This is an unusual interview.  Marlon Brando is not with us since his transition from earth to the astral world on July 1, 2004. Nevertheless, the interview took place in April 2022 with help of a film critic, alias a medium, who could talk to people in both dense bodies, as we all are on earth, and people in small bodies, as we all will be in the next world known as the astral world. At first glance, this interview leads to understanding that after death we change very little, or so slowly that we did not see it with our naked eyes. Nevertheless, we change, and a deeper approach to self-realization is very much possible! If you read this interview to end you will learn about so far not revealed  reason why Marlon Brando did not accept his Best Actor Oscar for Godfather, 1972.   

Marlon Brando was seeking answers to some problems with film Apocalypse Now. — Who was Kurtz? A God?… of what, or who, or how was he a God? He was SILENCE?! He ended up not talking, not thinking, not eating, not drinking, not sleeping. He became stone figurine , and all he wanted to d o, was hurting locals. 

He destroyed them with power of his glance.  He loathed them, he hated them, because, yes, they had rights. In all their silence, they hated him, a Kurtz, and awaited when he will disappear and he will be made a myth, a vision from another world, as Moses was, when he talked to God! They wanted part of him, like Russians eat up our days, their Jesus’ Christ body cut into small pieces of white bread. I have not seen anything more terrible than Russian Orthodox’ cut into pieces Jesus, or Catholic – taste of Paradise where we all are invited to enter, but  never allowed to enter the paradise, the place for the better ones. Tata, you asked me a terrible question. I never thought that you are a real critic – show me, what you got from Hemingway? …

My father was a kind of a God in family, and he never let me go.

-Was Kurtz a bit like your father?

-He was the one, and all the talk about the God is a misery! The power, the terror of father in the life of a son is a catastrophy! You cannot say to him, what you want to say. Go to hell! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! And you will end up with debts, financial disasters, because you cannot take on roles, and roles are piling up  and you wear war God’s ammunition, costumes

To express only one thing, copying God as some copying machine. Because you are not a human. But what is human?

Human needs freedom, but freedom was never there  forhim from the start. There is my dotting mother doing things for you.  Then comes the real family power at the play – you father!

Robert DeNiro and his father!  He is a Jew, of course. And their fathers are worse than ours.  Their fathers were a law.

My father never touched me, but DeNiro’s father beat him. DeNiro had real fight to become an actor, and not a book keeper, as father wanted him to be. There is always a war atmosphere between the father and son. And in Greek mythology, there son is murdering father by an acci-dent.

-Were you tempted sometimes to do the same?

– Of course not, but I had to accept his law. I disagreed with his law of complete and unconditional obedience.

I wanted to walk my way. I wanted to be free. Instead, I had to look that I did not forget family birth days — sending cards home, not asking for money, when I needed it, but found a way to earn some of it!

– How did you found it experiencing pressure from family obligations?

-By stealing for God’s sake. I stole money in order to avoid getting it from father. Regrettably, when I started to earn some money, I became same like him, maybe worse.

I loved girls!  I chose not the beautiful demanding girls in order not to go into big spending with them. It helped. But I wanted badly the most beautiful girls to be my partners and I was handsome enough to get them, and I found myself in trouble very soon. 

I put all that anger and irritation into Kowalski, a Polish immigrant, a nobody, the nothing with the great Slavic ambitions and no compassion. You are right. A slave has only rights, but no honors, no rules, only rights. And Kowalski is your Vysotsky. I remember, you did not see the subtle world, and you are in trouble with the subtle world spirits, with you specific love interest. I know when it is in the air! But communism is holding so strongly around the throat of your man that the conflict between the two of you is inevitable.  I can see things. Can you stay alone? Yes, you can! Stay better alone!

For instance, strong Kurz could not, he needed a crowd to admire him. You are a thing in itself. You need no party, no dems or reps. You are a thing in itself. Me too. I think, we had met in a past embodiments…

Here I have to interrupt our conversation for some explanation. Today I, as a medium, can talk to Mr. Brando in spirit, and he is sharing things that only spirit can tell without doubts, not from intuition, but from knowing, being sure that his vision of past makes sense and is truthful.  Was it a beautiful past that he recalled? Of course not. Was it a subject of discussion before this interview took place?  Of course not. I was hoping for his revelations regarding his experience with various social movements, especially, movements to encourage Hollywood to bring more images of local Indian people onto film screens. Instead, what followed, made me speechless. He hit the nail describing unpreparedly, coming from cold, my dirty experiences in Egypt during emperor Hadrian war in Egypt.

Marlon Brando recalled episode from The Bar Kokhba revolt that erupted as a result of religious and political tensions in Judea.

– We were buddies in Egypt as Roman officers. But I escaped the disciplinary punishment when we raped in a local holy place virgins for the fun. But you were apprehended and returned home in a slave galera. At home you were rescued by friends and you became Hadrian’s estate slaves’ overlooker! Was it so?

As I, Tatyana, already mentioned, this revelation rendered me speechless, and in shock, I started speaking about things that were not meant for sharing in given setting. However, this revelation confirms Brando story and shows that a talk with a spirit can bring new look at many things that otherwise stay in a kind of fog in our perception. Was it so, or not? In brief, I confirmed Brando’s not so honorable Judea war memory.

-When I traveled to Italy, and visited Hadrian’s villa, I recalled many things, I definitely was there before, and I definitely was slaves’ overlooker, who was murdered for being a too harsh overlooker. During visitation of that villa, I recalled horses’ neighing despite the fact that there were no horses around. In my recollection, the air smelled from horses’ poop, and I recalled the real problem with field mice that got into bags of grain, spoiling the entire harvest. And for that reason, the clean grain was worked into flour only straight before starting the dough only upon the guests’ arrival. I recalled also war cruelty of Roman soldiers and officers in Virgins’ Temple, but everybody can imagine it without  specific description of details of that cruelty. Marlon Brando continued.

 – All my so called “God-like film roles” about monarchs (Julius Cesar) , or colonels (Kurz) made into camera feed as embodiments of my father’s image. And you would be fine with him only, if you do not overstep his law.  If you do, you will be in trouble.  In movie Godfarther Mike becomes Father-Destroyer who built an empire of absolute obedience! And when his little brother overstepped a bit, Mike shot him. My Father got me. My Kurtz is my father! In Tango in Paris my role embodies my father.  And Stanley Kowalski is, of course, my father as well. I was always playing my father wanting to get rid of him, but I was not able to do so. So was Mozart with his Requiem that literally killed him. … You write fast, it is amazing. Ask something else!

– Let then talk about your mother and your wives.  You married and divorced. Why you divorced so many times? Did you sought or hoped to find something new, something different  than their characters resemblance to your mother’s one?  

– Oh my God! Of course, I was looking for miracle to happen!  I sought wives from different parts of the world and I ended up with a local from a Hawaii island and I was disappointed again.  Always the same, always came focus on children first…  It is sure, needed, but this is not the life, it is something else.  We give birth to new life, but we never let it be what it wants to be. We “improve” it, we dictate them go keep the money “in family” and this is it. 

You come from the most terrible country but you are a Free Willy.  I can see it. It makes your life terribly difficult. But you prefer to stuck with your inner truths.  Hello, baby! You will win not money, but air to breath, the right to breath!… Let have a brake!

– Thank you!  Do you live in your astral replica of your home on earth?

– Yes, I live in the replica of my house in Hollywood.  You were asking, if I did love my mother? No, I did not love my mother, as she was a slave to my father, and it scared me!

 You ask me about my most loved screen characters? It was Kowalski, no one  stood higher than this one.  Because it was created by good director hated by many Elian Kazan. Why was he hated? But he was the most influential director I ever met, and thank to him I was able to create a memorable character of the Stanley Kowalski, an angry proletarian with terrible ambitions that destroyed people on his way…

… What is your taste of foreign films, which one you like?

– I like Italian films. They are human, they understand human emotions. 

– What color you like?

– Th e yellow of the gold! I like when women wear gold, not  the silver alone. Silver is cold metal, but gold is warm metal. You do not wear anything. This is a kind of ambition stand in our days of cheap imitation.

– What kind of music you like? No Wagner, the music of Gods?

– I like country singers, because they are not afraid of showing their true emotions.

– What religion are you adopting?

– No religion.

– Did you carry God in your heart?

– No God! No God!  Freedom is my religion! Give me freedom! Freedom is my God!

– Next incarnation? Do you become an actor again? I want to be a writer.

– Humphry Bogart wants also to become a writer.

– I hate him! I hate him for playing all these stupid roles of detectives and other lower kind of human types, like he does in Sierra Madre… He was good in Casablanca, and he was supposed to follow his line of roles, not what directors wanted him to be. As we all do instead of playing what we were born to play. He should not play muscle games, as he was born to play mind games.  We are afraid to play people from the higher power echelons, like Luchino Visconti did! I like Visconti films.     

– May I ask an uncomfortable question. Which parent gave you your specific appearance, in other words, your  look that has some resemblance with features that we see in ancient Romans and Greek statues, in their Roman looks.  

– It may come from my mother, a local, reformed Indian girl.  She had education, but provoked jealousy in my father…  She was supposedly beautiful in her early days…

– How did you go along with short tempered Charly Chaplin, I read once that two of you had something to say to each other, was it true?

– I packed things 5 times when we worked together…

– Still, did you see Coppola as a director who brought you good luck?

– Not really. The best was Elian Kazan.  Coppola did not give me a single episode to do something other than sit there as a figurehead, or lay down in a hospital stretcher. I hoped for a scene where gangsters were shooting each other, as we all are in a sense, gangsters in fight for roles. In Godfather trilogy Al Pachino was the one who got scenes to play, not me.

– Were you sure, you could not play Robert De Niro role of younger Vito Corleone?

– Of course, I thought I could, but director thought otherwise.

– I think, even sitting there, your presence in film was  overwhelming, it was your film. Coppola invited you, because you could create complex aura of your screen persona who carry love toward family and was merciless to those who could hurt his creation, his empire of Omerta, silence. It was a mix of these two hardly compatible energy streams in one character. Maybe, this was enough for trilogy, but not for you, longing to play younger Corleone as well. Of course, I want to ask, why you refused to accept The Best Actor Oscar in year 1973? Worldwide network explained it as protest against poor reflection of American native people images in films, protest against establishment rule in Oscar business, and others equally not serious reasons.
Maybe you thought that you were given if not a mercy award then a respect award, but not for perfect embodiment of your role as you had no scenes to play… and your sense of honor was hurt. All the other actors played their scenes but got nothing. How would you look them into the eye after getting the highest award for having nothing to play…

I recall the story told me by Alla Demidova about Innokenty Smoktunovsky, a Russian great actor who dreamed of finding some crazy director who would allow him to stand on an empty stage for 30-40 minutes, saying nothing, playing nothing, but keeping the audience’s attention, by sending to viewers instead of common action the subtle high-vibrational energy. He wanted to learn, how long he could keep viewers’ attention by doing “nothing” on stage. But this was exactly what you did in Godfather, sitting in an armchair, and doing nothing besides sending to surrounding – consciously or unconsciously as part of staying in the character of Vito Corleone, subtle high-vibrational energy, Vito Corleone’s will and strength. And members of the king’s court acted accordingly. For instance, recall the memorable episode of Christianizing Michel’s newborn child in a Catholic cathedral. You see dressed-up Corleone family in the church, priests following slowly and solemnly the Christianizing ritual and in parallel squeezed in fragments of mobsters cleaning up the unwanted business rivals in Las Vegas and elsewhere. And you sense that Vito Corleone was cleaning space for the newborn member of Corleone family while still sitting in his armchair, dead or alive, letting his court to do the job. Mister Brando, you had earned your reward. Your refusal to accept it certainly overshadowed the celebration of the brilliant, unprecedented success of your film Godfather.

It seems to me that Kurtz’s role remained unopen. While the actors of this film were sailing to Kurtz along the war-torn river, everything turned out great, but when they met Kurtz, something stood hidden from us. Coppola executed both you and himself for holding back something important here. Maybe I shouldn’t talk about it. I have no right to criticize either you or Coppola. But for us, the viewers, Kurtz remained to be a God’s mystery: God was turning away from everyone and disappeared into himself for eternity. I just have to ask you again, will you become an actor in your next incarnation?

Marlon Brando confirmed that next time he will find another occupation than to be an actor who is too often the executor of someone else’s will, the will of the director, and being not the spokesman of his will. Maybe I will find a profession in which I will become the master of my own creative will.

Thank you, Mr. Brando for your time and this great interview.

Tatyana Elmanovich,

a medium who talks to people in astral bodies

06/06/2022, Los Angeles, California