Dave Riley
"I think the tactics the Don used aren't much different from those General Motors used against [anti-corporate campaigner] Ralph Nader. Unlike some corporate heads, Corleone has an unwavering loyalty for the people that have given support to him and his causes and he takes care of his own. He is a man of deep principle and the natural question arises as to how such a man can countenance the killing of people.
"But the American government does the same thing for reasons that are not that different from those of the Mafia. And big business kills us all the time with cars and cigarettes and pollution and they do it knowingly." — These 1972 comments to Newsweek magazine are some of the lesser known words of legendary actor Marlon Brando, who died on July 2.
Brando's early influence came from his study of the "method" school of acting, which required the actor to merge with the character they were attempting to play by pursuing a deeper psychological approach. Brando developed his craft on the New York stage but it wasn't until his break through role as Stanley Kowalski, the anguished misogynist in Tennessee Williams play, A Street Car Named Desire(1947), that he began to have the extraordinary impact that he is now remembered for. Later through a series of significant films — especially On the Waterfront (1954) — Brando help define a new acting style which changed completely the nature of performance on film.
Brando's characters' emotional depths and sensitivities were usually endowed on figures who were also outsiders or renegades The Wild One (1954) guaranteed Brando iconic status as a quintessential rebel. With the radicalisation that accompanied the Vietnam War, Brando sought new acting relevance through such films as the politically radical Burn (1969) and Last Tango in Paris (1973).
The depth of his radical convictions was illustrated in 1973, when he deigned to play the Hollywood game at the Oscars, choosing instead to ask Native American activist Shasheen Littlefeather to read a statement highlighting the dispossession and murder of Native Americans. It read, in part:
"Perhaps at this moment you are saying to yourself what the hell has all this got to do with the Academy Awards? Why is this woman standing up here, ruining our evening, invading our lives with things that don't concern us, and that we don't care about? I think the answer to those unspoken questions is that the motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing him as savage, hostile and evil." Littlefeather was not able to finish the speech.
From Green Left Weekly, July 14, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.