Three Things that Ruined Hollywood, Part 1 --by Travis @ Tempe

Part 1

Marlon Brando


Hailed the greatest actor in American film history, this man who went from dashingly handsome lead to eccentric and obese loon may have caused more damage to Hollywood than he gets credit for.

One of the pioneers of the Method—an actor with the wit to pick up a white glove and tap a feather through the air—Brando ushered in an era of “serious” actors and prima donnas (they’re really the same thing, you know). From the Brando root:

We get the Weight Losers/Gainers (De Niro in “Bull”, Bale in… well just about everything but the Batman movies and “American Pscyho”)

We get the Extremists (Day-Lewis listened to Eminem for his scenes in “Gangs”, can’t get out of costume for any film, and can’t stand to keep acting so he goes away to make shoes until someone comes to drag him back) and along with that…

We get the Junkies (actors who have to go sooo far into their characters that they can’t escape emotional trauma, a.k.a. Heath Ledger pushing himself to play a glorified clown in “The Dark Batman” to the point of depression/anxiety/bullshit)

We get the Actor/Filmmakers (Ed Norton has to take every script he gets away for a rewrite… even “The Hulk”… come on, “The Hulk”… he snatched “American History X” away from its director to re-edit and has done so again and again… he’s got so much brilliance he’s just go to spread it all around)

We get the Quirks (these guys and girls think it best to request the most absurd for the sake of self-indulgence… hmm, like Mickey Rourke having to play scenes with his pet Chihuahua because he loves the rat dog if it’s in the script or not… or Lord Brando the Rapist of Real Acting himself who required Frank Oz to leave the room in any scene in “The Score” and was rumored to refuse to wear pants) and most tragically…

We get the countless Amateurs with Egos (young actors working outside Hollywood from the ground trying to make their way up with some kind of notion stuck in their heads of the power of improvisation, “becoming” their characters, and extra-curricular involvement in the making of the film… I would know, I’ve worked with them)

Here’s a little anecdote. John Schlesinger is shooting “Marathon Man” with Laurence Olivier (old school) and Dustin Hoffman (Brando school). One day, they’re shooting the famous scene where Nazi Olivier pulls Hoffman’s tooth—horrifying scene. They’re ready: Hoffman enters, worn, sweaty, looking like death flushed down the toilet. Olivier asks, “What’s wrong?” Hoffman tells him that he’s been up for the last few days, has been running constantly, wearing himself down as much as he possibly can. “Why,” Olivier asks. “To prepare for the scene”, Hoffman replies. And Olivier couldn’t put it better: “Boy, have you ever heard to acting?”

Olivier’s right. Did Bogart have to live as a detective to play Sam Spade or emerge himself irreparably into Rick for “Casablanca”? No. Yet somehow his performances and others who have preceded or avoided the Brando plague still ring true to the kind of human drama which remains Hollywood’s best. Has acting gotten any better since Brando? Or has it become a trade for the ultra-egotist, a realm for showiness, a harbor for difficult, self-obsessed artists?

The Brando Zombies are running amuck through Hollywood, bloating their frames and overexposing their film stock with so-called seriousness. If you see any, shoot for the head—I hear it works best.