a full stage production of this same play in York. I have also taught and tutored writing for York’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television, and taught creative writing for York’s Centre for Lifelong Learning. I regularly write and am currently researching/writing my next full-length play which deals with the shooting of a young Black Panther named Bobby Hutton in April of 1968.