May 13, 2006
David Thomson: Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse "Silk Stockings"
"I have suggested that he could have been Jekyll to Cagney's Hyde. Astaire was also very near to Jay Gatsby, an insignificant man, bent on easing public occasions.
I was struck by this when taking some students through an extract from Silk Stockings (57, Rouben Mamoulian). The excerpt we were approaching was the sequence in which Astaire and Cyd Charisse dance across several deserted film sets. It is one of the greatest of movie-dance sequences: a compendium of moving camera, wide screen, counterpointed rhythms, and the intriguing contrast of masterful Astaire and frigid Charisse. But before the dancing begins, there is a prelude. Charisse arrives by car at the studio gates and Astaire, muttering, 'Hallo, hallo ...' hobbles over to meet her. That movement kept us from the dance, because it was exquisite, original, and Astaire. The emotion of the moment - of lovers reunited - hardly seems to strike him. But ask him to move from A to B, and he is aroused.
This touches on a vital principle: that it is often preferable to have a movie actor who moves well than one who "understands" the part. A director ought to be able to explain a part, but very few men or women can move well in front of a camera. In The Big Sleep, there are numerous shots of Bogart simply walking across rooms: they draw us to the resilient alertness of his screen personality as surely as the acid dialogue. Bogart's lounging freedom captures our hopes. With Astaire this effect is far more concentrated, because it is his single asset."
From David Thomson's The New Biographical Dictionary of Film : Expanded and Updated
Essay on Fred Astaire
Posted by sheila