Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando (Vintage) Review

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Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando (Vintage) Review
Marlon Brando (April 3, 1924 - July 1, 2004) is usually ranked among the greatest screen actors because he performed brilliantly in a series of major films that began with A Streetcar Named Desire and continued with Viva Zapata! and On the Waterfront at least until The Godfather and (arguably) Last Tango in Paris. He also made a number of others of much lesser quality but in at least a few of those - The Men, Julius Caesar, The Wild One, One-Eyed Jacks, Superman, and Apocalypse Now -- his performance was memorable. What was he like off-screen? That depends on who is asked. Opinions vary. In this volume, Stefan Kanter quotes dozens of persons who knew Brando at various stages of his life and career. He also offers some opinions of his own. We now know that Brando made several films only because he desperately needed the money. As for Brando the person, he seems to resemble "the little girl with the curl" who, when she was good was very, very good but when she was bad, she was terrible. He had several wives, countless lovers (including men as well as women) and at least ten children and yet was unwilling and/or unable to sustain a relationship with most of them. He developed few close friendships (e.g. Wally Cox, Jack Nicholson, and perhaps Karl Malden) and little (if any) respect for most of his directors and other actors. Over the years, a number of those who worked with Brando or at least were directly associated with him have very specific opinions about him, some of which are quoted in Kanter's book or in other sources to which he refers.
To me, one of the most revealing statements was made by Jack Nicholson: "I think Marlon knew he was the greatest. I don't think he dwelled on it, nor did he ever say as much to me. But, come on, there was a reason people expected so much from him right to the end. That's why people always expected him to be working. And believe me, there were times when he told me he wanted to work but couldn't." Indeed, Brando once admitted that he had spent a lifetime trying to be less lazy" and in that acknowledgment, Kanfer asserts, lies the key to all that came before. "If there was a `Rosebud' in Brando's life it was the mental illness that had dogged him for decades, probably from childhood...In the competition with his great rival Montgomery Clift, he seems to have won the self-destruction contest."
Frequently Brando did indeed express a sense of shame because he earned his living as an actor. He ridiculed most films (including many of his own) as well as those involved with them. "He had stated for the record that acting was a `bum's life in that it leads to perfect indulgence. You get paid for doing nothing, and it all adds up to nothing.'" Another time, he "spilled his guts" to Elia Kazan: "Here I am, a balding, middle-aged failure...I feel a fraud when I act...I've tried everything...fucking, drinking, work. None of them mean anything. Why can't we be just like - like the Tahitians?" Kanfer is among those who believe that Brando hated himself and what his life had become so much that he committed a form of suicide through excessive consumption throughout the last years of his life. When he died, the cause of death was initially withheld at the request of his attorney but later revealed to be respiratory failure brought on by pulmonary fibrosis. He also suffered from congestive heart failure, failing eyesight due to diabetes, and had recently been diagnosed with liver cancer.
Kanfer seems to have poured over all available research resources that include books and articles by and about Brando and interviews of those who were associated with him at various points in his life and career as well as any other relevant historical material that would help to establish a frame-of-reference for dominant influences and major developments in Brando's "reckless life and remarkable career." Kanfer offers a wealth of insights into Brando's most significant and invariably dysfunctional relationships, as with his parents. Marlon senior earned more than enough to maintain his family in solid comfort. Affection, however, was in short supply. "He grew up rude and misogynistic, given to binge drinking and bullying." As for Dorothy ("Dodie") Brando, "the neighbors whispered that [she] was the kind of woman who saw the glass as half full. That was because she had drunk the other half...Too many afternoons [she] disappeared into an alcohol-saturated haze, unreachable by her children" who included two daughters, Frances ("Frannie") and Jocelyn ("Tiddy"). Kanfer helps his reader to understand why, once Brando became a father, he was a dysfunctional parent. Why, while growing up feeling inadequate and unworthy, he could not later accept praise or offer it to others. And why he became convinced that "if you want something from an audience, you give blood to their fantasies. It is the ultimate hustle."
I only wish that Stefan Kanfer had spent less space discussing Brando's inferior films (e.g. Sayonara and The Ugly American) and more space when examining his great films (e.g. A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront). That said, I do not know of another source that offers more and better information about Marlon Brando's life and career than does this one.Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando (Vintage) Overview

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