José Mourinho and the disadvantages of realizing one’s dreams

Juuso Kilpeläinen

31st March 2019 | 2:06 AM

“You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it,” argues Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954). In that particular scene, he deviated from director Elia Kazan’s vision, rephrasing the definition of heroic American masculinity with his delicacy; instead, gently pushing away the gun his brother Charley (Rod Steiger) holds.  “Oh, Charley. Wow,” he says, shaking his head in pity. (He stayed truthful to screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s lines, however.1) Kazan did not mind; quite the contrary, he would later admit: “If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film in America, I don’t know what it is.”

Mourinho
Art by Fabrizio Birimbelli

If someone thinks he’s exaggerating, they should watch the scene, carefully, and then compare it to Margot Robbie’s take on it. (I love Robbie, but come on.)

Brando himself, however, opined in the audiotapes distributed by Listen to Me Marlon (2015) that he was not at his finest in the scene—that “there were times when [he] did much better acting.”

According to the late actor, the scene attained a life of its own, not because of his performance, but because it resonated across the minds of millions. “Everybody feels that they are a failure. Everybody feels that they could’ve been a contender,” he said.

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