Word: brandos
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Early in the film, Vivien Leigh, as the Southern belle with patrician airs, lays eyes on Marlon Brando as sweaty, sexy, brutal Stanley Kowalski. That's the crucial moment when films gave up a love of the American aristocracy for a fascination with the roiling underclass, and when actors were given license to rage and mumble--to express the inchoate feelings of souls caged or adrift, doomed by society or destiny...
...Eden; in New York City. Kazan's films earned a total of 21 Academy Awards, including for best director for Gentleman's Agreement and On the Waterfront. In 1947, Kazan co-founded the Actors Studio, which spawned several generations of famous stage and screen stars. He also gave Marlon Brando, James Dean and Warren Beatty their first major roles. Kazan made numerous industry enemies by cooperating with the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, naming eight colleagues who, like himself, had been communists in the 1930s. Kazan later went on to write best-selling fiction. He was given...
Finally, in the '60s, when the studio system was collapsing, a few imposing actors--Marlon Brando, John Cassavetes, Paul Newman--seized the reins. In the '70s, Woody Allen (who would be the first actor to win a Director Oscar, for Annie Hall) and Clint Eastwood (who would win a directing Oscar for Unforgiven) became full-time hyphenates. Studios realized that letting a star direct could keep him happy and busy. At times it paid off in grosses and statuettes...
...Brando had it easier than Presley; for in pop, more than in acting, it's tough to remain in the vanguard. Consider the four overlapping phases of Elvis' music. Phase 1: At Sun Records, he borrowed blues from blacks and country songs from rednecks, passing them along to the huge middle-class. Phase 2: He got sharp material from top young songwriters (primarily Leiber-Stoller and Otis Blackwell) that he could make his own. But early rock didn't allow for much variety: 12-bar blues, 16-bar pop song. Phase 3 began in late 1957, when every songwriter...
...Sadly, the pulverizing novelty of sexual danger was quickly domesticated, as Elvis jumped into mainstream show business. Like Brando, Elvis helped America realize it was dying to be hip. But having educated his audience to get hipper, he seemed to get squarer simply by standing still. He had segued from being Elvis to doing Elvis: playing him on TV and in movies. He'd become his own parody, stunt double, postage stamp - the first Elvis impersonator. In the new era of the singer-songwriter, the "mere" singer was an anachronism, dependent on others to write "Elvis-style" material. The Beatles...