I'd like to see how much the end result deviated from the original script. I read somewhere that the screenwriter was very angry with Brando making nonsensical changes to the script.
The enemy of art is the absence of limitations. Orson Welles
Let's see. I think that there are offbeat ideas in the film not related to Brando, like the couple being shot when having sex.
shareI doubt that Brando cared enough about the movie to be making changes to the overall script...by this time, he was making movies mainly for the money.
He's always been known to tinker with his own dialogue though...and he is the best part of this movie, by far. His kookiness was great fun to watch. His changing accents to disguise himself to everyone he came into contact with...definitely method to his madness.
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Yes, apparently they brought in Robert Towne to make changes to the script, though what they were I would also love to know. I think Thomas McGuane is a great author by the way, and it is a real shame that only one of his books (the most recent one) is in print here in the UK. Perhaps they are thought to be too esoterically American. BTW, the script was apparently written with Warren Oates and Harry Dean Stanton in mind to play the leads.
shareBrando wanted to have the script changed to inject a statement about the American Indian (an issue near and dear to his heart in it), but director Arthur Penn wouldn't go for it as it was a big-budget picture and the producers wouldn't have gone for it.
His character was reported at the time to be a half-breed, though that is not apparent in the movie.