Marlon Brando: Rarely heard tapes
A new documentary pulls together previously unreleased recordings made by the elusive Hollywood star, offering an intimate portrait of an icon. Tom Brook talks to its director.
Listen to me Marlon offers a portrait of Marlon Brando so intimate that Variety declared “it almost feels as if he assembled the film himself from beyond the grave”. The Hollywood star’s estate asked British film-maker Stevan Riley to make the documentary, drawing from hours of previously unreleased audio tapes.
“There was a very ordinary and personable character behind all of that, who never wanted fame, who genuinely was a victim of his own success,” Riley tells Tom Brook. “I hope the film does a lot to bring him down to Earth, which is where he wanted to be.”
Excerpts from the tapes are mixed with TV footage and home movies as well as clips from films including On the Waterfront and The Godfather. It’s a rare chance to see the human side of an icon. As Brando’s daughter Rebecca tells Brook, he was a man “filled with insecurities and self-doubt… always wanting to be approved and accepted, and validated.”
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