The greatest performances in cinematic history have invariably been of characters that cannot categorically be labeled as either "good" or "evil". Rather, they have been characters who inhabit the shadowy middle ground between the two extremes—characters who represent the profoundly human experience of ethical ambiguity.
Brando is the classic example. Arguably one of the the all-time greatest of on-screen performers, the characters he played were typically shadowy, liminal, ethically conflicted figures who escape any moral judgment or categorization. Consider his most noteworthy performances—Mark Antony in Julius Caesar; Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire; Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront; Johnny Strabler in The Wild One—all the way down to the classic performances towards the end of his career, namely Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather and Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now—all these characters are characterized by a profound moral ambiguity that ultimately reflects the sorts of ethical struggles that are only too human.
This is why these characters resonate with audiences so much and come across as honest, truthful and powerful, often brutally so, much more so than, for instance, the one dimensional, morally absolutist characters of a Medieval morality play would. Their humanity is what makes them identifiable and their moral ambiguity is what makes them human. Marlon Brando was, arguably, one of the most expert performers at conveying ambiguity on screen—it is impossible to categorize, label or morally judge any of the characters he played; his screen performances can only be experienced at a profoundly human level. In fact, Brando was only continuing a tradition of playing morally ambiguous anti-heroic characters that possibly goes all the way back to Rudolph Valentino's classic performances on film as Sheik Ahmed ben Hassan in The Sheik and Juan Gallardo in Blood and Sand. In theater, the tradition of playing moral ambiguity goes back at least to Shakespeare's classic anti-heroes such as Hamlet, Macbeth and, of course, Mark Antony.
I was recently watching Oliver Stone's new film "W" and was struck, even mildly amused, by the inherent irony in the very concept of the film. Here was a film that was loaded with irony and subtlety about a central character whose personality was completely devoid of those traits. It is a film loaded with all sorts of moral ambiguities about a character for whom the world is purely black-and-white, a character who is incapable of comprehending or appreciating the subtle shades of gray that permeate human existence. In essence, Josh Brolin, in his performance as President George W. Bush, captured all the tragic irony, subtlety, moral ambiguity and, ultimately, humanity of a personality who happens to be, equally ironically, completely incapable of any of those qualities or traits in and of himself and who has no appreciation of nuance, subtlety or ambiguity in the human experience. It is one of the profound ironies of life, therefore, that the character "W" as played by Josh Brolin resonates with the audience much more so than the real-life George W. Bush, because the portrayal has all the qualities that the actual man lacks, namely irony, subtlety, nuance and moral ambiguity.
Moral ambiguity is one of the centerpieces of great art and cinema and it is one of the qualities that Horizon Cybermedia aspires to capture in its media productions, so be sure regularly to check out our website at http://www.explorationtheseries.com for plenty of exciting, ironic, subtle and morally ambiguous content to come in the future. By the way, look for a cool new look to the website that will be unveiled in a few weeks, as the website is currently undergoing a complete redesign.
Wishing you the very best,
Uday Gunjikar,
Founder and CEO,
Horizon Cybermedia, Inc.
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