Marlon Brando – Don Juan DeMarco – DVD
Marlon Brando – Don Juan DeMarcoThere are 2 movies, other than The Godfather, Streetcar Named Desire and The Contender, for which I want to remember Marlon Brando: A Bedtime Story and Don Juan de Marco. How many comedies has he made? In Don Juan de Marco, I enjoyed watching him be part of an ensemble cast, which has never really been his modus operandi on other sets. As much as he derided acting as a profession, his performance in this movie seemed to argue that he still liked doing it. It is a very funny, sexy flight of notions about fantasy and reality, much like Harvey starring Jimmy Stewart did decades ago. Johnny Depp, Brando, Faye Dunaway and company, to paraphrase a line from the movie, really have a way of putting the story in touch with what is real. With Mexican ballads and exotic settings, Don Juan is like a male Sheherazad, buying time and confounding the truth. As a lovesick worshipper of romance, he asks why we even bother to call it love any more in a modern world rushing past emotion for the carrots at the end of the stick in our lives.Just an aside, in the commentary for The Usual Suspects, the director mentioned that, after the filming of a street scene, Gabriel Bryne and company heard that Don Juan de Marco was filming at a location near there. The whole set was reputed to be filled with nude women bathing. They all rushed over to check it out. I tell this story to my guy friends who are quick to dismiss it on the grounds that it is a chick flick. It got the Usual Suspects anecdote of approval. They might argue that all the beautiful nude and/or scantily clad women would have made them watch, but they are acting like Rocco, the male nurse in the hospital Гђ I mean at Don Octavio de FloresГ• villa, and you know what happened to Rocco Гђ if not watch this movie. The people in the audience that saw it with me back in 1995 enjoyed it enough to not just applaud afterward but to come out chatting and politely flirting while filing out of the theater. The ushers standing by the exit mentioned that Don Juan de Marco Г’thawed everybody outГ“ in a way they had not seen by other movies. Watching it on DVD with friends can be just as fun. Muy romantica! (Dancing to one of the songs in the sound track Me Siento Loco, Poco a Poco Гђ translation: I Feel Crazy, Little by Little.)
