'Listen to Me Marlon' documentary showcases Brando at his best

Marlon Brando

If you're a huge Marlon Brando fan like me, or someone who's simply curious about what the fuss over him is all about -- then I strongly recommend you check out the moving and fascinating new documentary film about his life, Listen to Me Marlon.

The film wisely eschews the usually documentary tics. It features no talking heads, just audio from tapes Brando recorded (For himself? For posterity? It's never revealed) over several decades.

Through interviews, found footage, movie clips and more -- we see a new side of a man who spent his entire public life trying to keep it private.

Yet instead of feeling like a salacious expose, Listen to Me Marlon is illuminating.

This film is a tribute to his incomparable talent, his demons, his passions, his inquisitive nature. You walk away from this film -- or at least I did -- convinced that Brando truly was genius at the art of acting and a charismatic, though deeply wounded character in his real life.

I've always felt that Brando is unjustly maligned for having contempt for his craft and for largely phoning it in as a performer after 1979. While he is a deeply flawed and at times maddening person, he was also an emotional, sensitive and clearly bright man.

Listen to Me Marlon dedicates a chunk of its running time to not just Brando's films, but his underrated political activism (he was a confidant of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Panthers, as well as tireless advocate for American Indians) and his relationship to his parents and children.

In reality, Brando only gave a handful of truly masterful performances, but he threw himself into his work so fully that it understandable that he couldn't sustain that kind of artistic perfection for so long. The many great actors that have come in his wake, like Pacino and De Niro for instance, have had their fair share of paycheck roles too.

This powerful film made me want to rediscover Brando's brilliance all over again. Here are my thoughts on his most indispensable film work:

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) - I'll never forget the effect this film had on my 10th grade English class. Although the Tennessee Williams play was powerful, the movie really knocked the socks of me and my classmates. Has there ever been a more vivacious, sexual performance from a man in a movie? The girls in my class wanted to be with Brando and the guys wanted to be him. The fact that he was a misogynist pig who presumably rapes the heroine was sort of lost on us then. The role of Stanley Kowalski haunted Brando, he was always troubled by the thought that people conflated him with the character. He was that good in the role.

On the Waterfront (1954) - Although Brando's performance and "I coulda been a contender" speech from this film have been oft-imitated over the years, its power hasn't been diluted. Brando brought an ahead-of-its-time realism and honesty to the role of Terry Malloy, a none-too-bright boxer caught between dock workers and the brutal union boss who terrorizes them. Brando has so many memorable moments here, both subtle and histrionic. His improvised acting choice to pick up Eva Marie Saint's glove and put in on his own hand speaks volumes.

The Young Lions (1958) - Not as well known, but one of Brando's most interesting works before he became box office poison. He is one of three leads in this World War II film (although he never has scenes with co-stars Dean Martin and Montgomery Clift). He plays a somewhat aloof Nazi who comes to realize the nature of who he has aligned himself with far too late. Brando was able to find the humanity in characters who might otherwise be discarded on the scrap heap of history. His bitter realizations in this film are transcendent.

The Chase (1966) - Brando is the standout in a stellar cast which includes a young Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, as an embattled southern sheriff who struggles to remain humane in a community steeped in corruption and repugnant racism. He does so much in this film with just a look and a physical gesture. A bleak film that was in many ways ahead of its time, talky to be sure, but with one of Brando's most intriguing roles in an otherwise weak decade for the actor.

The Godfather (1972) - After a long hiatus and a series of forgettable films, Brando returned with a bang with the role he is probably best known for. It's an incredible kabuki performance. I remember be astonished as a child to learn that Brando was only in his late 40s when he played the part of an aging, wounded mafia don. I also was stunned to learn he wasn't even Italian. He totally immerses himself in a role that is so iconic that virtually every parody and image of a mob chief now is mirrored after him. This film sparked one of the greatest comebacks in Hollywood history.

Last Tango In Paris (1973) - Brando delivers not just his best performance in this autobiographical, profoundly dark film -- but he gives, in my opinion, one of the best performances of all time. He was never more raw and exposed in a film, literally and figuratively, as Paul -- a grieving widow retreating to sex to salve his emotional wounds. It's a heartbreaking, and at times, hard to watch piece of acting, but it you go in with an open mind the rewards of this masterwork are self evident. The film's sexual politics may be problematic for modern audiences, but its star is a wonder.

Apocalypse Now (1979) - The filming of Brando's pivotal role of Col. Kurtz in Francis Coppola's Vietnam epic was infamously contentious. Brando disliked the script and turned up on set overweight and unmotivated. And yet somehow they made lemonade out of the lemons. Although he has limited screen time, Brando is a remarkable, haunting presence in the movie. He has several of Apocalypse Now's most memorable lines and he puts the controlled chaos of the film in a unique perspective that only an actor of his stature can give.