MovieChat Forums > Marlon Brando Discussion > Was Brando ever a "Great Actor"?

Was Brando ever a "Great Actor"?


During the fifties and sixties and briefly in the early 1970s, Brando had a reputation as a "great actor", even "the world's greatest actor". I didn't see it for a long time, because while he made a ton of films during that era, and few of them were great or featured great work of his, I grew up thinking he was massively overrated. It was years before I saw the early work that gained him his reputation in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "On The Waterfront", but even then I wonder...

Did Brando ever really achieve greatness, was he a real top talent, or did he just have so much natural charisma and sex appeal that he was naturally perfect for certain roles? Because when he tried hard, all you saw was the trying hard.

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He was the lead actor in the movie that is widely regarded the greatest movie of all time. That’s why he has such an aura around his name

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And it's a movie that I've never liked, except to appreciate the skill with which it was made.

Sadly, my dislike of the movie and all the characters in it, has really kept me from liking or loving Brando's performance, and in fact I still wonder if it's overrated because he pulled off a chameleon-like change in his appearance and mannerisms for the first (and only) time in his life.

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"Brando was an avid student and proponent of Stella Adler, from whom he learned the techniques of the Stanislavski system. This technique encouraged the actor to explore both internal and external aspects to fully realize the character being portrayed. Brando's remarkable insight and sense of realism were evident early on. Adler used to recount that when teaching Brando, she had instructed the class to act like chickens, and added that a nuclear bomb was about to fall on them. Most of the class clucked and ran around wildly, but Brando sat calmly and pretended to lay an egg. Asked by Adler why he had chosen to react this way, he said, "I'm a chicken—what do I know about bombs?"

Brando was the first to bring a natural approach to acting on film. According to Dustin Hoffman in his online Masterclass, Brando would often talk to camera men and fellow actors about their weekend even after the director would call action. Once Brando felt he could deliver the dialogue as natural as that conversation he would start the dialogue. In his 2015 documentary, Listen To Me Marlon, he said before that actors were like breakfast cereals, meaning they were predictable. Critics would later say this was Brando being difficult, but actors who worked opposite would say it was just all part of his technique."

BRANDO WAS AN AMAZING ACTOR,WHO WORKED HARD AT HIS CRAFT...HIS EGO HANDICAPPED HIM GREATLY IN THE 60S...THEN HE SETTLED INTO WORKING AS A HIGH PRICED CHARACTER ACTOR.

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"Brando was the first to bring a natural approach to acting on film."

That is probably the Number One Myth in movie history. There was no shortage of very naturalistic actors in film, going back to the early 1930s. In fact, very realistic performances can be found in silent movies, where being natural was even more difficult.

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MYTH IS OFTEN MORE EXCITING THAN FACT...THAT SEEM TO BE THE CASE HERE.

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I never thought he was a great actor. To me he played the same mumbling, moody guy in every movie he did. He's more of a movie star.

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You speak utter nonsense. Brando never looked like he was trying hard, he made it look natural and effortless. You want to see trying hard, take a look at Daniel Day Lewis or Christian Bale.

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Daniel Day Lewis is one of the best actors out there. Super versatile actor. Why shouldn't an actor try hard?

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I'm not saying it's good or bad, i'm just refuting the OP's moronic statement. Brando made it look effortless.

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He was scary as shit in Apocalypse Now...that scene bothered the hell out of me.

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