A Match Made In Hell: Marlon Brando in ‘Apocalypse Now’
The method-acting process goes beyond just reading the lines on the page. As opposed to getting the dialogue correct, the actor soaks in the habits of the character, transforming themselves into the onscreen version of a person until they have blurred the line between artist and legitimate doppelgänger. Although countless actors have been commended for their brilliant work with method acting, Marlon Brando proved it’s not the most productive way to get work done.
As Francis Ford Coppola began work on 1979’s Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando’s role as Kurtz was dark and lowly. Through the context of the dark jungles in Vietnam, Brando’s take on the character was an ominous look at what years in the jungle can do to a man, losing all sense of his humanity and giving in to his most primal instincts.
While the acting may have been phenomenal on the screen, it was the exact opposite of what Coppola originally intended for the film. When work began, Coppola pictured Kurtz fairly scrawny because he was out in the wilderness so long, only for Brando to return to the set significantly overweight.
The script might have been able to carry on without the look, but Brando didn’t have too much regard for the page either. Looking to inhabit the character more, Brando refused to memorise most of his lines, often going on different rambling tangents throughout the film.
Brando didn’t connect with what Colonel Kurtz looked like in the screenplay and decided to rewrite his entire character from the ground up. Though the original script may have made for an intriguing story, that’s not what Brando had in mind, often talking about reformatting the character in his vision. Though they may not have had time to overhaul the entire story, Brando’s plans for Kurtz came entirely from improvised dialogue, often taken from those rambling tangents that happened to be filmed in between takes.
Even when hundreds of extras and the entire crew were ready to get down to business, Coppola allowed production to be put on hold so Brando could get into the right headspace for the role. Instead of losing all the excess weight, Brando insisted that his character be cloaked in shadows throughout most of the movie, which only adds to his mystique.
The ruthless Colonel’s little opinion of anyone around him didn’t end once the cameras were turned off. Working alongside Dennis Hopper, Brando would become furious with his erratic behaviour and almost came to physical blows with the young actor after he accused him of not reading Joseph Miller’s Heart of Darkness.
Brando’s problems were only one facet of the issues going on with the film. In the middle of production, Martin Sheen almost died when he suffered a heart attack during the infamous scene in the bunker as he’s losing his mind to the soundtrack of The Doors’ ‘The End’.
For as much of a dumpster fire as the production seemed to be, what happened on the screen became a piece of art. The collaborative efforts paid off in Kurtz’s stoic demeanour and menacing tone, making him a more foreboding villain against the menacing backdrops of firelight and shadows. If any other actor tried to pull something like this, it could easily sound incompetent, but sometimes it takes a trip through production hell to make something spectacular.