Marlon Brando

On the Water Front: I first saw this film when I was fifteen, for a philosophy/English/history class. We were discussing the life and work of Elia Kazan, and how it was/was not affected by the "Red Scare". I decided I wanted to see the controversial film because it was rumored to be Kazan's grand 'Screw you' to a system of what he believed to be corruption, and I wanted to see the man who was believed to have changed the way actors acted, or rather reacted, the man who began a revolution: Marlon Brando. I immediately fell in love with the deep and true heart of this incredible person who seemed to reach out from behind the screen, four years after his death and fifty-three years after his "Terry Malloy" performance. I had always wanted to be an actor, always wanted to show people as they truly are with all they're faults, eccentricities and gloriously beautiful contradictions and for the first time in my life I was watching an actor who was capable of portraying all of these characteristics and more. It was almost too much to handle. It made me yearn to be able to be as true, as pure and as open as that brilliant man who gave his entire self to the characters he depicted. It is this same yearning that drives me today to be not only a better actor, but a better human being, and for this, I could never accurately express the utter gratitude I feel to the rebel, the lover, and the legend, Marlon Brando.