Marlon Brando Was a Secret Tech Geek and Photoshop Ace (2015)

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/marlon-brando-was-a-secret-tech-geek-and-photoshop-124061824672.html

by thunderbong • 2 years ago

171 54 2 years ago

TIL. Grew up seeing Brando in Superman and Apocalypse Now, and didn’t really get why people treated him with such reverence. Was fine in those roles of course.

Wasn’t until I saw Streetcar Named Desire recently that I said wow out loud and understood why. Glad to hear he was a geek as well.

ggrelet• 2 years ago

Have you not seen the Godfather?

ekianjo• 2 years ago

very relevant question as its one of his best roles

redundantly2• 2 years ago

Some of it. It was less than mediocre for me. I don't understand the love for that movie.

mixmastamyk3• 2 years ago

I have on cable as a child—didn’t affect me enough to even comment on. Have it in my mile long queue to revisit.

junon• 2 years ago

He's considered the pioneer of realism in cinema. He was also beyond conventionally attractive in his younger years, so much so that it's been memed on a few times. Look up "sexy eye roll".

slimrec77• 2 years ago

The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando is a great read. He was also highly acclaimed as a stage actor before all this.

I have to say though as a huge Brando fan that comparing Superman to Apocalypse Now is utter blasphemy.

mixmastamyk3• 2 years ago

They are two films I saw as a child, and I preferred Superman. Though twenty-five years later I would ROFL at “Charlie don’t surf!”

unnouinceput• 2 years ago

(2015)

bobowzki• 2 years ago

And ham radio operator https://www.qrz.com/db/FO5GJ

because_789• 2 years ago

“The actor was even an early user of CoSa After Effects, the post-production program used for green screen and other effects work, which was eventually sold to Adobe.”

As a longtime After Effects user this blew my mind. Very cool, thanks for sharing this!

jprival• 2 years ago

Recalls Dick Van Dyke (still alive, by the way) being a VFX and 3D modeling hobbyist in the Video Toaster/LightWave Amiga days.

TomK323• 2 years ago

Dick's only on number two on this year's list https://deathlist.net/

detourdog2• 2 years ago

Working at an interactive museum design firm in the mid 90's we had freelancer named Claudio who insisted we buy Company of Science and Art's After Effects.

I believe the only payment terms we could work out was a Money Order or Cashier's check. The software was very expensive and he required a loaded Mac probably had Daystar Cards in it...

DarknessFalls3• 2 years ago

Interesting. Claudio definitely sounds like an identity Brando would choose. Any other details on this? Can you divulge roughly where the design firm was based?

beej71• 2 years ago

I didn't know a Software movie had been planned. I can't decide if I'm happy or sad it never got made. :)

rbanffy• 2 years ago

I’m sad, but not too surprised. The Ware tetralogy, much like the better known Neuromancer and its offspring, is almost unfilmable.

Accelerando would have a good chance as a miniseries though.

UberFly• 2 years ago

He was a unique talent but also apparently really lazy. Wouldn't study his lines & insisted on them being fed to him via earplug. I liked this story though, he seemed like an interesting guy.

cm2187• 2 years ago

Due to Marlon Brando's infamous large appetite and dislike of Val Kilmer on set, he would request and eat large amounts of cabbage an hour before a scene started and would silently fart on purpose numerous times to leave what was described a "foul stench" that would annoy Kilmer.

Combining those two in a movie would kill the most patient directors

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116654/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv

Joeboy• 2 years ago

Combining those two in a movie would kill the most patient directors

It killed Richard Stanley's career for 20 years. After which he got the make the fairly well-received Color Out of Space, just in time for his career to get re-killed by a domestic abuse allegation.

dotancohen• 2 years ago

Whoopie Goldberg's first name (stage name obviously) is due to her infamous gas.

joe_guy• 2 years ago

I heard something like this about Guys And Dolls, too.

Brando, knowing how much Sinatra hated cheesecake, had purposely flubbed each take so that Sinatra would have to eat piece after piece of cheesecake. The next day, they came back and shot the scene perfectly on the first take.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048140/trivia/

billy99k• 2 years ago

To be honest, after what you just described, I like Brando even more.

vmfunction• 2 years ago

would say that about many tech geeks. What's the saying goes:

'laziness is the mother of all tech invention'...

chx• 2 years ago

Other actors held cue cards while their backs were to the camera. https://i.imgur.com/LjnNgoA.jpeg

tiborsaas3• 2 years ago

If he really was that lazy and that successful, that just proves to me that laziness is indeed a virtue :)

krapp2• 2 years ago

Laziness is only a virtue when you have enough genius for it to be effortless.

But genius is the hare that will always be beaten by the persistent tortoise if it stands still long enough.

coderedart• 2 years ago

Conclusions from a single data point are the most correct

sparrowInHand• 2 years ago

To be honest, in hollywood, you do everything a million times. The first three takes going to waste on warming up and learning the lines do not slow the production down much. The perfectionism of some directors, the disinterests by some actors and the size of the endavour do the most damage.

bluedemon• 2 years ago

His "laziness" could be attributed to having ADHD.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355022506_Marlon_Br...

DarknessFalls3• 2 years ago

This wasn't laziness, it was part of his method acting. He wanted the dialogue to appear to occur naturally to him, so he'd place some of his lines on the back of a coffee mug, for example. When he'd look over at the mug, it would appear that his eyes were diverting as though recalling a memory. Recitation often results in wooden performances.

shzhdbi09gv8ioi• 2 years ago

I heard that Brando was an early AoL user, already engaged in internet arguments in the 90:s [1].

1: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/why-marlon-brando-hung-around-a...

DarknessFalls3• 2 years ago

Given one of his handles - BrainFlakes - can we find any conversations that he had? I need to search Google Groups for this, as well.

Marlon Brando Was a Secret Tech Geek and Photoshop Ace (2015)

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