With exclusive access to Brando’s aural diaries, rare film, interviews, news footage and photographs, Listen to Me Marlon is Hollywood star-gazing voyeurism at its finest. Painfully forthright, sporadically funny, tinted with tragedy, but always fascinating, this is Brando in the raw, minus the press BS, tabloid titillation and media speculation.
Utilising Brando’s voice throughout, and jettisoning the usual pundits, critics and celeb talking heads, Listen to Me Marlon creates a semblance of intimacy lacking in most Hollywood bio-docs. It might not get us any closer to understanding what made Brando tick, but it sure makes for a more focused attempt. The one major glitch for me was the reliance on a digital recreation of the great method actor’s head – a distracting, over-utilised CGI gimmick that, with so much great footage to choose from, seems downright unnecessary.
Brando’s audio recordings are the star. Full of wit, eloquence, raw emotion, unconditional love and unresolved anger. Armchair psychologists will have a field day with Brando’s fraught relationship with his father, loathing of authority, and his unrelenting desire to be seen as more than just an actor – a profession he derided as, “the expression of a neurotic impulse. A bum’s life.”
Director Stevan Riley delivers an intimate and engrossing insight that’s a sheer delight for Brando devotees, like me. For others, the dreamy, non-linear style, and reliance on evoking feelings over stating facts may evoke Brando’s opinion: “If there’s anything unsettling to the stomach, it’s watching actors… talk about their personal lives.”
‘Listen to Me Marlon’ Movie Times
