a Favorite Film
You don't understand! . . . .
I coulda had class. . . . .
I coulda been a contender. . . . .
I coulda been somebody, ...
Edie (Eva Marie Saint): I remembered you the first moment I saw you.
Terry (Marlon Brando): By the nose, huh? (She smiles at him) Well, some people just got faces that stick in your mind.
Edie: I remember you were in trouble all the time.
Terry: Now you got me. Boy, the way those Sisters used to whack me, I don't know what. They thought they was gonna beat an education into me, but I foxed 'em.
Edie: Maybe they just didn't know how to handle you.
Terry: How would you have done it?
Edie: With a little more patience and kindness. That's what makes people mean and difficult. People don't care enough about them.
Terry: Ah, what are you kiddin' me?
Remembering Marlon Brando
July 2, 2004 6:48 pm US/Mountain
LOS ANGELES (CBS)
"Marlon Brando, who revolutionized American acting with his Method performances in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "On the Waterfront" and went on to create the iconic character of Don Vito Corleone in "The Godfather," has died. He was 80."
. . . "Brando's private life may best be defined by a line from "The Wild One," in which Brando, playing a motorcycle gang leader, is asked what he's rebelling against.
"Whaddya got?" was his reply. "
news4colorado.com/siteSearch/entertainment_story_184114004.html
"Actor Marlon Brando has died in Los Angeles at the age of 80. BBC News Online looks back at his film career."
"He was a larger-than-life figure whose life was replete with short-lived marriages, bitter divorces, child custody battles and torrid affairs."
"Substantial parts of his colossal film fees went to charity and he continued to be a staunch liberal and ally of the underdog."
"As his one-time friend and co-star Jack Nicholson once said, 'He gave us our freedom.'"
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/1231613.stm
January 22, 1973
". . . But Brando, that heartbreakingly beautiful champion of the Stanislavskian revolution in acting, never arrived at Hamlet. Never even came close. He would go on to give us a few great things, and a few near great things, but eventually he would abandon himself, as every tabloid reader knows, to suet and sulks, self-loathing and self-parody. The greatness of few major cultural figures of our century rests on such a spindly foundation. No figure of his influence has so precariously balanced a handful of unforgettable achievements against a brimming barrelful of embarrassments."
". . . For the passing years have taught us this: refusing to rally a revolution, Marlon Brando still managed to personify it. His shadow now touches every acting class in America, virtually every movie we see, every TV show we tune in. We know too that the faith vested in his example by all the De Niros and Pacinos, and, yes, the Johnny Depps and Leonardo DiCaprios, was not misplaced. Marlon Brando may have resisted his role in history, may even have travestied it, but, in the end, he could not evade it."
www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/brando.html
Mr Brando's works live on:
us.imdb.com/name/nm0000008/
My personal favorite Brando film is - On The Waterfront (probably in my top 10) :
us.imdb.com/title/tt0047296/
But, I would like to recommend another (perhaps forgotten by most) film based on a stage comedy. Brando really went out on a limb with this one - but I think its a real charmer - and an example of the actor's devotion to his craft :
The Tea House Of The August Moon (1956) :
us.imdb.com/title/tt0049830/
Waterfront Reviews
There is an excellent review of On The Waterfront by Roger Ebert:
"If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film in America, I don't know what it is," Kazan writes in his book. If you changed 'better' to 'more influential,' there would be one other performance you could suggest, and that would be Brando's work in Kazan's "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951). In those early films, Brando cut through decades of screen mannerisms and provided a fresh, alert, quirky acting style that was not realism so much as a kind of heightened riff on reality.
www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebe...eviews/1999/01/water1118.html
There is a wonderful, in depth article here:
"The film reunited Kazan with Marlon Brando, whose performance as Terry Malloy, ex-pug and longshoreman, is one of the best ever recorded on celluloid.
. . . When the Oscars were presented the following year, On the Waterfront won eight: Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), Best Supporting Actress (Saint), Best Director (Kazan), Best Story & Screenplay (Schulberg), Best Editing, Best Cinematography-Black & White and Best Art Direction-Black & White. Nominated but not winning were Malden, Cobb and Steiger-each for Best Supporting Actor-and Leonard Bernstein, who made a rare foray into film composing for Best Music. After 40 years, On the Waterfront remains one of the most moving and powerful motion pictures ever produced. "
www.moderntimes.com/palace/waterfront.htm
There is a very in depth review of the film (with lots of spoilers) and quotes here:
"Its screenplay by screenwriter Budd Schulberg (in collaboration with Kazan) was taken from Schulberg's own original story - that was based on New York Sun (now defunct) newspaper reporter Malcolm Johnson's expose, found in a series of 24 articles called Crime on the Waterfront. The series chronicled actual dockside events, labor racketeering, and corrupt practices, and won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. It revealed rampant bribery, extortions, kickbacks to union officials, payoffs, theft, union-sponsored loan sharks, murder, and the mob's tyrannical influence on New York's waterfront. "
www.filmsite.org/onth.html
A very large compliment of well written comments by IMDB members:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0047296/usercomments
A Review by Tom Coates - BBC:
"Director Elia Kazan was shunned by many of his Hollywood peers for naming names during McCarthy's communist witch hunts of the early 1950s. When his "On the Waterfront" was released in 1954 it was seen by many as a defiant attempt to justify his actions. Whether or not it succeeded it is today almost irrelevant. The film stood untarnished on its own two feet, eventually taking home eight Academy Awards and carving a place for itself in cinema history."
www.bbc.co.uk/films/2001/05/18/on_the_waterfront_review.shtml
Poetry & Prose
" Yes, I understood. Zorba was the man I had sought so long in vain. A living heart, a large voracious mouth, a greate brute soul, not yet severed from mother earth. "
Zorba The Greek
A friend invited me to watch the film - Zorba The Greek - (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0057831) years ago. I enjoyed the performances of Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates. I was moved and entertained by this romantic, cinematic vision. But, it wasn't till a few years later that I discovered how the film barely scratched the surface of the novel - the brilliant manifestation of Nikos Kazantzakis.
(Translation by Carl Wildman)
I purpose - in this entry - to revisit Zorba and glean some "truth, goodness and beauty". This is not a "book review". I simply want to capture some essence of Zorba's persona - as well as the protagonist's struggles - and what Zorba may teach us all.
The Tale Takes Place In The Greek Islands:
" The sea, autumn mildness, islands bathed in light, fine rain spreading a diaphanous veil over the immortal nakedness of Greece. Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying has the good fortune to sail the Aegean Sea. . . . No where else can one pass so easily and serenely from reality to dream. . . . "
-chapter 2
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Perceptions from our story teller:
"everything's simple in the world"
"WE STAYED silent by the brazier until far into the night. I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness; a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothng else. And all that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart."
-chapter 7
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"It was cold, the sea was booming, Venus was dancing roguishly in the east. I walked along the water's edge playing a game with the waves. . . . 'This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. . . . to escape on your own far from all the snares, to have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right: and to realize of a sudden that , in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle; it has become a fairy tale.'"
- chapter 10
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The Influence Of Religion
" Out of my pocket I drew a little edition of Dante - my traveling companion. I lit a pipe, leaned against the wall and made myself comfortable. I hesitated for a moment. Into which verses should I dip? Into the burning pitch of the Inferno, or the cleansing flames of Purgatory? Or should I make straight for the most elevated plane of human hope? I had the choice. Holding my pocket Dante in my hand, I rejoiced in my freedom. The verses I was going to choose so early in the morning would impart their rhythm to the whole of the day. "
-chapter 1
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"I stopped for a moment on the sand and looked. A sacred solitude lay before me, deadly and yet fascinating, like the desert. The Buddhist song rose out of the very soil and found its way to the depths of my being. 'When shall I at last retire into solitude, alone, without companions, without joy and without sorrow, with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream? When , in my rags - without desires - shall I retire contented into the mountains? When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death, shall I - free, fearless and blissful - retire into the forest? When? When, oh when?'"
-chapter 2
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"'WHO THEN created this labyrinth of hesitation, this temple of presumption, this pitcher of sin, this field sown with a thousand deceptions, this gateway to Hell, this basket overflowing with artfulness, this poison which tastes like honey, this bond which chains mortals to the earth: woman?'
. . . silently copying this Buddhist song, . . . "
- chapter 10
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"In religions which have lost their creative spark, the gods eventually become no more than poetic motifs or ornaments for decorating human solitude and walls."
- chapter 12
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". . . The last man - who has freed himself from all belief, from all illusions and has nothing more to expect or to fear - sees the clay of which he is made reduced to spirit, and this spirit has no soil left for its roots, from which to draw its sap. The last man has emptied himself; no more seed, no more excrement, no more blood. Everything having turned into words, every set of words into musical jugglery, the last man goes even further: he sits in his utter solitude and decomposes the music into mute, mathematical equations.
I started. 'Buddha is that last man!' I cried. That is his secret and terrible significance. Buddha is the 'pure' soul which has emptied itself; in him is the void, he is the Void. 'Empty your body, empty your spirit, empty your heart!' he cries. Wherever he sets his foot, water no longer flows, no grass can grow, no child be born."
- chapter 12
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"The unfailing rhythm of the seasons, the ever-turning wheel of life, the four facets of the earth which are lit in turn by the sun, the passing of life - all these filled me once more with a feeling oppression. Once more there sounded within me, together with the cranes's cry, the terrible warning that there is only one life for all men, that there is no other, and that all that can be enjoyed must be enjoyed here. In eternity no other chance will be given to us. "
- chapter 15
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". . . The mystic fervor of my early years had degenerated into an aesthetic pleasure. Savages believe that when a musical instrument is no longer used for religious rites it loses its divine power and begins to give out harmonious sounds. Religion, in the same way, had become degraded in me: it had become art."
- chapter 15
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". . . The things that move me most deeply - unity, firmness of purpose and constancy of desire - were once again revealed to me. . . . "
- chapter 18
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sensuality
"I was sitting in front of the hut and watching the ground darken and the sea grow a phosphorescent green. Not a soul was to be seen from one end of the beach to the other, not a sail, not a bird. Only the smell of the earth entered through the window.
I rose and held out my hand to the rain like a beggar. I suddenly felt like weeping. Some sorrow, not my own but deeper and more obscure, was rising from the damp earth: the panic which a peaceful grazing animal feels when, all at once, without seeing anything, it rears its head and scents in the air about it that it is trapped and cannot escape.
I wanted to utter a cry, knowing that it would relieve my feelings, but I was ashamed to.
The clouds were coming lower and lower. I looked through the window; my heart was gently palpitating.
What a voluptuous enjoyment of sorrow those hours of soft rain can produce in you! . . ."
- chapter 8
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". . . I peeled one of the juicy oranges; it was as sweet as honey. I lay down, fell asleep, and the whole night through I wandered in orange groves. A warm wind was blowing; I had bared my chest to the wind and had a sprig of sweet basil behind my ear. I was a young peasant of twenty, and I roamed about the orange grove whistling and waiting. For whom was I waiting? - I do not know. But my heart was ready to burst for joy. I twirled up my moustache and listened, the whole night through, to the sea sighing like a woman behind the orange trees."
- chapter 14
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A Line In The Sand
". . . For as soon as I arrived here I drew a circle, in the way you taught me, and called that circle 'my duty.' I said: 'If I save this entire circle, I am saved; if I do not save it, I am lost! . . ."
- Letter from a friend on a humanitarian mission to rescue hundred's of thousands of Greek refugees. - chapter 12
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Surviving The Storm
"When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy - some call him God, others the Devil, seems to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.
Each time that within ourselves we are the conquerors, although externally utterly defeated, we human beings feel an indescribable pride and joy. Outward calamity is transformed into a supreme and unshakable felicity."
- chapter 25
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Alexis Zorba:
Zorbanosity - the elemental Zorba
" Yes, I understood. Zorba was the man I had sought so long in vain. A living heart, a large voracious mouth, a greate brute soul, not yet severed from mother earth.
The meaning of the words, art, love, purity, passion, all this was made clear to me by the simplest of human words uttered by this workman. "
-chapter 1
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"I looked a Zorba in the light of the moon and admired the jauntiness and simplicity with which he adapted himself to the world around him, the way his body and soul formed one harmonious whole, and all things - women, bread, water, meat, sleep - blended happily with his flesh and became Zorba. I had never seen such a friendly accord between a man and the universe."
- chapter 11
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"The universe for Zorba, as for the first men on earth, was a weighty, intense vision; the stars glided over him, the sea broke against his temples. He lived the earth, water, the animals and God, without the distorting intervention of reason."
- chapter 12
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Humanity
"Man is a brute," he said, striking the pebbles with his stick. "A great brute. Your lordship doesn't realize this. It seems everything's been too easy for you, but you ask me! A brute, I tell you! If you're cruel to him, he respects and fears you. If you're kind to him, he plucks your eyes out.
"Keep your distance, boss! Don't make the men too bold, don't go telling them we're all equal, we've got the same rights, or they'll go straight and trample on your rights; they'll steal your bread and leave you to die of hunger. Keep your distance, boss, by all the good things I wish you!"
-chapter 4
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Woman
"'Don't laugh, boss! If a woman sleeps all alone, it's the fault of us men. We'll all have to render our accounts on the day of the last judgment. God will forgive all sins, as we've said before - he'll have his sponge ready. But that sin he will not forgive. Woe betide the man who could sleep with a woman and who did not do so! Woe betide the woman who could sleep with a man and who did not do so! . . .'"
- chapter 9
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"'May God sanctify my grandad's bones!' he said. 'He knew a thing or two about women. He liked them a lot, poor wretch, and they led him a regular dance in his life-time. 'By all the good things I wish you, Alexis, my boy,' he'd say, 'beware of women! When God took Adam's rib out to create woman - curse that minute! - the devil turned into a serpent, and pff! he snatched the rib and ran off with it . . . God dashed after him and caught him, but he slipped out of his fingers an God was left with just the devil's horns in his hands. 'A good housekeeper,' said God, 'can sew even with a spoon. Well, I'll create a woman with the devil's horns!' And he did; and that's how the devil got us all, Alexis my boy. No matter where you touch a woman, you touch the devil's horns. Beware of her my boy! She also stole the apples in the garden of Eden; she shoved them down her bodice, and now she goes out and about, strutting all over the place. A plague on her! Eat any of those apples and you're lost; don't eat any and you'll still be lost! That's what my old grandad said to me. But how could you expect me to grow up sensible? I went the same way as he did - I went to the devil!'"
- chapter 11
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Working
"I have realized for some time I didn't come into this world to be a horse, or an ox. Only animals live to eat. To escape the above accusation, I invent jobs for myself day and night. I risk my daily bread for an idea, I turn the proverb round and say 'Better be a lean moorhen on a pond than a fat sparrow in a cage.'"
- chapter 13
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Nationalism
"Lots of people are patriots without it costing them anything. I am not a patriot, and will not be, whatever it costs me. Lots of people believe in paradise and they keep an ass tethered there. I have no ass, I am free! I am not afraid of hell where my ass would die. I don't long for paradise either, where he would stuff himself with clover. . . .
Lots of people have been afraid of the vanity of things! I've overcome it. Lots reflect hard; I have no need to reflect. I don't rejoice over the good and don't despair over the bad. If I hear that the Greeks have taken Constantinople, its just the same to me as if the Turks were taking Athens."
- chapter 13
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"And I cleared out. . . . That was how I was rescued, . . . Rescued from my country, from priests, and from money. I began sifting things, sifting more and more things out. I lighten my burden that way. I - how shall I put it? - I find my own deliverance, I became a man. . . .
There was a time when I used to say: that man's a Turk, or a Bulgar, or a Greek. I've done things for my country that would make your hair stand on end, . . . Why? Because they were Bulgars, or Turks, . . . Nowadays I say this man is a good fellow, that one's a bastard. They can be Greeks or Bulgars or Turks, it doesn't matter. . . . and as I grow older - I'd swear this on the last crust I eat - I feel I shan't even go on asking that! Whether a man's good or bad, I'm sorry for him, for all of 'em. . . . "
- chapter 20
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Living is Taking Action
". . . Sometimes its war, sometimes women, sometimes wine, sometimes the santuri; where would I find time to drive a miserable pen? . . .
All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! . . . "
- chapter 13
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I'm Free
"'No, you're not free,' he said. 'The string you're tied to is perhaps no longer than other people's. That's all. You're on a long piece of string, boss; you come and go, and think you're free, but you never cut the string in two. And when people don't cut that string. . . '
'I'll cut it some day!' I said defiantly, . . .
It's difficult, boss, very difficult. You need a touch of folly to do that; folly, d'you see? You have to risk everything! But you've got such a strong head, it'll always get the better of you . A man's head is like a grocer it keeps accounts: I've paid so much and earned so much and that means a profit of this much or a loss of that much! The head's a careful little shopkeeper; it never risks all it has, always keeps something in reserve. It never breaks that string. Ah no! It hangs on tight to it, the bastard! If the strings slips out of its grasp, the head, poor devil, is lost, finished! But if a man doesn't break the string, tell me, what flavor is left in life? The flavor of chamomile, weak chamomile tea! Nothing like rum - that makes you see life inside out!"
- chapter 26
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