Nerd Journal: Research Cram With Old Movies -- "Hey, Stellaaaaaaa!"

You know the drill.  Wherever I have a pile of research and writing and nerd work to do, I put on movies for background noise.  I can't work in total silence.  It drives me crazy -- or I fall asleep on top of my books and papers.  So this time around, it's all hail the glories of streaming Netflix as we take a look at some classic films.  I was thinking I'd try to watch movies starring a particular well-regarded actor or actress, so I started off with Marlon Brando.  So here's what's up.


Oh, I had seen all these movies before, but that was a long time ago, and maybe I wasn't really able to appreciate them at the time (well, Final Exam CramFest is never a time for appreciating anything).  Anyway, I'm surrounded by nerd work, and this is what's streaming on my TV:

• "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951)
• "Julius Caesar" (1953)
• "On the Waterfront" (1954)
• "The Godfather" (1972)

Watch them if you never have.  Watch them again if you have.  Brando is a force of nature in "A Streetcar Named Desire."  His character is the brute, the blunt unrefined thug prone to violence and cruelty, and yet Brando invests him with an unmistakable charisma as the monster who burns with a raw sensuality and brims with a pained, flawed humanity that he can neither contain nor even truly comprehend.  He's riveting.  Even the playwright Tennessee Williams, who had not intended the character of Stanley to turn out this way in performance, loved it.  By the way, I hate Tennessee Williams as a general rule, I don't like the entire "depressing Southern gothic" schtick, and I cannot stand the character of Blanche DuBois.  But the flick is worth watching for Brando alone.  You can hardly believe this was only his second movie.  It makes you wish you could have seen him in the original stage version of the play.

And something else... The thought occurs to me that familiarity breeds contempt, especially with the movies.  The iconic scenes with the immortal lines "Hey, Stellaaaaaaaaaa!" from "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "I coulda been a contender" from "On the Waterfront" (kudos too to Rod Steiger, playing opposite Brando as his brother Charley) are now so ingrained in pop culture familiarity that they, taken out of context and turned into factoids and bits of trivia, seem to lose a good bit of their power.  But see and hear them in context in their respective films, and they pack a punch that you forget they had.  Brando is generally regarded as one of the greatest actors of American film.  And you can see why with roles like Stanley Kowalski and Terry Malloy.  At his best, Brando is unbelievable.  (Too bad later on he and his career both went off the rails.)  As for the fantastic "Godfather," every single guy I know can quote this movie as if they had the whole thing memorized.  Every. Single. Guy.  Maybe it's a codified part of Universal Man Law: Thou shalt memorize "The Godfather," son.

As for Brando as Mark Antony in the film version of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," do I really have to say anything more?  If you want to get my full and undivided attention, you do Shakespeare and you do it well, full stop.  (After all, that's how David Tennant went from being "what a nice Doctor" to "OMG, David Tennant.")