LISTEN TO ME MARLON
12:305:109:55
Must End Tuesday, September 8
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY STEVAN RILEY
Marlon Brando, a great star and an even greater mystery despite his enormous celebrity, strained for self-comprehension. Based on 200 hours of recently discovered recordings he made during his lifetime (some labeled “self-hypnosis”), Stevan Riley assembles a self-portrait of a deeply troubled man with insecurities (“I arrived in New York with holes in my socks and holes in my mind”), alliances (Stella Adler said, “Don’t worry my boy; the world is going to hear from you”), creative genius to burn (“When the camera is close on you, your face becomes the stage”), and sexual magnetism (“A lot of your decisions are made by your penis, not your brain.”). LISTEN TO ME MARLON is that rare film that plunges deep inside a complex and mercurial personality, a man more fascinating and compelling than Stanley Kowalski, Terry Malloy, and Vito Corleone combined.
UK • 2015 • 100 MINS. • SHOWTIME FILMS
Reviews
“THE GREATEST, MOST SEARCHING DOCUMENTARY OF AN ACTOR EVER PUT ON FILM, and it’s no coincidence that it’s about film’s greatest and most searching actor… No one could thinkso believably on-camera or find more poetic and surprising ways to show the progress of those thoughts on his face…. Riley’s film is the worthiest epitaph imaginable.”
– David Edelstein, New York magazine
“A MASTERPIECE. ASTONISHING. Restores to Brando his rightful genius. The director, Stevan Riley, approaches documentary form with the same ebullience and vigor that defines Brando’s method acting, whipping his archival footage into a frenzy of sound and movement. The result is ELECTRIFYING.”
– Calum Marsh, Village Voice
“The man, the Method and possibly the madness can all be seen – and heard – in LISTEN TO ME MARLON, an intimate, impressionistic portrait of Marlon Brando partly told through his own words… Mr. Brando comes searchingly alive. The visuals – a seamless blend of moving and still material – are swell, but it’s that singular voice that carries this movie… It’s such a blast to hear the man himself talking.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“INVALUABLE. A world apart from your usual straight-up biographical doc, (the film) features no talking heads other than Brando's own. It’s like a tone poem drawn from the actor's inner and outer life, narrated by the man himself. There's nothing quite like it in the world of Hollywood documentaries. It unlocks so many quiet secrets about this actor that we only think we know. Brando’s deep insecurities, his nearly boundless sex drive, his civil rights activism: LISTEN TO ME MARLON gives as full a picture of Brando as a 1,000-page biography might.”
– Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice
“Fully puts us inside Brando’s mind. Personal, impressionistic, often poetic. And very moving.”
– Stephen Whitty, NJ Star-Ledger
“CRITIC’S PICK. An essential glimpse inside the mind of America’s greatest actor.”
– Time Out New York
