One Moment Please

Last time in the moviehouse, a slideshow featured the "decisive moment" in photojournalism, that "creative fraction of a second," in the words of photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, "when you are taking a picture - and you must know with intuition when to click the camera…Once you miss it, it is gone forever."

"We look for the evanescent, the irreplaceable," Cartier-Bresson said, "that is our constant concern."

Movies, not surprisingly, have moments of their own. In his 1971 book Breaking Through, Selling Out, Dropping Dead and Other Notes on Filmmaking, William Bayer astutely delineated, "A ‘moment’ in a film takes place when one or more actors achieves something so truthful and so profound that we, in the audience, are deeply moved…It may be verbal or nonverbal, may last a few minutes or be over in a second. In a ‘moment,’ a character or a situation is so fully and profoundly illuminated that words cannot describe the endless ramifications of what has happened. In a ‘moment’ there is a total sharing of emotion between characters and audience - a oneness that cracks the barrier between viewers and screen."

As an example, Bayer mentions the " ‘moment’ of transcendent illumination in Elia Kazan’s ‘On the Waterfront’ when Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger are talking in the back of a taxicab."
The two actors portray brothers in the gritty, black-and-white 1954 film. Terry Malloy (Brando) is an inarticulate longshoreman eking out a day-by-day existence on New York City’s racket-domineered docks, a has-been boxer with a soft spot for his rooftop pigeons who serves as an errand boy for the powerful union boss, Johnny Friendly (a performance of growling menace by Lee J. Cobb). Older brother Charley Malloy (Steiger) is Friendly’s stooge of a crooked lawyer, who, years earlier, convinced Terry to take a dive in a championship boxing match because mob money wanted it that way.

After inadvertently aiding in the killing of a coworker who was ready to blow the whistle on the corrupt union, Terry falls in love with the murdered man’s sister (a performance of fragile, deglamorized beauty by Eva Marie Saint in her first feature film) and, with the unrelenting encouragement of the local, two-fisted priest (a performance of blustery intimidation by Karl Malden), ultimately rediscovers his conscience and decides to risk his life for his newfound principles. That moment in the back seat of a taxi - when Charley, pressured by mob boss Friendly, pulls a gun on his kid brother - is the turning point for Terry Malloy.

In his 1994 book Brando, biographer Peter Manso called the moment "little less than an epiphany…In that scene, Brando…had never before been so fluent, so in command of his body," reacting to the pistol "with an ensemble of tiny movements consisting of his eyes, the roll of his head, the slope of his shoulders, and even the lift of his lips, all of it mirroring a pain and surprise…The body language is inspired, more meaningful than words, and the occasion for an agonized pause before he launches into the unforgettable ‘contender’ lines" ("You don’t understand! I coulda been a contender. I coulda had class and been somebody…Instead of a bum…which is what I am").

Karl Malden would call the performance "genius," while, decades later, Eva Marie Saint recalled witnessing the filming of the scene, declaring, "I wasn’t aware of the specifics of what he was doing…but it was such an incredible thing, his little shake of the eyes…it was so spontaneous that if he were to do it again, I’m sure you wouldn’t see him moving the same way."

Director Elia Kazan, in his 1988 autobiography, remembered it as "the most famous scene in the film, the one played over and over on TV until I got sick of it but never so often that I didn’t marvel at Brando’s and Steiger’s performances." Disregarding praise for directing the scene, Kazan wrote, "Brando and Steiger knew who they were and what the scene was about - they knew all that better than I did…so I didn’t say anything to them. Sometimes it’s important for a director to withdraw a little…"

It was a well-known fact that Brando and Steiger had not been getting along during production. Steiger, an established television actor making his big screen debut, quickly made his presence known by "throwing shit fits." The volatile relationship was not helped by Brando’s insistence on a daily four o’clock deadline for himself for his therapist appointments, forcing Steiger to perform his dialogue close-ups alone. "I’ve had it with you kissing his ass," Steiger complained to Kazan.

"Rod had reason to be annoyed" Kazan recalled in his autobiography. "I doubt that he ever forgave me for slighting his ‘side’ of the scene." The director tried to make a concession by stepping in to do Brando’s off-camera cuing himself, "but in this case it didn’t hurt the scene; Rod was excellent…If Steiger has played one scene better than that one, I have not seen it." (Overlooking ill feelings toward Brando, nearly two decades later, the 47-year-old Steiger unbelievably but actively pursued the role of 25-year-old Michael Corleone in "The Godfather.")

The scene was originally planned to be shot in a real taxi working its way through New York traffic but was nixed because of expenses. Producer Sam Spiegel, who subsequently promised to provide the shell of a taxi, along with rear-projection equipment, delivered only the back seat mock-up. The filmmakers put up a small venetian blind to cover the rear window, then had crew members shake the "cab" while electricians spun sticks and brushes in front of studio lights to simulate headlights from oncoming cars.

(Speaking of Spiegel, although initially promising the role of Terry Malloy to Frank Sinatra, who had just revived his flagging career with an Oscar-winning role as supporting actor in "From Here to Eternity," the producer was avidly wooing Brando. Newcomer Paul Newman was also passed over for the part. Sinatra afterwards publicly referred to Brando as "Mumbles" and "the most overrated actor in the world." The following year, to the chagrin of both, Brando and Sinatra were cast in "Guys and Dolls," the Hollywood production of the hit Broadway musical that was noteworthy for the antagonistic upstaging of the costars.)

"When Marlon finally went in front of the cameras for the critical scene," Brando biographer Peter Manso noted, "he stuck with the script word for word. What emerged was one of the most memorable moments in twentieth-century art."

"The extraordinary element in that scene," Kazan wrote, "was Brando, and what was extraordinary…is the contrast of that tough-guy front and the extreme delicacy and gentle cast of his behavior. What other actor, when his brother draws a pistol to force him to do something shameful, would put his hand on the gun and push it away with the gentleness of a caress? Who else could read ‘Oh, Charlie!’ in a tone of reproach that is so loving and so melancholy and suggests that terrific depth of pain? I didn’t direct that," Kazan (pictured below with Brando) admitted. "Marlon showed me…how the scene should be performed. I could never have told him how to do that scene as well as he did it."

"The phrasing was exquisite, the modulation, accent, and pacing all flawless," Manso observed. "He delivered the lines as if he’d shrunk into himself. Later with typical complexity, he would complain that the scene took seven takes, but the famous final lines themselves were so brilliant that they were done in a single shot."

A unique source for Brando’s concept of Terry Malloy, particularly in that storied scene, was Al Lettieri, "a hulking street kid from the Village," in Peter Manso’s words, "who eventually developed into a competent enough character actor to play Sollozzo to Brando’s Don Corleone in ‘The Godfather’ (above)." Lettieri was a friend of Carlo Fiore, Brando’s longtime confidant who eventually wrote Bud: The Brando I Knew in 1974. Manso noted, "Lettieri would later die of alcoholism at forty-eight, but now his current vice was heroin." According to Marilyn Sorel, another Village regular and friend of Brando’s, "Even though Marlon was violently opposed to dope, he was fascinated because Al was the ‘real thing.’ It was through Al that he got a lot of the ‘I could’ve been a contender’ scene. It was sort of based on Al’s brother-in-law, a Mafioso, who had put a gun to Al’s head, saying, ‘You’ve gotta get off smack. When you’re on dope you talk too much, and we’re going to have to kill you.’ For Marlon, the story was like street literature, something to absorb."

Brando biographer Peter Manso pointed out that with the star’s second motion picture, "A Streetcar Named Desire," "the actors, the director (Elia Kazan), cinematographer, art director, costume designer, and composer had been brought from NewYork…Even more, it was all linked to the Method - and the Method was now virtually synonymous with Brando." According to Manso, "Screen acting…would never be the same."

Manso noted, "Taken together, Brando’s first six films," which included the aforementioned "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Viva Zapata," "Julius Caesar" and "On the Waterfront," "would establish his indelible transcendent image as a genius among actors."

At the Academy Awards ceremony, where "On the Waterfront" garnered eight Oscars, tying the contemporary record held by "Gone with the Wind" and "From Here to Eternity," beaming Best Actor winner Marlon Brando blurted, "Thank you very much…uh…thank you very much…uh…it’s much heavier than I imagined…uh…I…uh…I had something to say and…I can’t remember what I…uh…was going to say, for the life of me. I don’t think that…uh….ever in my life have so many people been so directly responsible for my being so very, very glad. It’s a wonderful moment and a rare one and I am certainly indebted. Thank you." (Below, Brando clowns around with Oscar host Bob Hope.)


Almost abruptly, after "On the Waterfront," Brando’s genius flailed in a frustrating series of increasingly disappointing screen roles. When he ultimately won his second Best Actor Oscar, for "The Godfather" - notoriously declined by Brando’s surrogate Apache spokesperson Sacheen Littlefeather (actually actress and future Playboy magazine model Marie Louise Cruz) - it seemed apparent that the Academy was honoring Brando’s smoke-and-mirrors mastery of technique over what was once his peerless gift of total immersion into flesh-and-blood beings.