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Journalism of Courage
Two generations have now fed out of a line that first made it to the public space in 1972 with the film, Godfather: 8220;make him an offer he can8217;t refuse8221;. It was not Mario Puzo 8212; the man who scripted the film 8212; who ensured this; nor even Francis Ford Coppola, who had directed that classic which gave the world a whole new Hollywood genre. It is to the man who delivered that line that the credit for this rare resonance should go: the understated yet fearsome aura of Vito Corleone needed the brilliance of Marlon Brando to come alive.
For someone who loved to pour scorn on his profession, who enjoyed nothing better than to prick the balloon of Hollywood certitudes, Brando knew a thing or two about the craft of delivering lines in a fashion that went radically beyond the old Noel Coward advice, 8220;Learn the lines and don8217;t bump into the furniture.8221; Call it Method Acting, or what you will, but the woman who had first shown him the ropes, Stella Adler, was the one who put it best of all. Nothing human was foreign to Marlon Brando, she famously said. That was it. The ability to create distinct, disparate human beings through a welter of words. And over a lifetime. From the young, street-hardened characters of the early years 8212; each of whom had lines that got under the skin of contemporary usage. There are some who claim that Terry Malloy8217;s lament in On the Waterfront: 8220;I could had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda had class and been somebody8230; Instead of a bum, which is what I am8221;, is one of the greatest deliveries in modern cinema, expressing 8212; as film critic Pauline Kael put it 8212; the 8220;simple conceit of tough kids8221;.
