Marlon Brando, Part 3: The Final Act — The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris, Apocalypse Now, and the Death of a Legend
About this episode
This episode explores Marlon Brando's remarkable comeback in Hollywood, focusing on his roles in The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris, as well as his controversial refusal of the Academy Award.
By 1970, Hollywood had decided Marlon Brando was finished. He had gone more than a decade without a major hit. His films lost money. His reputation had become almost impossible to insure. He was deep in debt, increasingly isolated, and more interested in escaping to his island in Tahiti than proving anything to the industry that had once crowned him its greatest actor. Then came The Godfather . Part 3 of our three-part series on Marlon Brando follows one of the most extraordinary reversals in Hollywood history — from the actor Paramount refused to cast as Don Corleone to the performance that returned him, almost overnight, to the height of his power. It traces the making and enormous success of The Godfather , before following Brando into the deeply personal and emotionally exposed Last Tango in Paris — a film built partly from his childhood, his parents, his grief, and the parts of himself he would later feel he had revealed too completely. It also examines the film's complicated legacy, Maria Schneider's experience, and the decisions made by Brando and director Bernardo Bertolucci behind the camera. As Hollywood attempted to celebrate his return, Brando remained as resistant to…
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