Why did Marlon Brando get the Oscar for best actor 'The Godfather''?

Marlon Brando was just a supporting actor in the movie.

The movie was called The Godfather and he was The Godfather.

It was an ensemble movie. Al Pacino disappeared for long stretches of the movie as well.


There are a lot of movies where it is arguable if an actor should have been in the supporting category or star.

A more obvious example is Jack Albertson's win as supporting actor in The Subject was Roses. Yeah, he was a character actor, not a star, but he had a starring role. How could that be a supporting performance?

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Anthony Hopkins who had under 20 mins of screen time in Silence of The lambs won best actor

I forget who but one year the oscars nominated the same guy from the same movie for Supporting Actor and Actor.

I think Marlon Brando sold the gold from his Oscar to a Jewish manufacturer and bought a couple choclate bars with the money later anyways.

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In an interview after the film, he admitted he filled his cheeks with over 3 lbs of tissue paper. No actor before or since has even come close to that amount.

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Hahaha brilliant

The simple answer is that the issue of when a performance is one of the leads and when it's one of the supporting performances is a subjective one. It's not just screen time; as donnie pointed out, Anthony Hopkins won for Best Actor in The Silence of the Lambs despite being on screen for just over 15 minutes. He really feels like the lead of the film, though, so I get it. There are too many logistical problems with just using screentime, so it's a mix of screentime, the centrality of the character to the story, and the strength and impact of the performance. Perfect? Nah. But it beats all the alternatives I can think of.

I watched the movie recently and Al Pacino seemed like the lead actor while Marlon Brando seemed like the supporting actor

Anthony Hopkins role as Hannibal Lector is the lead actor?It was clearly Jodie Foster.It doesn't matter how good an actor you are;15 mins of screen time and just giving clues doesn't make you the best

That is like saying Nick Fury(Samuel Jackson) should get best actor since he assembled the Avengers.I know Oscars don't give for superhero movies but I am just using it as an example

It counts acting and not how long is the part of the character. It's good to remember when Coppola saw him Brando was blond and with a pony tail with the look of his English character in QUEIMADA (Burn).

http://www.apotpourriofvestiges.com/...on-brando.html

He completely changed his look before Coppola to mimic an Italian old man who was at least 20 years older than he was actually. I know Italian people from that generation and his mannerisms, HIS IDEA of turning him into a bulldog face, the way he improvised slapping the singer or cleaning his trousers with a slight gesture before sitting and refusing the Turk's offer... Italians of that generation took real care of the clothes, mustache and the way they combed their hair (greasy). Brando studied Italian people to construct his character. His tears running down when his son Pacino comforts him at the hospital; the way he cries when presents the corpse of his son Sonny... interesting because minutes before or later all of them were laughing loud.
De Niro imitated something of his mumbling hoarse voice and gestures after Brando refused to be part of the sequel.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pict...m.html?image=3

Timothy Hutton won a supporting Oscar for ORDINARY PEOPLE and he was clearly the lead in that film. Tatum O'Neal won a supporting Oscar for PAPER MOON and she appears in practically every frame of the movie. Marlon Brando won the lead actor Oscar for THE GODFATHER because he was Marlon Brando and the film was a major comeback for him and I think the Academy wanted to honor him for a body of work as well. Yes, Pacino was clearly the lead in THE GODFATHER but he was still practically unknown at the time and never would have won in the lead category, but he deserved to win the supporting Oscar he lost.

Didn't he get some Indian girl to collect it for him and give a big f**k you to the industry.

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hahaha..

I still think it's a great performance, and it is a lead part despite being unconscious, except the part he moves his hand while Michael and the nurse are moving him to another room.

Hey, there's even been someone who won Supporting Actress for six minutes of screen time (I want to say it was Judi Dench for Shakespeare in Love, but not entirely positive on that). And as a few of you have said, 16 minutes for Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. I'd conclude it's more about the power of an actor's presence on- and off-screen than it is about time spent on the screen (though time on-screen does indeed help).

Were there any male actors that had more screentime in The Godfather than Brando? (I've never seen the Godfather .) If not, that might explain why he got best leading actor instead of supporting. I'm pretty sure Hopkins won Best Actor in Lambs for similar reasons. Starling's boss doesn't have much screentime and Buffalo Bill doesn't appear until near the end IIRC so Hopkins was considered the leading actor.

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That was Barry Fitzgerald for Going My Way in 1944...he won Supporting Actor and Bing Crosby won Lead Actor for the same film.

These are the end credits, Brando comes first:

Beatrice Straight won the 1976 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for NETWORK, for essentially one scene with William Holden, that couldn't have been much more than 5 or 6 minutes.

No, but being male when the other person is female does.

Jodie Foster was the lead actress in the film, so would have been up for the Best Actress in a Leading Role statue, not Best Actor. Have you ever watched the Academy Awards?

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That, so true. It's all about star power and who commands it for top billing. Brando is The Godfather - whose presence looms over the entire film whether or not he is actually on the screen.

Same for Anthony Hopkins in SOTL - top male actor billing whose presence is felt throughout the film and it's his persona that is the focal point of the film's coda.

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Yeah, I didn't see so much greatness in 5 minutes to win the award. It was about 5 minutes... Still one of my top 5-10 movies.

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