Speaking of favorite actors: Let’s misbehave!

Christopher Walken in his show-stopping number in Pennies From Heaven.

I love how the cinematography here is old-school dance cinematography, from the days of Astaire and Rogers and Cyd Charisse and all of those awesome old dance scenes. Full body. No tricks here. (Richard Gere in Chicago, I’m lookin’ at you!) No cutting to different body parts, a la Flash Dance, to make it seem like the dancer is actually doing the dancing, when in actuality it’s a double. I know Gere did the dancing in Chicago – it’s the cinematography I have a problem with. It protected him and his lack of skill. Whereas here: This is all Walken. You can’t fake this. Full body shots.

Walken got his start on Broadway, as a child, in musicals. His background was musical comedy (which is fascinating to me, considering his reputation as a heavy-hitter actor in 1970s and 80s tough dramas). Walken came and spoke at my school and he talked a lot about his affinity for musical comedies, and how he tries to incorporate an “homage” to that legacy in any role he plays, regardless of whether it is appropriate or not. For example, in his searing performance in At Close Range (one of my favorites of his) – he has a moment where he walks away from the camera and he does a small dance-step, which has nothing to do with anything that the character would ACTUALLY do – Walken was laughing as he told the story. Why would that guy do a mini jig as he walked away? No reason, except that Walken was playing him. So funny, so brilliant. I love people who do what they want to do. The audience will not think, “Oh, there’s Walken paying INAPPROPRIATE tribute to his roots as a song and a dance man,” because is it even common knowledge that Walken WAS a song and dance man?? No, they will think, “Okay, I am terrified of that man doing a jig … because he seems unpredictable and not of this world.”

Walken spoke eloquently of how “outside” of things he felt. That normal life is not for him, was never for him, because he grew up as a child of the theatre, from a very young age. It sets you apart. He didn’t play on the playground. He spent his days in tap class. It makes you a weirdo. And that sense of “otherness” is what contributed to his giant talent in films like The Dead Zone, Deer Hunter, True Romance – the list goes on and on. If you didn’t know his background, you might think that it was just his looks – the strange kind of heavy-lidded eyes, and blankness behind them – that was the source of his eerieness. But no. It is because he grew up as a child actor.

So much fun to see him here in 1981, 3 years after Deer Hunter, for God’s sake, let it all hang out, let us see who he REALLY is.