Marlon Brando VS. James Dean

As two of the most influential American actors from last century, Marlon Brando and James Dean shared a lot in common; both are ranked high in the AFI’s 100 Years... 100 Stars list, showing their prominence in the art of cinematography. And they had similar backgrounds and screen images. But the two differed in personalities, which resulted in their different acting career paths.
Marlon Brando was born on April 3, 1924, to a petty-bourgeois family in Omaha Nebraska. After the split of his parents, the 11-year-old Marlon followed his mother to live with his grandmother in Santa Ana, California. In 1937, the couple reconciled and moved to Illinois, where the mother furled young Marlon’s interest in stage acting. Being a mimic from his childhood, Marlon developed an ability to express the stereotype of the characters he were later to play. When he was expelled from high school for riding his motorcycle through the corridors, Marlon made the right choice of following his sisters to New York, where he could receive an orthodox education of dramatic art. And Marlon proved himself by successfully nailing down the role of Stanley Kowalski - in A Streetcar Named Desire directed by Elia Kazan - a character very much resembled various people that came across Marlon’s life: alcoholic, rebel, and desperado.
And then in 1931, the world welcomed Jimmy in a less friendly way. He lost his beloved mother when he was only nine, which made his childhood more complicated than Marlon’s. After having tasted the bitterness of disintegrated life in Santa Monica, California, Jimmy decided to move back to his birth place - Indiana. Although being atheletic and sporty like Marlon, Jimmy was at best a moderate achiever at high school. It was just as well that Lady Luck smiled at Jimmy and had him transferred to UCLA, where he could fling himself into the ocean of drama. However, Jimmy couldn’t wait until graduation to have his own commencement on acting. In 1953, when Jimmy was auditioning for the role of 'Cal Trask' from East of Eden, director Elia Kazan instantly knew he had found the perfect guy for the part. Jimmy brought to life the role of a seemingly aloof and emotionally troubled yet quickly seen to be worldly son of an pious and constantly disapproving father. Luckily Jimmy’s childhood suffering of the estrangement from his father finally paid back in a comforting way.
Nevertheless, all those years of loneliness Jimmy had to endure can never be erased. He was always lonesome and melancholy, just like when he was playing the rebellious teenager Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. Due to his sullen and autistic adolescence, his acting tended to assume inarticulate vulnerability, which was probably why Elia Kazan eventually substituted Jimmy for Marlon in the role of Jim Stark. Jimmy’s acting made the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and his portrayal of Jim was so unprecedented and contagious that people equated rebel with James Dean as he became the revolutionized spokesperson for the whole repressive generation.
On the contrary, Marlon was always assertive and initiative, demonstrating macho physicality and mumbling broodiness. But at the same time he could be so sagacious as to help Kazan perfect the scenes for the movie On the Waterfront. And he will always be remembered for his epoch-making performance as Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather for the image of that cigarette-flicking mafia boss just sank deep into the hearts of people. Apart from that, Marlon was also an activist for American Civil Rights and various Native American Movements.
Marlon Brando and James Dean stood out as the cultrural icons when America was witnessing tremendous rises and falls. Regardless of the numerous differences, the two both stuck to their professional ethics. They were acting for the sake of acting so they deserved the recognition from all those well-portrayed imposing characters in the cinematography history.