I just saw the movie today and Brando looked like the serious actor compared to the rest who acted like they were in a play.
jkjk, but seriously. The acting styles between Brando and the rest of the cast was really interesting to see in this movie.
I actually agree with this. Everyone was fantastic (especially Vivien). But when compared to Brando, they all felt like "actors" in a stage play, whereas Brando felt (still feels) like a real person. It's interesting though, everyone in the film except Vivien Leigh apparently took the method acting approach; but I could only detect it in Brando.
This was just an example of classical acting getting schooled by method/natural acting. I'm aware saying that will anger some, ha ha.
The prostitution rests. - Kelly Bundy
I think the contrast in Brando and Leigh's acting is one of the reasons the movie is still strong today. It has a surreal vibe now because of the differences. I don't think anyone came off amateur. The rest of the cast was fantastic acting in their style. Brando was ushering in new approach. You can't really compare modern with pre-1951 acting.
shareBrando and Vivien are really on the same level when you consider that Blanche has to be played with a highly theatrical artificiality. That is, after all, what her character is about. Brando may have kick started the method approach, but Vivien did nothing wrong by sticking to her style.
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Actually Brando was never a method actor. He just decided to go for a realistic approach and inspired method actors. He always dismissed that process. Also, you could hardly call Brando's acting here more loud than Vivien. She was very over the top, even for that time of film making. In a good of course.
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Vocally loud is not the same thing as giving loud performance. He wasn't subtle. No one in this movie was subtle, even Hunter and Marsden. It's melodrama was kept intact for the movie. However, Brando's expressions weren't loud. His cadence wasn't loud. But other than that, we're in agreement. His acting does contrast the rest of the cast, particularly Leigh, but that hardly means anyone came off amateurish.
sharePlease! Brando was brilliant, but so were the others. Leigh devoured the role, and Hunter and Malden were perfect. I'd say everyone was about equal.
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Karl Malden is one of the best method actors there ever was. You forget he is acting he melts so well into a role. You never get that from Brando you are always aware that he is an actor working.
Leigh's performance steals the day if anybody does but they are all great but people are so mesmerized by Brando even today.
I think women and gay men get overwhelmed by his physical beauty because he was such a beautiful looking man when young. Then he gained 500 lbs and looked like a blob by his 50s.
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"even Hunter and Marsden."
Several posters in this thread mention "Marsden". Who the hell is Marsden?
Maybe you mean Karl Malden, the guy who won a friggin' Oscar for his performance. Geez, get the name right before you post.
I think they are all brilliant. Just my opinion, but I think Brando is better here than in his Oscar-winning role in "On The Waterfront".
"Push the button, Max!"
I actually agree with this. Everyone was fantastic (especially Vivien). But when compared to Brando, they all felt like "actors" in a stage play, whereas Brando felt (still feels) like a real person. It's interesting though, everyone in the film except Vivien Leigh apparently took the method acting approach; but I could only detect it in Brando.
This was just an example of classical acting getting schooled by method/natural acting. I'm aware saying that will anger some, ha ha.
But when compared to Brando, they all felt like "actors" in a stage play, whereas Brando felt (still feels) like a real person.
No way can I agree. Vivien Leigh is amazing in this!
shareBoth are equally powerful. Brando went with a naturalistic approach to the role, the method as they call it, Vivien applied the theatric, because her character is just like that, always putting on a act, never sincere. I still feel shivers watching this movie thanks to these two.
shareI have heard so many times that Brando changed the acting profession. And you do see a change before and after the 50's where it can be hard to relate to the acting back then because it was so much about drama, showmanship and theatrics whereas now it is subtlety and authenticity so to speak and inhabiting a character. Apparently Brando was the harbinger of the change inspiring actors that came up behind him to emulate his style - and ever great actor if the last generation cites Brando as a major influence. But you can really see the shift in Streetcar - Brando was different, while everyone else seemed to be following an old formula Beando was doing something completely apart from the rest if the cast. It is like watching the stark contrast of past and future as far as acting onscreen simultaneously, Brando being the future and really standing out and almost putting to shame the rest of those around him, though they were all great for their time, viewing this now just makes all of them look like hollow charicatures in comparison to the performance of Brando. And his performance was so subtle and complex that it actually changed the entire perception of the character of Stanley to a somewhat sympathetic character which was not originally intended.
shareAs I get older I question this Brando worship more and more.
I think that it was JUST HIM. It was his personality up there for show and had nothing to do with acting technique. That is why it is impossible to see an actor that has his kind of rapport with fellow actors/audience. It was him nothing else.
In this film alone, Brando was just ONE of the method actors. I believe Karl Malden and Kim Hunter were method. The only old school was Vivian Leigh and she is touted as the definitive Blanche by the playwright himself.
You're completely off on this.
As if method acting suddenly freed everyone from the constraints of cultural expectations and the unblemished history of theater-style acting; what a laugh..
Brando ushered in an entirely different approach.
He invented a style wherein he played a character who plays someone playing a character (inhabiting 'worlds' within 'worlds', as we now do in life). This fills the narrative space with emotional mechanics that are operating on more than one consistent level -- and in so doing -- creating a direct dialogue with us, the viewers. Through his subliminal placement, we're having a direct conversation with him as he interacts within the cinematic world he inhabits (which is inhabited within the film).
Layered knowledge of cinema's placement within our minds was the key abstraction.
A method actor only focuses on their placement within a role; Brando revolutionized the notion of placing oneself in, not another skin, but another world which annotates and comments on the world we're watching as well as other world's we've seen before (in cinema).
It's not naturalistic, it's believable...and genius. (A term I do not use lightly)
Interesting. I agree with most of what you say, but I'll stop short on one thing: I don't believe Brando 'invented' anything. He was a very talented guy with great instincts, maybe a genius of sorts. But? He was trained to act the way he did. It just also so happens he was darn good at it, ridiculously handsome, and charismatic.
But he wasn't the first, even. The NY acting community had been dealing with Stanislovski's teachings for decades. But when those actors went out west to work in the Hollywood 'factories' they were directed to work within the formula. John Garfield was probably the first guy from that school who succeeded in Hollywood. You can see the subtle naturalism in his performances, even though they tailored him for the movies.
My personal 'pre Streetcar' favorite from Hollywood is "Red River". Montgomery Clift bringing the naturalism to John Waynes 'stoic' Hollywood persona.
I do believe Kazan had a lot to do with Brando's film performance. Kazan wanted Brando's same intensity from the stage run on film. I believe he insisted Brando 'go to the same place' he would go during the Broadway run. I'm sure Marlon was good with that as well.
Brando was good despite the method crap. What he did was himself because he was grounded within himself while acting. It was probably the reason why he got so bored with acting after awhile. He thought it trivial. And he was probably right.
Stanislavski and the Method resulting from his practices did change and free actors from the conventions of Melodrama. Actors had been using set gestures and facial expressions to convey "feeling".
Method is nothing about placement in a role. It was always about finding your own reactions and actions in an "as if" set up. But Brando didn't need technique to get himself to stop being self conscious. Which was why he was so good. But what he did can not be taught. Brando didn't see himself as a doorway to another world. He was simply a human being acting on what he would do in trying situations. What we see on film is Brando as if he was an ignorant, violent human being. In fact he changed the role of Stanley, who was always meant to be a brute not a beautiful man. Which was why Brando always thought he was miscast and wasn't good for the play.
As I get older I question this Brando worship more and more.
I think that it was JUST HIM. It was his personality up there for show and had nothing to do with acting technique. That is why it is impossible to see an actor that has his kind of rapport with fellow actors/audience. It was him nothing else.
In this film alone, Brando was just ONE of the method actors. I believe Karl Malden and Kim Hunter were method. The only old school was Vivian Leigh and she is touted as the definitive Blanche by the playwright himself.
Brando and Leigh appear to be in two completely different films. Leigh is in a classic 1940's romance, her perfomance carefully judged and made for celluloid; Brando is a modern-day stage actor, moving and interacting physically in space, dominating his environment in a way that jumps off the screen.
I have to admit I was much more impressed with Brando in this movie. I can respect Leigh's performance, but I connected a lot more with Brando's interpretation. I can see why it's been called revolutionary. He's still magnetic even in 2014.
I find calling Vivien Leigh in this amateurish is really ignorant. But you have a point about the acting styles. Streetcar for me feels like a crossover between the classic theater acting and the "modern" real acting that became popular with Brando, Clift, Dean and others. I find the contrast between Leigh's theatricality and Brando's realness to be absolutely fascinating to watch.
You're an idiot. Play a record.
Brando was indeed magnetic but how the iconic "Stelllaaaaaaaaaaaaa" part was delivered is a missfire for me. But I agree, it is very interesting to see the difference of acting styles with Brando and Leigh, both of which truly are great in their era.
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"The early morning was the best time for seeing turtles." - A Dance With Dragons
Vivien was awful. Her defenders say Blanche was theatrical and supposed to be. Yes, that's true---that's not the problem. The problem is Vivien can't put basic emotion across; I never for a single second believe her. Blanche is a great role, as written, and within and underneath the theatricality there's plenty of feeling to play, but she misses it. The nadir of this is when talking with Mitch outside, she says, "I never lied to you in my heart!" The way she delivers that one makes soap stars look like Katharine Hepburn.
Brando, on the other hand, is dynamite. He's not even acting---he simply exists. Stanley's rape of Blanche in the movie is almost a symbol of new acting raping the old out the window. What we're seeing is mannered theatricality trying desperately to hold its own against simple, brutal realism, both in the story and in the performances. On that level, Vivien's ham-acting disaster is perfect. But it doesn't make her good.
Kim Hunter's pretty splendid, too. Karl Malden plays a schmuck very well---I suspect it wasn't far off the mark. But 'Streetcar' is all Stanley.
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