Film
A Streetcar Named Desire + Meet Marlon Brando
- 7PM
Pre-screening reading by writer and co-programmer Isaac Butler (The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act), and post-screening book signing.
Dir. Elia Kazan
1951, 125min, 35mm
With Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter
“Inner torments are seldom projected with such sensitivity and clarity on the screen.”—The New York Times
There is American acting before Brando, and after Brando. Written for the stage by Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire showcased his vast, subversive range. With a boldly naturalistic and experimental central performance—the first of its kind on the American screen—this renowned drama is directed by Actors Studio co-founder Elia Kazan and features Actors Studio members Kim Hunter and Karl Malden. It follows the troubled Blanche DuBois (Leigh) as she leaves small-town Mississippi and moves to New Orleans to live with her sister, Stella Kowalski (Hunter), and Stella’s brutish husband, Stanley (Brando). When Blanche's flirtatious Southern-belle presence and complicated past agitates the already volatile relationship between Stella and Stanley, the results are explosive.
Dirs. David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, Albert Maysles
1966, 29min, DCP
“Possibly the best and most appealing personal portrait of a major film star ever made.”—The New York Post
In this rare candid portrait of the now world-famous movie star, television journalists attempt to interview Marlon Brando about his most recent film, Morituri (1965). Through a tongue-in-cheek press junket in a New York hotel room, Brando—always smiling and never modest—counters standard issue questions with replies that are surprising and revealing. Pioneering documentary filmmakers Charlotte Zwerin and the Maysles brothers capture Brando playing one of his most revealing characters: himself.
Go to the movies just once a month and a BAM membership pays for itself.

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