Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar
Brando's Only Shakespearean Performance Remains Memorable
Feb 23, 2009
From Stanley Kowalski to Shakespeare
Brando had conquered Broadway as the brutal Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. He had repeated that performance on film. Much of the movie-going public therefore regarded the 28-year-old as talented, but coarse, one-dimensional and poorly-spoken.
In 1952, many derided Brando's upcoming Antony in John Houseman and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar. It didn't help that "Marlon Mumbles' " co-stars included experienced Shakespeareans, like James Mason (Brutus) and Louis Calhern (Caesar)---not to mention John Gielgud (Cassius), one of the century's great classical actors.
But although Brando hadn't played Shakespeare, he had read much of the great Elizabethan's work and was determined to succeed.
Trippingly on the Tongue
Before filming, Brando strove to improve his speech. Gielgud, writing to his mother, acknowledged that the young American was "very deferential" toward him, continuing that "[he] dragged me off to record two speeches of Antony on his machine, where he listens to Larry [Laurence Olivier], [John} Barrymore, Maurice Evans, etc. to improve his diction."
"I think his sincerity may bring him to an interesting performance," Gielgud added. "His English is not at all bad, and he is obviously very clever and ambitious."
Confronting the Conspirators
Antony's first significant scene comes after the conspirators---Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Cinna et. al.---have stabbed Caesar to death in the Senate. Glowingly fit, Brando looks marvelous and speaks clearly, with a slight British accent. His burning eyes quickly register Antony's grief, plus the tension between his antipathy toward the conspirators and the need to appease them.
Brando forcefully delivers the soliloquy over Caesar's body ("O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth"), as director Mankiewicz pulls the camera back, giving his actor room for full-voiced passion at the speech's climax: "And Caesar's spirit. . . Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war."
The camera then closes in, as Brando's voice softens while his fierce gaze conveys Antony's emotion: "That this foul deed shall smell above the earth/With carrion men groaning for burial."
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen"
Any actor playing Julius Caesar's Antony rises or falls according to his performance of the great funeral oration. Brando delivers it energetically and intelligently.
His voice, often dismissed as mushy, proves equal to the occasion. His physical dynamism--what the critic Stanley Kauffmann called "a sense of energy always about to explode" ---informs every moment.
Brando's control of his body is absolute; his every gesture is vibrant. as Antony persuades the citizens of Rome that Caesar's assassination was unjust. When he concludes--"This was a Caesar. Whence comst such ANOTHER?"----one feels his impact on the assembled Romans, who go nuts over their new, Antony-inspired anger against the conspirators.
The Final Scene
After the funeral oration, Antony’s last significant speech is the elegy over Brutus’ body. Brando speaks it simply and movingly:
"This was the noblest Roman of all.
All the conspirators save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar . . .
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, 'This was a man.'"
Summing Up
Brando died less than five years ago, so critics still argue over his legacy. He was perhaps our most gifted actor, but personal and emotional problems blocked his potential..
One wonders how he might have played other great roles: Mercutio, Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Oedipus, Cyrano, Coriolanus. We can never know.
But his Antony deserves the praise that director John Huston gave it:
“It was like a furnace door opening—the heat came off the screen. I don’t know another actor who could do that."
Sources
Sir John Gielgud: A Life in Letters. Arcade Publishing: New York, 2004.
Stefan Kanfer: Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando. Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2008.
Stanley Kauffmann: A World on Film: Criticism and Comment. New York: Dell Publishing Company, Inc., 1966.
