Wednesday, July 24, 2019

The film A Streetcar Named Desire from the silent film era through the Essay

The film A Streetcar Named Desire from the silent film era through the 1950s - Essay Example Stella is married to Stanley played by Marlon Brando and they are expecting a child. Stanley and Blanche are the two central characters of this movie. The story gradually becomes interesting as friction begins to develop between Stanley and Blanche. Stanley being an uncouth, randy, sweaty and rough character does not like Stella very much which ultimately leads to immoral and violent depictions in the movie. The movie received a lot of criticism upon its release regarding the vulgarity and decadence depicted in it. Brando’s performance as Stanley is hailed as one the best performances in the history of American cinema. Brando was able to represent the exact nature of Stanley in front of the viewers. Stanley had to be uncouth yet attractive to women and Marlon Brando was just the man for that. This paper will analyze Marlon Brando’s acting skills in this movie. Later on, these skills and tools will be associated with the method acting presented by Uta Hagen in her book R espect for Acting. Stanley wears shirts that reveal his muscles and sweat; he drinks and smokes in a greedy fashion yet he possesses a grace in his personality. He is gentle in his own sense. Brando played this character in very realistic manner. He gave the character true raw emotions. His style in this movie is said to have influenced the Hollywood film industry so much that it inspired many artists such as Sean Penn, Jack Nicholson and James Dean. Before Brando’s performance in this movie, no matter how violent the emotions in acting may be, audience could always spot a hint of modesty in it. Brando left a mark on acting style that was adopted by Hollywood and embraced by the audience immediately. Brando portrayed more than just the violent nature of the character. Every single action of the Brando in this character feels as real as his anger outbursts. Moreover, Brando was able to pull off this role with such delicacy that he left a lot of fragments of Stanley’s pe rsonality for the audience to interpret. There are instances where the audience cannot easily interpret the actions of Stanley because there is no apparent cause for the way he behaves and this makes the audience wonder about the life of the character which ultimately leads to the development of sympathy towards characters. The character shows that it has much more than just his raw violent outbursts and callous behavior (Ebert). Brando sank in this character so well that the audience could not view Stanley and Brando as two different individuals. In fact, Brando himself became the character and was soon associated with Stanley. The charms of his acting can be measured by the fact that the audience started learning to develop sympathy for film characters after this movie. Brando presented Stanley to the audience in a manner that would distress them but this distress is accompanied by enticement. The audience fell in love with a loathsome character. The charm of the character overpow ered them. Brando’s sexual appeal and charms superseded Stanley’s uncouth and rowdy behavior. If we take the audience out of picture, even then it would be hard to separate the two entities as they resolved well together. It seems that Brando did not make any effort playing this character. He was so at ease that it appears Stanley is a part of Brando’s personality. Such realistic acting comes from specific methodologies that involve the resolution of the character and the actor. Unlike the conventional acting of the rest of the cast of the movie, Brando’

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