Listen to Me Marlon

This makes largely creative use of Brando's career-long tendency to create diaries on audio tape. He also made self-hypnosis or relaxation tapes that are used here to very interesting effect; these are poignant, funny, and profound at once. Brando was shrewd and insightful, but the tapes also demonstrate the difficulty of healing private wounds through introspection alone. He resisted anyone who tried to be close to him; if they succeeded, as Bertolucci seemed to, he felt betrayed. These monologues are occasionally the stuff of Sophocles or Samuel Becket--but overall like some involuted, existentialist novel. I am less enthusiastic about the editing, which is often abrupt and involves oscillatory panning or camera movements that suggest a rough ferry ride. His words are often dynamic enough. A holographic computer image of Brando's head, seeming to date from around 1998, is made to animate many of his words, about once every ten minutes or so. This is at once spooky and quaint (if the 1990s are now quaint) but it recurs so much that it's like a child in a mask over-doing a joke at a party. The photographic choices from Brando's career are often good, but Brando's childhood home (suggested in a fantasy sequence) is furnished like some impoverished house from 1980, among a few such anachronisms. My strongest criticism of this still engaging movie is for its use of music. It is needlessly chronic--it never shuts up-- serving as a constant, indicative background, when Brando's voice would often suffice. And this soundtrack music itself is not great--at its best, it is Philip Glassy stuff, but often it sounds like a melodramatic "dark" variety of 1980s "new age" music. The music is extremely high in the soundtrack mix, and strangest of all, the director/ sound editors chose to let this new-agey soundtrack compete obnoxiously with any original music that may have been part of any film clip. So when we see famous clips from his major movies, like "Streetcar," the original music mixes dissonantly with the faux-Glass music. I found the sound editing a real distraction that shouldn't have passed the draft stage.

I loved it, a very interesting and original way to to know more about Marlon Brando's life

A fascinating look into the life of Marlon Brando, made all the more compelling and unique through its use of Brando's own private audio and rare video recordings. If you're put off early on because it seems to be jumping around and/or it's hard to hear, stick with it. Aside from seeing many examples of Brando's absolutely brilliant acting, we see a complete view of his life, with all of its triumphs and difficulties.

Brando had problems with relationships, children, poor part selections, and was often a pain in the behind to his directors. That may also put people off, but I have to say, this documentary also shows just how laser sharp the man was. The same blistering honesty he brought to his acting roles, he also brought to life. He saw that acting was a means to an end – that time was the true currency of man – and after he had 'made it', he made sure to enjoy his life. He was a pillar of moral rectitude during the Civil Rights movement, standing up for African-Americans and later also for Native Americans. He saw through the phoniness and profiteering in the world, and sought to live his life simply in Tahiti and elsewhere. He had a difficult childhood and relationship with his father, and yet reached a point of forgiveness, understanding that his dad was a product of his own upbringing, and so on, and so on.

Despite the maelstrom of chaos and occasional controversy in his life, what emerges is the coherence of Brando's honesty and his moral code. He humiliated himself by taking parts that were ridiculous and which he later regretted, but if you put that into the context of his life and his priorities, you'll empathize with him, and will be far less prone to laughing at him. I was aware of all the elements of his story, but this documentary really brought it all together for me, and left me admiring the man even more. He was a true hero, a brilliant actor with a social conscience and an intellect that should is under-appreciated.

In terms of the documentary, there are some elements that are less effective. The scenes showing his crude digitized likeness. The audio when it's hard to understand, and which would have been helped with subtitles (turning on close caption helps, even if you're not hearing impaired). The less than even storytelling, though it's always the case that a biographer must choose what to leave in, and what to leave out. With all of that said, director Stevan Riley delivers, and there will be things in this documentary for everyone, regardless of how much you come in knowing about Brando. Strong film.

I am not the first to suggest that Marlon Brando was more interesting than the characters he played, including Stanley Kowalski and Terry Malloy. The new documentary, Listen to Me Marlon, takes three directors to do the acting legend justice. They do it well by searching hundreds of Brando's recordings and interviews to piece together a fascinating, unbiased look at his life.

They even have digitized versions of his head that they fit his voice to in a novel and slightly creepy fashion. The suggestion that he has come back from the grave is not far-fetched as the voice is authentic and the verbals those of a consummate actor who morphs into different voices given the circumstance.

Beyond Brando's observations about his roles such as in Lady from Shanghai, which he is ashamed of, are painful recounting about his daughter and son. His son murders her husband, serves 10 years while she subsequently commits suicide after several attempts. Brando's public reactions are sincerely remorseful that he couldn't have done more, especially for his troubled son.

But then, who's to know if the great actor is not acting? Such is the magic of his art that I would even suggest the artifice of his public persona. One thing is for certain, the great method acting teacher, Stella Adler, foresaw a world-class actor in her young student.

The glory and gloom of this famous man are all there. The clips from his performances are as fresh and exciting as ever. Those from his later successes such as Last Tango, Godfather, and Apocalypse Now are testimony to his inherent genius that as a fat man (think Orson Welles) he still leads the field (a comfort, no doubt, to such current geniuses as Daniel Day-Lewis).

Listen to Me Marlon is a seamless song to arguably the greatest actor who ever lived. He paid dearly for his successes and profligacies in equal measure.

Regardless of its occasionally tawdry subjects, this doc is for anyone interested in one of the few titans of the stage and screen.

Not just a bio-documentary. Far beyond that... Listen to Me Marlon is the presentation of a legend... AS A MAN... By the own legend...

To younger people, such as myself, Marlon Brando was Don Vito Corleone (The Godfather), Colonel Kurtz (Apocalypse Now), Stanley (A Streetcar Named Desire), among many other great performances. But who was the man behind those iconic characters?

In Listen to Me Marlon, is delivered a compilation of many recordings by the actor to the actor himself. I don't think that he would be very pleased to have such tapes out there!

Troubled, charming, talented, politically engaged, passionate... The many faces of the man. Of the liar. When would I imagine that the man who played Don Vito Corleone and Colonel Kurtz, had problems with Francis Ford Coppola? And the tragedies of his personal life? How could I think about Brando as a ordinary guy?

He was no ordinary. And his tapes show it very clearly. Marlon was one unique human being. NO! Not one, two or even more... Marlon talks to himself. But himself is not Marlon... He was no ordinary...

As an art, the movie is beautiful. Not a typical boring documentary, with some footage, a couple interviews, and so and so. The director Stevan Riley was able to capture so many beautiful shots alongside with the music and the very voice of the actor. Flawless...

I know now many more than I ever imagined about Marlon Brando. And now it's like the experience of watching his work means to open so many other doors... Flawless bio-doc. It's a must see if you are interest in the motion picture industry as a whole.