You're lying and I see through you, Lady. I see ... through you.
—Snakeskin
THE FUGITIVE KIND (1960)
Grab your coffee mug … It's Tea Time for a Coffee Break.
I remember my mom and dad going over to my cousin's house for a family gathering. I told them I'd take a raincheck. As soon as I told my mom the reason, with two words, one name: "Marlon. Brando." She knew there was no moving me.
At this point in my Marlon Brando "film-watching career"—soon turned Marlon Brando research journey, THE FUGITIVE KIND was one of the films I really wanted to cross off my Brando watchlist. THE COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG (1967) and BEDTIME STORY (1964) were not to come until later, in the more recent years. So, in truth, I was glad to have no one in the house to share my treasure. For this film was. As proved when my mom and dad came back, right at the very, very last frame, and (no spoilers, you know that's not my jam) my mom looked at me and saw this emotional current waved across my face and features. "Was it that good?" I looked at her like, "You should've been here." I mean, how this film gets swept under the rug when talking about Brando's career/performances, or anyone else in the cast and credits, doesn't register in my personal understanding. I'm not talking of the technicalities of why, or the essays, the reviews, the heres and therefore. I mean the lack of personal connection between viewers and subject at the time, that became so lost in translation in film mentions. Though it seems more discussed now, limited at least amongst certain groups within the Classic Film community, it doesn't seem anywhere near as recognized in Brando's career and place as ON THE WATERFRONT (1954), A STREETCAR NAMED DESRIE (1951), even GUYS AND DOLLS (1955).
If there is a film that should be watched with your full attention, for me, it's this or else you will miss not only some dynamic, explosive performances, but the subtle changes made during a scene or dialogue, or as in one of my favorite scenes, "the bird monologue."
I like to imagine, if ever we wanted to witness what Brando was like on stage, on Broadway, in the theatre, for those of us who weren't there ... His THE FUGITIVE KIND ('60) bird monologue would be it. Filling stage w/ just his stillness. Quietness. Words. Poetically said, IMO. pic.twitter.com/igLh6XG21y
— Dominique Revue (@DominiqueRevue) July 27, 2019
"I hated working with Marlon Brando—because he was not there, he was somewhere else. There was nothing to reach on to."
—Joanne Woodward, on working with Bud on THE FUGITIVE KIND (source: Paul and Joanne: A Biography of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, book by Edward Z. Epstein and Joe Morella)
Yet ... maybe that conflict of feeling disconnected from him helps the "relationship" between the two on-screen as we watch them together. His character really is not one to be "connected" with ... necessarily. "I just want to live. I don't care whether they know I'm alive or not," says his character, Valentine Xavier. He is sincere to help if/when needed but free-spirited. Connected with what's around him in nature and life, but not tied down to anyone or anything. Outside his jacket and guitar. One of my favorite—if not my favorite "Did you catch that?" moments—in the film is between Brando and Woodard. So small, so fluid, and so particularly fit, it packs the punch to the whole scene (in my opinion):
This scene … "Mm-mm," he says … Let the record play, Snakeskin. Let the record play. "Let Me Out," Kenyon Hopkins.
— Dominique Revue (@DominiqueRevue) October 1, 2019
Marlon Brando
Joanne Woodward
Maureen Stapleton
THE FUGITIVE KIND
1960
dir. Sidney Lumet pic.twitter.com/ZMyZu8pHRE
This play-turned-film, adaptation was written with Brando and Magnani in mind to play on-stage. Titled for the stage as ORPHEUS DESCENDING, Tennessee Williams wanted the two to originate the roles.
Well, if you know anything about Brando, you know, that returning to the stage was the last thing on his agenda:
"It wasn't that I disliked it. I hated it. I almost went out of my mind." |
|
He didn't feel "at home" as some actors do on-stage, regardless of what others thought, reviewed, or hailed, he was not—to himself—a stage actor. And it is important to note that while filming THE FUGITIVE KIND, Brando was still working on his first/only directorial film ONE-EYED JACKS (1961).
Aside from heavy personal drama in his life—seemingly coexistent in his professional life, hard separating the two—he was going through his own set of troubles with the studio (Paramount) on the filming of ONE-EYED JACKS. A venture that ran months into years, causing Brando to fly back and forth between Los Angeles on weekends to edit "Jacks" and back to New York at the start of the week to film THE FUGITIVE KIND. And still, in my mind, we get an incredible performance from Brando in both films.
And, while I'm here, a stage-to-screen connection I always relish with joy watching as it is my favorite interaction between characters, are the scenes between Brando and long-time friend from their early days in their youth as acting students in New York, the woman Brando called his persistent angel, Maureen Stapleton, who would, in the end, originate the role played by Magnani in the film adaptation of "Mrs. Torrance" on-stage in ORPHEUS DESCENDING. Stapleton would also originate another Tennessee Williams role on-stage that Magnani would go on to play in the film adapt, 1955's THE ROSE TATTOO.
Marlon gives you everything--and too much of it--when you're acting with him. It's the morning after Halloween, when you're sick from the candy after you've acted with him. Enough! you want to say, and I did. But it's the greatest thing to be so hooked up when you're working. He taught me a lot about a play I had studied and lived for a long time, because he's so much smarter and so much more intuitive than almost anybody else. Marlon will hold back in life a lot--disappear, get silent and moody and morose, talk like a f****** fortune cookie--but in the work, and in a really bad pinch of a time, he's fully there and is a wonder. |
You will hear the word implicit a lot with Maureen. People love her implicitly. Trust her implicitly. I feel the same way. I think the only dishonesty she commits is that which will protect someone she loves: She will lie to protect someone's feelings or reputation or dreams, and then she will cry for hours over her deception. |
Case and point:
This scene, THIS SCENE is, for me, what makes everything about THE FUGITIVE KIND ('60), The Fugitive Kind. So underrated. Anna Magnani delivers up a plate to Brando & tells him to eat it. He has to work to get on her level & I□□LOVE□□IT! If you've not seen THE FUGITIVE KIND … pic.twitter.com/e2hiOgUCz8
— Dominique Revue (@DominiqueRevue) January 8, 2020
Which is where I'll leave you, with clear directions to your destination. All roads lead to THE FUGITIVE KIND. So, refill your mug ... And press play.
JULIUS CAESAR (blog post read here)
SAYONARA (blog post read here) VIVA ZAPATA! (blog post read here) A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (blog post read here) ON THE WATERFRONT (blog post read here) THE YOUNG LIONS: (read here) GUYS AND DOLLS: (read here) THE TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON: (read here) THE WILD ONE: (read here) ONE-EYED JACKS: (read here) MORITURI: (read here) |
For the Marlon Brando gifs (a work in progress as I have hundreds of them I'm still trying to upload), visit MY BRANDO GIFS.