I saw Julius Caesar recently and I must say the "Friends, Romans, Countryman" speech by Marlon Brando was awesome. He should have won the Best Actor for his performance as Marc Antony. As I was watching this film - I was thinking how terrific he would have been as Moses in the "Ten Commandments" parting the Red Sea. He was simply "SPECTACULAR"
shareSpectacular Indeed! What also must be remembered is that this upstart was sharing billing with the absolute giants of stage and screen at that time. Calhearn, James Mason, Gielgud were huge Shakespearean stars in their own rights. They were consumate actors and yet Brandos' Funeral speech towered above all other performances in that movie.
I remember well just where I sat in the old neighborhood movie theatre as I watched as a 10 year old, with my parents. I was stunned into silence by his performance. Silence not being a condition usual to my 10 yr old self.
Brando followed this up with his Oscar winning performance in, "On the Waterfront", the following year and I was a fan for life.
[deleted]
Why the heck would you say that?
Will and Hayden are mine.
[deleted]
I wonder how many actors have played Marc Antony and given his famous funeral speech. I'm going to say that of the thousands that have played that role over the years on both screen and stage, I can't imagine any doing it better than Brando. I only wish that William Shakespeare himself could come back from the grave to support my contention.
share"Here was a Caesar...WHEN COME SUCH ANOOOOOOTHHHHHERRRRR!?"
God, gives me chills everytime.
I just got the DVD as a rental from Netflix. Good transfer, full screen, in stereo sound. Worth getting if you love this movie. Only extra is a featurette on Brando, though.
shareI'd been waiting twentyfive years to see this film again (now that it is on DVD) and as I settled in to watch it, I thought I was looking forward to Brando's Mark Anthony.
What struck me as I began to view it though was just how superb James Mason's Brutus was. Best Brutus evah! Beside him, Brando seemed to be some effete pretty-boy sycophant....
..until the assassination. Antony's shaking hands with the conspirators was amazing and through it all one is watching Brando like a hawk trying to see if the character betrays his artifice.
..and when the funeral speech kicks off, we again see a very subdued Anthony...and then he lets slips his dogs of war and yes, begins to send chills down one's spine. For me, the most amazing thing about his Anthony is that he changes and evolves.
I just wish Shakespeare hadn't botched his third act.
we had to watch this in english class last year cuz we were reading julius caeser, and while i loved reading the play i didn't think i'd care much for the movie. we actually watched parts of the 70's version as well as this one, and i just didn't think i'd get into them mainly cuz of the fact that they're old. not to say i'm like way too "hip" and don't appreciate some of the old classics, although i really haven't seen hardly any black and white movies, but i just get thrown off by the quality sometimes, it's something i can't help.
but one thing that i didn't know upon coming into this movie was that it had brando in it. i really am not familiar with much of brando's work at all, mainly just the godfather, but i've always known that he was supposedly an amazing actor. and this movie has shown me exactly why.
i absolutely loved the funeral speech. we hadn't even actually read that part in the play, cuz some of it we read and some of it we watched, so it was all new to me and just blew me away. i loved it so much that i decided to look up this movie here on imdb (this was actually like a year ago now) and that's how i discovered that Marlon Brando played Antony. not only was it written brilliantly by shakespeare, but also delivered amazingly by brando.
i really need to see some of his other older movies now, cuz this performance, as well as his completely different performance in the godfather, were just excellent.
I think his Brutus is pretty awful. Incredible actor, not a very good performance. He just kind of blugeons the whole time - which, if you listen to what the words Marc Antony is saying - is not really what is supposed to be going on...
But, then, you know that he had the lines recorded for him by the guy playing ... Brutus I think? Anyway, he had him say the lines, and Brando just copied the inflection and patterns, since he hadn't done Shakespeare. Which is admirable, I think...
Anyway, love Brando. Just not his Marc Antony.
That's not only it. The HS kids watch the movie over and over again, and come time for the performance what comes out? - Brando, lisp and all. It would sound like they're doing an imitation of Brando playing Anthony.
His is a very good performance, and one definitely to be studied. The Brando funeral oration is the highlight of the film, even though there are many great lines and scenes from Shakespeare, delivered so well by Mason and Gielgud, and even Kerr and others. But no question, Brando's funeral oration from the film, Julius Caesar, is one of the important moments in film.
Brando was good but I thought he was outdone by Mason and Gielgud actually.
shareBoth were very good. Great even. But Brando as Anthony giving the funeral oration is one of the highlights of American film. It's for the way he does it. Actors deal in such seemingly meaningless subtleties as arm height, and glances, and eyebrow position, cadence, the length of a pause, and all the rest. And his was a brilliant performance.
shareI'll give it another look.
shareWhen he showed Caesar's wounds, it made *me* weep with rage.
sharei loved Brando's acting in this movie. one of the great Brando performances. his speech was extremely powerful.
shareyes brando has tremendous power as and actor he's strong i seen the speech where talks to the heavens after ceasar has been killed .Its truly epic almost scary they sure as *beep* dont make actors like that anymore
"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."