The Sheila Variations

Happy birthday, Jeff Bridges!

Jeff Bridges is my favorite living actor and today is his birthday! Son of Lloyd Bridges - Jeff had a pretty tough act to follow. Lloyd Bridges was, to put it mildly, no slouch in the actor department. He was in High Noon, for God's sake!

But Jeff didn't do so bad. His first movie was, uhm, THE LAST FECKIN' PICTURE SHOW.

Words cannot begin to express how much this man's acting impresses me. He is a chameleon on the level of Meryl Streep. Like - what is the similarity between Turner Kendall in The Morning After and The Dude in Big Leobowski? They were played by the same person? Are you KIDDING me? How about Starman and Jack Baker in Baker Boys? Same guy? What? Who IS this man??? I don't even think the word "range" applies here, in the same way that I don't think "range" even comes close to expressing what is going on with Meryl Streep. I have to get New Age-y. It's a type of channeling, what Jeff Bridges does. Shirley MAclaine said about Meryl Streep: "She is able to completely abdicate her own personality in favor of that of the character's." This is so rare as to be a complete anomaly. There is no EGO in work like that. Work like that has complete integrity. Again: so rare as to be a complete anomaly. Bridges doesn't get the kudos that Streep does. Why? No idea. The only other guy out there who I believe is as much of an uncanny chameleon is Daniel Day Lewis. There's nothing ever GIMMICKY about their characterizations. The accents do not call attention to themselves, they never ever seem like actors dressing up in costumes ... they just ARE these people. There is great great compassion in their work. Actors like this have enormous hearts. Because they can so completely step into someone else's shoes that their own identity is no longer apparent. What? Also, what I love about actors like this is: they are pretty much unable to talk about what they do. I met Meryl Streep. I listened to her talk about acting. She had NO IDEA how to talk about it. It's a mystery to her, how she does what she does - and if she does, deep down, know how she does it - she's not about to share it. Not because she's jealously guarding her secrets but because - in her words: "Acting to me is like going to church. I can't tell you why I go to church and what happens when I pray - but that's what it's like. It would feel like a betrayal of something to talk about it." Actors like this (Bridges, Streep, Daniel Day Lewis) are inarticulate about their craft. Marlon Brando was the same way. Actors who are less gifted can completely tell you what they were doing, why they were doing it: "Yes, I used an Appalachian accent, and I tried to use my grandmother's way of walking mixed in with the gestures of my third grade teacher ..." Yadda yadda. Geniuses are more inarticulate. They don't tell you anything. They just DO.

Jeff Bridges is like that.

That's him in his characterization from American Heart - an amazing film if you haven't seen it, and one of his subtlest and best pieces of acting. Jeff Bridges himself said it was his best work. Why he wasn't nominated for an Oscar for that film is completely baffling and unfair. Show me a better performance by a male that year, or any year. I dare you.

And - just for my own pathetic purposes - here's my favorite picture of Jeff. It looks pretty much exactly like Window Boy. I looooooove it. Hotness personified.

Oh, and before I forget - Jeff Bridges has his own website, which is NOT a typical vanity website of a celebrity. Of course it's not. He's Jeff Bridges. He's not interested in all of that. Check it out - his photographs are amazing.

Then - of course - there is the comedic highpoint (which has already entered into cult status) of his jelly-wearing White-Russian-drinking bowling-lover Julianne-Moore-impregnating character of The Dude. Damn. What a FINE piece of acting. I never get tired of that movie. Ever. My favorite moment, which is just a snippet - is during one of the fantasy sequences when he's dancing like CRAZY on the Busby Berkely staircase. He's dancing - he's got the long stringy hair - everything is completely surreal - and it's just deeeeeee-lish!! Jeff Bridges! Being completely AWESOME!

Here's The Dude:

Here's the Dude again:

And to be honest - his acting is Door in the Floor is pretty much as good as acting gets. And ... no real kudos. No "recognition". I guess he might be in the Cary Grant realm of actors. They are so reliably good that they are taken for granted. Jeff Bridges will have to play a limping one-armed retarded Native American drag queen in order to win an Oscar. And that's just stupid.

Acting doesn't get any better than what he did in Door in the Floor and that's pretty much final.

I shouldn't care about Oscar nominations because I know how political it is. I know, I know. But still. He is on my eternal list ... if he doesn't win, then future generations will look back and think: "What were they thinking??" Cary Grant never won an Oscar (except for the Lifetime Achievement Oscar he got in 1970 which is basically the Academy's way of saying, "We totally fucked up. Here you go."). That just shows you how meaningless the entire thing is. (However: I am counting the days til the next Oscar ceremony and am incredibly invested in who gets nominated. Such as we are made.)

There's so much more to say about this amazing talent, but I'll just end it now.

Posted by sheila