Well, that lasted all of 4 days. As mentioned on New Year’s Eve, I would review this reading project when the tier system changes again. And it has. England is back in full lockdown.
I did actually manage to finish one book. Brando: A Life in our Times, by Richard Schickel is a large-page biography of the man who may have been the greatest actor to live.
Marlon Brando may be well known as The Godfather Vito Corleone, but he had made a name long before that on stage and in in movies like On the Waterfront. The book describes how his one-line roles in plays as a youngster piqued the interests of critics, feeling he outshined all of his adult contemporaries. I battled through the tedium of this to when he subsequently made his way into film, via small roles in small productions.
I was a big movie nut in my teens, and watched the likes of On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire, but a lot of his film back-catalogue is decidedly obscure. It wasn’t until The Godfather in 1972, where he was humiliatingly forced to do a screen test, that he made any landmark movies. Hence, a lot of the book lulls in mediocrity, but picks up in the closing pages. Sadly, a lot of his key movies are overlooked. Apocalypse Now, perhaps claiming to be the best war film ever made, is briefly mentioned- and described as ‘muddled’ (how?!). The Godfather is discussed somewhat, but Schickel refers to a ‘wedding’ intercut with the murders of the other 4 families’ bosses. (The film, in this scene, actually showed the baptism of Connie Corleone’s daughter.)
To be fair, Schickel understands acting, and his knowledge of performing arts feeds in well. But Brando himself had key roles, widely interspersed by a lot of drivel. It was also later in life that he faced traumas like his son killing his sister’s (Marlon’s daughter’s) boyfriend, serving 5 years.
A life is what it is, and Brando’s most interesting parts are sadly the most traumatic, and it will require your patience to get to them.
I found it for a fiver in Oxfam many moons ago. For some reason I held off reading it.
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