In Superman (1978), Marlon Brando plays Jor-El, the scientist father of Superman who sends his infant son from the doomed planet Krypton to Earth. Directed by Richard Donner, the film opens with Jor-El’s farewell, a scene that sets the emotional tone for the whole story.
Though Brando appears only in the opening sequence, his presence is immense. Jor-El’s calm, paternal authority gives Superman’s origins a sense of myth and loss, and Brando’s brief performance helped to give the new superhero film a serious, cinematic weight.
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