Francis Ford Coppola: Marlon Brando talent based on his "bad memory"

Francis Ford Coppola was at TIFF Bell Lightbox Sunday, for a Mavericks In Conversation session hosted by Cameron Bailey, the festival's co-director. (Peter Bregg/Getty Images)

Was Marlon Brando's unique acting style based on his poor memory?

So says filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, who directed Brando in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, and who got to know the irascible actor's methods intimately.

Coppola was at TIFF Bell Lightbox Sunday, for a Mavericks In Conversation session hosted by Cameron Bailey, the festival's co-director.

They chatted about films old and new, the latter including Twixt, the film Coppola is premiering at TIFF. Memories of the late Brando got the most laughs.

Coppola said he and Brando would spend hours on set discussing all manner of topics, a method he used both to loose the actor up and also to record his thoughts on tape.

He'd later use the tape to fashion dialogue for Brando to follow, line by line.

"Brando tended to have a bad memory.  I'm convinced his acting style was based on that," Coppola said.

"He'd go, 'Oh, I dunno I dunno'... He was literally trying to remember the line!"He was a master of using cue cards. So what I would do is I would have him recite the monologue that was derived from these hours of discussions ...

"And then he had these long monologues and he had a little tape recorder in his pocket. And he could just play it and then hear the line and then he could say the line. That's how he could remember those things."

— Peter Howell

...and pick up a loaf of bread, o.j. and some cottage cheese

TIFF Bell Lightbox artistic director Noah Cowan and life partner Nathan Smith have found a nifty use for the inaugural Essential Cinema exhibit.

A list of 100 of the best films of all time is part of the exhibit and an interactive element allows cell phone users to send a text requesting a projection of a scene from one of the film displayed on a nearby wall three storeys high. A brief message can also be added.

In the case of Cowan and Smith, the film is 1954’s Johnny Guitar starring Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden. When Cowan sees it displayed, he knows to call Smith and vice versa. Ain’t love grand?

-- Bruce DeMara

Who wants to make a deal?

While breezy late summer weather reigns over the Toronto International Film Festival, the behind-the-scenes deal-making is going about as slow as molasses in January, Variety is reporting.

Deadline Hollywood, headed by Hollywood insider/dragon lady Nikki Finke, was the first to report the more sluggish than usual environment at a festival which prides itself of being the place where Oscar-worthy films and nifty independents are discovered, fought over and sold to the highest bidder.

Both report that even the few deals consummated to date are at prices that could be considered discounted.

“A few years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for a pic to be snapped up within hours of its premiere,” reports Variety correspondents Pamela McClintock and Diana Lodderhose.

Deals to date include Quebecois filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, snapped by Sony Pictures Classics.

The Weinstein Company has purchased international rights to Dirty Girl by Abe Sylvia for a reported $3 million after inking the first deal of the fest for North American rights to Sarah’s Key, a French film starring Kristen Scott Thomas.

IFC Films has closed a deal for James Gunn’s Super, starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page.

-- Bruce DeMara