Stevan Riley talks 'Listen to Me Marlon'

“Imagine if we could tell the whole story in Brando’s own words?” – Stevan Riley

“Every book I picked up about him would ask ‘who is the real Marlon Brando?’” says documentary filmmaker Stevan Riley. “Brando was among the more complex figures in Hollywood – it was something that I was keen to sink my teeth into.”

Riley follows his documentary feature debut Blue Blood – and subsequently the award-winning Fire in Babylon – with Listen To Me Marlon. His latest doc is one of the most anticipated films at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, after debuting in the Official Selection at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

Brando kept hundreds of hours of audiotapes from his hypnosis sessions, along with diaries and home videos throughout his life. Riley uses this archive to construct his documentary, allowing Brando’s own words and performances to tell his story in an unconventional manner.

Riley may have decided to make a documentary about one of the most iconic people in the world, but he readily admits that he was not originally a fan of Brando. “This wasn’t something that I planned. I enjoy doing character pieces on the whole, so when I was approached [to direct the film], I felt it was a fascinating study for me.”

At the beginning of the research process, Riley stumbled across a large stash of home recordings that Brando had made, along with personal possessions, documentation and audiotapes kept in storage since the actor’s death in 2004.

“It was immediately obvious that this was something quite special. The hypnosis tapes allowed me to make a film that would function like your memories operate,” says Riley. “There were many different versions of Brando, no one could tell his story from beginning to end. When I found the tapes I thought ‘imagine if we could tell the whole story in Brando’s own words?’”

With over 300 hours of material, it took Riley and his team three months just to transcribe Brando’s tapes with nine months in the editing room. “I broke the transcripts down so I could manipulate them into a narrative,” he says. “You could imagine all of the audios and sources as a single piece with reflection of Brando’s life.”

As well as integrating Brando’s tapes as a distinct voiceover, Riley incorporated a digital animation of the actor’s head. “I was taken aback by this voice reflecting back on a life and wanted to make it more Brando-esque.” Riley adds, “There was a mood that I wanted: a deep exploration and journey into the working of his mind. This could be a post-mortem beyond the grave of what his life experiences were and what made him the person he was.”

Riley also completed interviews with Brando’s former staff, family and friends including Harry Belafonte and Harry Dean Stanton. Following the traumatic death of Brando’s daughter Cheyenne in 1995, Riley was keen for Listen To Me Marlon to feature elements of the actor’s personal demons and show a less familiar side to the actor. “This was a lot more retrospective and thoughtful than the average documentary,” says Riley. “It was a different mood: it was nice to explore that and it was nice to depart from the work that I had done previously.”

“I originally saw this project as an emotional story – a film that needed to be somewhat dreamlike and poetic as well as surreal at times,” recounts Riley. “To reflect the workings of a creative mind and to mirror the emotional movement of Brando’s own life is how I get into a piece anyway: to find the emotions myself.”

Listen To Me Marlon allows audiences to explore the life of one of the world’s most complex characters. From his screen performances and personal achieves to his love for Tahiti and involvement with the Civil Rights Movement, Marlon Brando remains an exceptional and prolific cinematic, social and cultural icon.

Admitting that at first his thoughts were governed by the media’s preconceptions of Brando – overweight, difficult to work with and a recluse. I asked Riley if his opinion on Brando shifted at all after working on this film: “I wasn’t sure if I was going to like the guy or not, I didn’t know him. Now realising, what I found was such a sensitive, endearing character. He’s the one telling us about his problems and admitting them – he was trying to solve the problems that we all face in life. I grew to like him a great deal.”