One documentary I came across the other week and hooked me from the start was Stevan Riley’s Listen to me Marlon (2015). This 103 min documentary is packed with reenactments, behind the scenes to his films and theatre productions, archival footage of his private life and snippets of audio from some his fellow co-stars.

However, what separates this film from any other biographies based on him, is that Riley utilises decades worth of Brando’s personal voice recordings, confessionals and self-hypnosis to narrate the events that happened throughout his life. Riley aided this with a digitalised scanning of Brando’s head as a nod to Brando’s hypothesis decades ago that computers were going to replace actors in the future. Although it raises the film’s authority as a real and raw account of Brando’s life, would Brando himself approve of the general public to hear these personal and sacred voice diary entries? Would the people he mentions and involved in these recordings be affected in terms of their reputation and their relationships with other people?

Much like Grizzly Man, Brando’s voice recordings are relevant in understanding a man that is often misunderstood under the overbearing spotlight. A son who dedicated a majority of his life trying to be completely different from his estranged father and mother, an accomplished actor who was notoriously difficult to work with, a celebrity who hated the fame and celebrity life, a campaigner for civil rights and a father who is scarred by the suicide of his daughter and imprisonment of his son.