To generate interest in its WWII espionage drama Morituri (1965), 20th Century-Fox arranged a press junket centered on star Marlon Brando and hired short form documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles to capture the event for posterity. Realizing that the latticework of puff piece interviews ("... one of the most exciting and talented men in America...") comprised a documentary in and of itself, the Maysles Brothers (and their associate Charlotte Zwerin) packaged the event as the 28 minute Meet Marlon Brando (1966)... and then suffered the frustration of having their subject block its exhibition at every turn. More than ten years out from his career-defining roles in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954), Brando had suffered a string of box office disappointments and bad publicity, culminating in the failure of his self-produced western One-Eyed Jacks (1961) and a trouble-plagued remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (1962). Shot vérité style (the Maysles Brothers preferred the term "direct cinema") in 16mm, Meet Marlon Brando exposes more than the vacuous mechanics of a big studio publicity machine, laying bare as well the conflicted nature of Brando himself, whose manipulation of the media betrays his absolute dependence on. The unblinking (but not entirely unflattering) Meet Marlon Brando finds the Maysles Brothers (and the ever-uncredited Zwerin) ready for their feature film breakout, Salesman (1968), two years later.

By Richard Harland Smith