Marlon Brando's Home Movies (or: Wild Kingdom)

Before Sacheen Littlefeather, before being hung upside-down in the bathroom, before turning into something that could be rolled down the street like a 300-pound hula hoop, there was This, this rare footage cutting up with Monty Clift that does make you wonder about both of them. It's a little heartbreaking however, for the scalp-prickling Look of Eagles that Brando had in his youth eventually collapsed into a macabre death- mask. He became tiresome, even boring, obsessed with his own legend. The nasal voice that worked so well as the adenoidal Terry Malloy made him sound as if he had swallowed a pound of guppies. The world is still obsessed with Brando because it loves decay, and it loves decay because it makes us feel A WHOLE LOT BETTER ABOUT OURSELVES.