Saturday 3 April 2010

Best Actor 1972: Marlon Brando in The Godfather

Marlon Brando won his second Oscar out of eight nominations for playing Don Vito Corleone in the Godfather. Brando plays a character who also enabled Robert De Niro to receive an Oscar, and Brando performance is considered to be iconic.

I will not go into the Godfather, as I am sure you know what it is about. The film is great and incredibly memorable with Brando being an important part of it. Brando performance overall is not one of great length but it does consist of incredible strength. Brando does not have a lot of scenes but each one he has, he leaves a strong impression.

Brando uses his accent that many people afterward used to imitate him even though that is not the actual way he speaks. The voice he uses is the type of thing that one shall either like or find it as odd, well most like it and that includes me too. The performance is short enough that one can easily describe how he is in each scene. First the famous opening scene of the film. Of course Brando is brilliant here, he comes completely  off as the powerful Godfather and how he interacts with each of the "well wishers" is just perfect. Next he has a brief meeting discussing the business again he is good, then Brando goes away for awhile. He comes back in a scene where he cannot speak, which makes it all the more effective when he hears about Michael. His reaction there he could not have been done better, and he does it without a single sound. After that a little more family business and then finally his last scene with Pacino. Brando is on the mark here and channels the characters regrets without a single fault, he makes that scene as memorable as it is. Not a long performance, but still lead because how important he is to the movie. Brando shows how good of an actor he was here, leaves an impression that is hard to forget, for this he gets:

2 comments:

joe burns said...

Would you have given a leading nomination to Al Pacino? Since he is lead, of course.

Louis Morgan said...

Yes, my nominations would have been O'Toole, Brando, Pacino, Olivier and Caine.