Marlon Brando;
The famous "Godfather".
How many people came to watch "The Wharf" , just because of him.
This is Marlon Brando's work with director Elijah Kazan after his career breakthrough "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Zapata Biography" , which won the best actor at Cannes .
Elijah Kazan, the name only old fans can remember now.
But without him, Marlon Brando's career trajectory might have been completely different, perhaps a late bloomer rather than a Hollywood superstar in his thirties.
At that time, Marlon Brando was not only Elijah Kazan's leading actor, he also participated in the "Actor Studio" founded by Elijah Kazan to learn to perform, which is likely to be a stepping stone for his acting skills from practice to perfection. .
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, who later starred in "The Godfather 2" together , were also students of the Actors Studio.
By the time "On the Piers ," Marlon Brando's performance won't disappoint.
The story focuses on the New York Harbor dock in the United States, and tells the process of a retired boxer named Terry, from joining the gang, becoming an accomplice in murder, to struggling with conscience, and finally deciding to become an enemy of the gang.
Terry has had a very big change of heart, which requires actors to interpret the changes before and after the role.
Playing Terry, Marlon Brando appeared as a stunned young man, with a sense of cynicism in his eyes from time to time;
Meeting the heroine Edie is an important twist.
For Edie, Terry has two moods.
One is the guilt for the death of Edie's brother Charlie;
The other is the standard slender lady, the gentleman is so arrogant, and Marlon Brando deduces what is called a textbook of seduction by the way.
Importantly, as the plot progressed, his expression changed visibly to the naked eye.
Terry has changed from a young man who lay flat early to a man who is crazy about love and knows how to think about right and wrong.
Perhaps wanting to copy "A Streetcar Named Desire" , Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh's two performance styles collided to create a miracle, Elijah Kazan also chose a more expressive heroine this time.
Eva Marie Saint , whose acting career started on Broadway , her stage performance habit continued to the film , so in " The Piers " , which was not long after her transition to the film , her performance had an exaggerated expression of expression .
And Marlon Brando's method school pays more attention to the real nature, so in "The Dock" , you can also see the collision and fusion of the two performance styles.
In the second half, Terry came out of confusion and finally transformed into a fierce fighter.
Marlon Brando's expression naturally transitioned to a resolute, fearless state.
If in front of him he is a buddy that you can go up to and joke about at will, then in the back he is an angry bull that you absolutely dare not go up to and provoke him.
It's hard for the audience to notice how he's transformed, and that's what makes his performance so successful.
That's how the first Oscar winner was won.
A good performance is useless without a good script.
"On the Piers" is a textbook on the character arc of the protagonist Terry.
Facilitating role change is multifaceted.
There is love, family affection, and the conscience hidden in the hearts of the characters;
Three main aspects are represented by three roles.
love is Edie;
The family is Terry's gangster brother, and the scene where the two talked in the car is also a classic, not only in the performance, but also in the content to explain the brothers' painful past, which makes it easier for both characters. win the audience's sympathy.
It can be said that the performance of brotherhood is more moving than the love between the hero and heroine.
So don't mistake it for a gangster romance.
Conscience is Father Barry.
The priest has become a key role in the struggle between workers and capitalists. Because Christianity has a certain influence in the United States, his intervention has become an important force for workers to resist gangs and capitalists.
The three aspects can be divided into three story lines;
Love is the love story between the hero and heroine;
Family brothers' growth experience in the gang;
Conscience is the main storyline of Barry and Edie's pursuit of the truth about Charlie's death.
The three story lines are interspersed with traffic, driving the progression of the plot and Terry's growth.
Everything is so solid that the climax is extremely explosive.
Sure enough, the best script did not run.
The ideological output of "Wharf" is more prominent, which can be called a bit of a gangster version of "Modern Times" .
This has made the villain a bit face-off, and it has also become one of the controversial points of film criticism.
Elijah Kazan's desire to express his indictment of capitalism must be related to the "Hollywood Political Blacklist Incident" in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
At that time, a number of "leftist filmmakers", including Chaplin, were expelled from Hollywood.
Because he couldn't stand the pressure, he chose to provide his peers to protect himself.
This left his career unaffected, but he carried the infamy of being a traitor.
Looking back at "The Wharf" many years later , in fact, it is not only the themes of Marlon Brando and the angry capitalists that are exciting.
There are also other classic actors who later appeared.
Eva Marie Saint, who was photographed by Hitchcock in the late 1950s, starred in "North by Northwest" ;
Since this commercial production is the template of the "007" series , she can also be called the prototype of "Bond Girl".
Lee Cobb, who played the villain Johnny, did not take long to play "12 Angry Men" , and also played a ruthless character who roared at every turn and created a sense of threat to the protagonist.
I believe that more people have an impression of him through "Twelve Angry Men".
For audiences who are not so familiar with the history of Hollywood, will they feel like Guan Gong and Qin Qiong when they see the "Godfather" Marlon Brando play against these actors?
By the way, this is the best picture Oscar in 1955.
Even if you are not a fan of Marlon Brando, you can eat it to your heart's content and experience true cinematic art.
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