He was definitely the Godfather of all method actors. He was the one they all looked up to, tried to emulate, and viewed with such reverence that Pacino, going into The Godfather, said, “He’s God!”
And yet. In my opinion, it’s solely based on two performances: Streetcar and Waterfront. All the others, if he hadn’t done those two, would never have given him the status he still has to this day. While some were good, others deplorable, only those two with the debatable possibility of Godfather (yes, even though he won an Academy Award for that one) wouldn’t have made him as revered as he is (which, in my opinion, is what really garnered him the last award in the first place). No, not that he wasn’t good. But I suspect it’s just a little overrated. And, of course, it all comes down to the competition that year. And – who were they? Who they were isn’t important. It’s their performances that were, and yes, perhaps none were as good, granted – but that still doesn’t get Brando off the hook, in my opinion. Ever since Terry Molloy, he’s been coasting (again, in my opinion) – Godfather included. It just so happened he’d been close enough to the competition that year that he got the nod (like Newman finally getting the overdue one for The Color of Money years later [and we all know that was a belated one for all the times he didn’t]). But what if he’d been up against Lemmon the following year? Or Nicholson 2 years later?
Newman grew. Brando didn’t. And Dean died. But Brando will always be the benchmark. The one all the others will be compared to. Because in those two performances he breathed life into them that many argue has never been done before or since.