The Sheila Variations

Newlyweds

20 some-odd years ago, I ripped a page out of some magazine which had a photo of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward on it. It's a photo of them when they were newlyweds. I think I was sitting in a dentist's waiting office when I saw the photo and I grabbed it then and there. I still have it. It is STILL taped to the inside of my closet door - and has been, in whatever apartment I live in, wherever I have hung my hat over the years ... It's just an image I adore, there is something indefinable about it ... calming, logical, comfortable ... I just like the two of them so much, too ... so this obviously staged yet still somehow natural and breezy morning-at-home shot has a feel of reality to it, of a caught moment.

I am shocked I was able to find it online - it took some digging, but there it was.

I'm working on a larger tribute piece for Paul Newman right now - for this actor who will be sorely missed - not just by me, but - judging from the 50 pages of comments at the BBC site - from fans around the world. He was truly loved.

Rest in peace. And my thoughts go to his wife, his kids, his friends, his colleagues ... everyone who knew him.

And so let's look back at them then ... just married ... two young actors starting out together.

I have looked at this photo so often and so deeply that I feel I can smell the eggs he is cooking. I want her pants. I love that kitchen. The photo still speaks to me. It's not static. It's a world. It's alive. I can hear the clatter of the pan of the stove. I can feel the affection between them, yet look at how they are separated - doing different things. It's an atypical kind of shot ... rather remarkable. Not just because it's him who is cooking ... but just the attitudes of both of them ... their connection and yet their separate-ness.

It's one of those photos that cajoles you to join it ... and then makes you envious that you are not there ...

And, for me, it keeps telling a story. Maybe that's why I like to have it around.

Recently, Paul Newman was asked the secret to his long marriage. He gave what I consider to be the best answer I have ever heard on that particular topic: "Laughter and lust."

Interesting that the word "love" didn't show up at all. Laughter and lust. My kind of guy.

Rest in peace.

RIP Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts.

-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago

NY Times obit here. Here's the obit in The Irish Times. Here is the text of the famous speech he gave at Harvard in 1978 (a choice quote: "But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just mentioned are extremely saddening."

Let's not simplify the man, or make him less complex. He was a posterboy for no one. Infuriating, independent, beat of his own drummer, fearless. God.

Here's a lengthy article in Time.

And I've been waiting for the inevitable: Christopher Hitchens' piece, which opens with:

Every now and then it happens. The state or the system encounters an individual who, bafflingly, maddeningly, absurdly, cannot be broken. Should they manage to survive, such heroes have a good chance of outliving the state or the system that so grossly underestimated them. Examples are rather precious and relatively few, and they include Nelson Mandela refusing an offer to be released from jail (unless and until all other political detainees were also freed) and Alexander Solzhenitsyn having to be deported from his country of birth against his will, even though he had become—and had been before—a prisoner there.

More:

But it seems that Solzhenitsyn did have a worry or a dread, not that he himself would be harmed but that none of his work would ever see print. Nonetheless—and this is the point to which I call your attention—he kept on writing. The Communist Party's goons could have torn it up or confiscated or burned it—as they did sometimes—but he continued putting it down on paper and keeping a bottom drawer filled for posterity. This is a kind of fortitude for which we do not have any facile name. The simplest way of phrasing it is to say that Solzhenitsyn lived "as if." Barely deigning to notice the sniggering, pick-nose bullies who followed him and harassed him, he carried on "as if" he were a free citizen, "as if" he had the right to study his own country's history, "as if" there were such a thing as human dignity.

The Vaclav Havel rule of living in a totalitarian society. Just live "as if" you were free.

I just happened to be up now - late for me - when the news came in. I have no words. A truly great man. (I've been adding links to this post since I heard the news at around 1 am this morning).

Here's an excerpt from his Gulag Archipelago, one of the most important books of the 20th century.

Shaking my head. Strange. How it feels like a personal loss.

The world was a better place, a more honorable place, a place where bravery was possible, and where truth was always louder than lies ... because he was in it.

He won the Nobel Prize in 1970, and did not attend the ceremony for fear that the Russians would retaliate by depriving him of his Russian citizenship. As much as he despised the totalitarian regime in Russia, he didn't want to be cut off to that degree. He had family in Russia, a wife, a child on the way. So he did not attend the ceremony. Instead he sent a speech that was read at the banquet. Here is the full text. He closes with:

And I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the members of the Swedish Academy for the enormous support their choice in 1970 has given my works as a writer. I venture to thank them on behalf of that vast unofficial Russia which is prohibited from expressing itself aloud, which is persecuted both for writing books and even for reading them. The Academy have heard for this decision of theirs many reproaches implying that such a prize has served political interests. But these are the shouts of raucous loudmouths who know of no other interests. We all know that an artist's work cannot be contained within the wretched dimension of politics. For this dimension cannot hold the whole of our life and we must not restrain our social consciousness within its bounds.

Photo of Solzhenitsyn in 1946 in the gulag.

Rest in peace. No more words.

Carlin's last interview

It's a goldmine.

I love the bit about Arthur Koestler.

And I love his idea for "files" - I want to look through his files!! - but I also want to take that idea on myself.

I loved this, too:

So, those qualities of being alone like that fostered in me a need for adult approval and attention. Now they say that it's kind of a common cliché that comedians just want attention. But it's an element that's very important. The job is called "look at me." That's the name of this job. “Look at me. Ain't I smart? Ain't I cute? Ain't I clever?

I needed to be—not the center of attention—but I needed to be able to attract attention when I wanted it, through my stunts and my fooling around physically with faces or postures or voices I would do. Then it became funny the things I would say, and I became more of a wit than simply a mimic and a clown. And so, those things were all important in this. The fact that I didn’t finish school left me with a lifelong need to prove that I’m smart, prove it to myself, maybe to the world. “Ain't I smart, ain't I cute, ain't I clever.” “Listen to me, listen to what I got to say.” So, those things are important elements in the drive behind all of this.

It makes some people embarrassed to hear a person admit so openly that what he needs is attention. It seems to confirm everything they hated about the school show-off, now transferred to entertainers and performers who have the balls to admit that why they do it is they like to be looked at.

But Carlin's honesty there reminds me of a wonderful anecdote told by Dustin Hoffman:

At the end of filming Marathon Man, there was a party. Laurence Olivier was quite ill. The shooting had been intense, and everyone was relieved it was over. Hoffman never quite got over being in awe of Olivier, despite their polar opposite ways of working ("My dear boy, why don't you try just acting?") - and he was very moved by the thought of Olivier, this old ill man, turning in such a great performance. It is what he does. Hoffman was sitting with Olivier at the party, and Olivier said, out of the blue, "Do you know why I do this?" (Meaning: acting). Hoffman shook his head No. Olivier got up, which was a bit of a struggle for him, he was quite weak, and leaned over to Hoffman, putting his face right up against Hoffman's - and saying over and over and over, "Look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me ..."

Hoffman was tremendously moved. Perhaps you might expect that Olivier would say that he "did it" because he believed in the grand tradition of theatre and storytelling, or that he was carrying on the torch from Richard Burbage and wanted to interpret the classics to a new audience, or that he believed in the craft itself, and the nobility of it. All valid reasons, too, to "do" something.

But no. For Olivier it all boiled down to: "Look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me look at me ..."

Bless him (and bless Carlin) for being courageous enough to just say it.

Here's the whole interview with Carlin.

"In baseball, you make an error! Whooops!"

Rest in peace, George Carlin. I loved his bit on the differences between football and baseball. See below. What a loss. An American classic.

Rest in peace, Cyd Charisse

Legendary dancer Cyd Charisse has died. She was 86.

Here is a not-to-be-missed tribute - it made me cry. In reference to her dance number in Singin' In the Rain (clip below), Dan Callahan writes:

First, we see her shapely foot in close-up. Then, the camera moves up her leg, and moves, and moves, and moves. This is a woman with legs for days, and after we finally get to her torso, the camera moves up, and we see that she has a face that seems to be hard and humid with insatiable sexual appetite. Charisse was only five foot seven, but the incredible length of her legs and arms made her seem like an Amazon, a creature from another world.

And here he is on a moment in The Band Wagon (clip below as well):

When the music speeds up, we’re in a kind of no man’s land: I really don’t know how Charisse does what she does here. Part of the magic is her technical skill, of course, but a huge part of it comes from her, and it has to do with a kind of taunting yet witty sexuality that actually makes the icy Astaire look randy in response. At the height of their pulsating, “are we being serious?” interplay, Charisse extends her epic legs out to Astaire on five horn blasts: one, two, three, four, five, and on the fifth beat she turns. Then, one, two, three, four, five, and on that crucial fifth beat, she flings her whole upper body backwards to the rhythm. That’s math, maybe, or dance. But the way that she throws her head back on that second beat of five is quite possibly the most thrilling single moment I’ve ever seen in a movie.

Please go read the whole thing.

Sniff.

Obit here. I loved this quote from the obit:

Looking back on her work with Kelly and Astaire during a 2002 interview in The New York Times, Ms. Charisse said that her husband, Mr. Martin, always knew whom she had been dancing with. “If I was black and blue,” she said, “it was Gene. And if it was Fred, I didn’t have a scratch.”

Singin' in the Rain

From The Band Wagon.

Nobody like her. Whatever is going on in this number with her - it is not just the steps - and she always said that herself, she knew dance was more than choreography. She's embodying something - an archetype, a mood, an energy ... and it is also about the relationship with her partner - whoever it was at the time. Watch how they relate there. How she crooks her body and stomps towards him, as he backs up ... perfectly in unison, a perfect picture. Brilliant! She is inhabiting something here ... she's acting, in that dream-space of the musical number. You wouldn't get goosebumps otherwise. And it sure doesn't hurt that she can dance like that as well. Holy crap.

David Thomson writes of Cyd Charisse in his Biographical Dictionary of Film:

Exceptionally tall, austere in features but elegant in the legs, she is perhaps the greatest female movie dancer. Her acting is like the songs in Marx Brothers films, though there were attempts to make the public accept her in straight parts ... But in the nightclub dance in Party Girl and all her dancing in Silk Stockings she is as sensual and moving as most actresses have managed to be with words. In Silk Stockings, her rapturous introduction to expensive lingerie conveys emotions denied to her as an actress; while in Party Girl her dancing discloses the scarlet woman invisible in the ostensibly dramatic moments.

Rest in peace.

Rest in peace, Sydney Pollack

Rest in peace, Sydney Pollack. I'll miss knowing he's around. He was one of the old guard. One of those old guys - like Redford, Beatty, Nicholson - who re-made the Hollywood studio system into their own image. Pollack's films are some of the most successful of all time.

A graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse, and Sanford Meisner's teaching, Pollack always brought that sense of moment-to-moment unpredictable reality to his films (and to his acting, let's not forget) that is such a trademark of "the Meisner technique". You can see it at work. Acting is sometimes (sometimes!) just as simple as listening and talking. That was what Meisner was all about - training actors how to do that, and how to do it in the moment.

While some of his films did nothing for me (Sabrina (correction), Out of Africa) - there are others that I count as dearest to my heart. Movies I adore, and can watch repeatedly. I love Absence of Malice. I love They Shoot Horses, Don't They?. I love Tootsie. And yes, I love The Way We Were - even in its too-obvious set-up of opposing viewpoints mixed with romance. I just like the details of the performances, frankly, and that, in my view, is what Sydney Pollack was best at capturing. The way Bill Murray's character is set up and framed in Tootsie - I mean, that's what I'm talking about. Bill Murray had to perform it, and he did so brilliantly - but it's Pollack's sensibility that really highlighted him, and Murray is so important to the success of that film (even though he's only in a couple of scenes). He becomes crucial. Pollack always understood details like that. Kim has posted the clip from Tootsie with the great scene between Dustin Hoffman and Sydney Pollack as his exasperated pissed-off at-the-end-of-his-ropes agent. There's not a moment there that isn't real and also funny. So so good. "Nobody wants to pay money to watch a play about people living next to chemical waste! If they want to see that, they can go to New Jersey!"

Speaking of his acting: his performance in Husbands and Wives is a comedic tour de force. I LOVE it. There are certain performances which are so meaty ... so ... rich ... that I feel like I could almost love being at a Renaissance Fair so that I could eat the performance with my bare hands, licking my chops. It's THAT good. That's what his performance does for me in Husbands and Wives. It is SO slimy, so unself-aware - like: suddenly that guy is talking about yoga and sprouts and stupid TV movies and how fun they are? Does he realize how ridiculous he seems? Well, no, he doesn't. Because he is the kind of guy who can justify ANY behavior in himself, because he is always right. And that girl he dates, that ridiculous girl (I would say that her performance is a slam-dunk "10 minute Oscar" ... "I just adore cous cous!" "Knowing your astrological sign is CRUCIAL . I cannot stress this enough!!") Watching Sydney Pollack drag his new-age hippie girlfriend out of the party of snotty intellectuals is one of the funniest and most embarrassing scenes I have ever seen - and she fights him as though it's the final scene in Deer Hunter. Like - it is life or death. She is in the jungle in 'Nam, as far as she's concerned, not an upscale driveway in Westchester. Pollack is so so funny here, so exasperated and mortified ... talking to himself at the wheel of his car, "What am I doing? I gotta be crazy - what am I DOING?" His only moment of real self-awareness.

I just love his performance in Husbands and Wives - it's an all-time favorite of mine from Woody Allen's films, in general.

Seriously. It's so funny and so detailed and so alive that I want to eat the damn thing with my hands.

I will miss knowing he's around. I love that old guard.

Knowing that he's gone makes me miss Mitchell, who is sailing along the African coast on a cruise ship as we speak. I want to talk with him about Sydney Pollack. We always just loved him so much.

Rest in peace, Sydney Pollack. And thank you thank you thank you.

Rest in peace, Charlton Heston

My brother Brendan and I watched The Ten Commandments on the night before Easter, and expressed amazement, for the 100th time, how incredible Heston is, how inevitable. I mean, how silly could that entire undertaking have been? Come to think of it, there is something supremely silly about Edward G. Robinson running around in a toga. It's awesome! But even today, lulled to sleep by CGI effects, there is something stunning and terrifying about the Red Sea parting, well done! - but none of it would matter a whit if it weren't for Heston's commanding (pun) performance. He had no fear. He embodied courage, and was able to portray it larger than life. This is something NO actors have today - NONE - it is no longer the "style" of acting, and no longer in vogue. And that's fine. Things don't have to stay the same forever. But at least we could look back at one of the greats and say, "Ah. There. That is how it was done. That is how it should have been done." His performances do not date themselves. I also liked him very much in the otherwise somewhat ridiculous Any Given Sunday. Seeing him show up in that plush skybox, with his cynical mutterings, and leering undeniable gravitas - was like suddenly seeing reality show up in that over-produced mess. And watching Cameron Diaz try to act with the man was like watching a flea try to compete with a gorilla. Nice shot, dear. Try again. She wasn't bad in that movie, she was perfectly cast, I thought ... but Heston walking in that room made everyone around him seem transparent, insubstantial.

When Charlton Heston first announced that he had the onset of Alzheimer's, an outpouring of tributes emerged. A wonderful thing - I do hope he read them, and got a chance to understand, before the disease got his brain, how much he still meant to so many.

The most stunning tribute of all, it takes my breath away to this day, is Richard Dreyfuss' tribute. He wrote it for National Review - obviously a publication with political leanings that has nothing to do with who Richard Dreyfuss is, and how he votes. But, as I have said repeatedly on my blog, as I have chased people away from my site who seem constitutionally unable to play by my rules, as I have stated in my comment policy: when you are dealing with art, and the appreciation thereof, politics must take a backseat. At least if you want to have a worthwhile conversation. And then there are those who say, "I liked Charlton Heston's acting BECAUSE of his politics" and that is just as idiotic. His work transcends. He was an actor, first and foremost, a "great pretender". So talk about his work, please - there is plenty there to keep us chatting for 100 years at least! Nobody "owns" Charlton Heston. Nobody "owns" John Wayne. The most flaming liberal in the world could appreciate and love Red River, and those who put politics at the forefront are completely missing the point. What we are talking about here is love. And these actors who touch us, who get beneath our skins, who create something indelible ... transcend all of that. The editors at National Review knew that, and so did Richard Dreyfuss.

His tribute of Charlton Heston is what I first ran to, today, when I heard the news that Charlton Heston had passed away. Bless Dreyfuss for putting it so eloquently into print.

And rest in peace, great American icon. You will not be forgotten.

He’s Not Moses, but He’s Something Else
My tribute to Charlton Heston.

By Richard Dreyfuss

I am shy around movie stars. True, if odd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth and all I can think to say is I loved you in ... So it is with Charlton Heston.

In his presence I seem to nod idiotically like one of these doggies in the back of rear windows of cars. He always tries to make my agonies a bit smaller since he is such a gentleman. We've talked about children and gun control but usually it's hopeless and I just end up trying not to stare.

It's a serious and silly business, acting. Grown people running around pretending the clothes they're wearing are their own, pretending the words they're saying are their own, pretending that they're not pretending. That stuff can really make you feel silly if you're not careful. A thousand times more silly if you're wearing a toga or staring offstage at a burning bush that isn't there. But as silly as it might be at times, acting has awesome power to mirror our reality and give shape to our best and most noble pictures of ourselves.

When I was a kid and yearning to act, there were scads of actors whose work I admired and tried to emulate: (Spencer) Tracy and (Charles) Laughton, Paul Muni, Irene Dunne, and Jimmy Cagney. There were also Errol Flynn and John Wayne and Charlton Heston.

I thought, being cocky, that I could be something like Tracy, something like Cagney, something like Laughton (well maybe not Laughton). I watched them all. I knew I would never be as sexy as Flynn, never as heroic as Wayne, never as mythic as Heston. I never thought for a minute I could be like Heston.

There are some performances that could not possibly be acted by anyone other than who played them. Even though we hear stories about (Ronald) Reagan being cast in Casablanca, we know in our gut it just couldn't be right, couldn't happen. God gave Bogart the role. God gave John Wayne Red River. And God cast Charlton Heston as Moses. And Ben Hur. God I think cast Heston as God, because (if I'm not mistaken) his voice is the voice of God in the Ten Commandments, playing against himself. They say Cecil B. DeMille did the voice, but it sounds like Heston to me. I believe it anyway. Makes a better story.

Millions of Jewish kids grew up with the confusion that A) Charlton Heston was Moses B) Charlton Heston was not Jewish. I believe that films like Ben Hur were conceived because Heston was there to make them. He allowed these stories to be told because he was there to play the parts. Ben Hur starring Robert Montgomery. (Please.) Tyrone Power as Moses. (I don't think so.) With all due respect, and I have loads of that, Heston is inescapable. He was necessary. There would be no Chariot Race worth its salt without him. I would never watch Heston on TV because he was too big. It would be like watching the promos to the Incredible Hulk, with the giant bursting through his shirt. He was too big for television. TV is small, it's manageable, it's less. Heston was almost too big for the 20th century, let alone TV. But in the darkened mysterioso of the movie theatre, Charlton Heston was "just right."

When I saw Charlton Heston as a kid, he took me far, far away, to places few actors could go. The only other American actor so comfortable outside of this era was Wayne, and Heston could time travel farther. Both held the magical alchemy that made me forget the commonplace of here and now completely. John Wayne allowed us into our American past. Heston, because of his perfectly male face, the depth of his voice, the measured almost antique rhythm of his speech, the oddly innocent commitment that allowed him to dive without looking into the role, took me farther, before the common era, as they say.

Somehow he was able to cut the myriad strings that connect us to our current lives, so he could inhabit our imagined past and imagined future so perfectly. So well did he do this that his discomfort was obvious when he played in the Now (actually, make that my discomfort, because he more than likely had a ball in the rare instances when he played something current). If it wasn't the past it was the future. I could never have gotten to Ancient Rome without him, nor Ape City.

Is so and so a great actor? A good actor? A bad actor? Speaking as an expert it's a stupid question. The actor either gets you to where you have to go, or not. Heston did; priceless. He could portray greatness, which is no longer an artistic goal; he could portray a grandeur that was so satisfying. What he was able to personify so perfectly for us was a vision of ourselves called heroic. Is this out of favor? Out of step? Antique? Yes, antique as in gorgeous, incredibly valuable, and not produced anymore but this is a critique of the world, not him (hopefully we will one day come back to all that).

As someone who has seen Ben Hur two million times I am totally grateful.

Self-consciousness is the anticipation of being silly and often is the spoiler for many actors. Charlton Heston had no such problem. He would dive into the story with what I can only call measured abandon and make me believe. And it was fun watching him.

It has become fashionable to characterize his politics; almost as if his politics were a separate thing, like Diana's popularity. People are either defensive or patronizing (if not contemptuous). I can only say I wish all the liberals and all the conservatives I knew had the class and forbearance he has. Would I be as patient or serene when so many had showed me such contempt, or tried to make me feel stupid or small? I doubt it, truly I do. This is dignity, simply and completely. A much more important quality than political passion at the end of the day, and far more lacking, don't you think?

It is a terrible, terrible, terrible thing that Charlton Heston is going through this (earlier this month, Heston announced he had been diagnosed with symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease), but I confess that there is a part of my heart where I am grateful for the opportunity to let him know what he's meant to me.

It will make him smile that I'm writing this on National Review's website (among other publications). Come to think of it, it is kind of funny.

And here's a nice tribute from The Onion's AV Club. I particularly liked this part:

Above all, Heston was an actor. His performances never let viewers forget this. He had little use for subtlety but a great flair for operatic emotions. Few have equaled him for this. Heston was already a man out of time in an era that had begun to favor the nuance of Method performers but he had a gift for command that made the shift in fashion seem irrelevant, if not wrongheaded. Other actors could have cursed the skies and damned mankind for destroying itself at the end of Planet Of The Apes. But try to picture anyone else bringing Heston's ferocity and conviction to the moment and you'll probably draw a blank.

Amen. Rest in peace.

Richard Widmark: tributes

A terrific in-depth obituary in The Washington Post.

David Thomson had this to say about Widmark in his awesome The New Biographical Dictionary of Film:

Widmark came into movies a little later than most male stars, already in his early thirties. But that debut is still haunting, no matter that Widmark was later turned into an authentic hero, suntanned, laconic, and grudgingly aligning himself with proper causes.

Educated at Lake Forest College, he worked there as a teacher, and as a stage and radio actor, befor being cast as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (47, Henry Hathaway). The sadism of that character, the fearful laugh, the skull showing through drawn skin, and the surely conscious evocation of a concentration camp degenerate established Widmark as the most frightening person on the screen. The glee in the performance may even have shocked Widmark himself. It made Kiss of Death untypical of Fox or Hathaway. The studio kept him on a leash, and mixed more conventional heavies with nerve-strained heroes, as if to imply that Tommy Udo was the result of overwork: as the spoiled-child owner of Road House (48, Jean Negulesco); the gangster in The Street With No Name (48, William Keighley); menacing Gregory Peck in Yellow Sky (48, William Wellman); a boy's best friend in Down To The Sea in Ships (49, Hathaway); Slattery's Hurricane (49, Andre de Toth); as a whining coward hounded by the London underworld in Night and the City (40, Jules Dassin); as the doctor racing against time and bubonic plague in Panic In the Streets (50, Elia Kazan); as a hardnosed, bigoted cop in No Way Out (50, Joseph L. Mankiewicz).

But even as a hero, Widmark barely suppressed malice, anxiety and violence; the straight voice readily broke into a sneer or a giggle; and the eyes once had an insolent way of staring a woman out. That was how he lifted microfilm from Jean Peters's handbag at the beginning of Pickup On South Street (53, Samuel Fuller). He was excellent as Fuller's sentimental hoodlum and brought a special relish to the brutal love scenes and to the situation of a guttersnipe able to crow to the police.

Elia Kazan said in regards to Widmark and Panic In the Streets:

I had a great cast. It was a treat in itself just to have Zero Mostel around. I had Jack Palance, making his first picture. And I had Richard Widmark, who was a jewel, as nice a guy as there was in the world. Barbara Bel Geddes played his wife. I cast like a man should. I handpicked everybody just because I liked them ...

Panic in the Streets is the first picture I made that I liked. I don't think you're aware those people are actors, even Widmark had played nothing but heavies before that. He became famous in Kiss of Death, in which he pushed an old lady in a wheelchair down the stairs, and he had that wonderfully phony, lunatic laugh. We'd worked in the theater together about four or five years earlier, and I returned him to playing a leading man. He had sort of a minor-league charm. But it was a genuine charm. Almost everything he said was amusing and self-deprecatory, and to me, that self-deprecatory attitude is an essential American quality.

I love his face.

Rest in peace, Richard Widmark

Hoods are good parts because they're always flashy and attract attention. If you've got any ability, you can use that as a stepping stone.
-- Richard Widmark

Here's the NY Times obit.

And Kim Morgan's tribute:

"I've got so much more to write about one of my absolute all-time favorite actors, but to put it simply -- he was a rare one."

I know a couple of people who count him as one of their favorite actors ever. He hasn't worked in a long time, the man was in his 90s ... but what a career. I bumped up Kiss of Death on the Netflix queue - a movie I have seen countless times, on big screens and small ... but need to see again, as soon as possible.

Review of Widmark's debut performance in Kiss of Death on Noir of the Week, one of my favorite new sites:

If I had to choose one reason to recommend watching this film it’s definitely the screen debut of Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo. His performance is outstanding, as he doesn’t so much give you the creeps as he force-feeds them to you. Udo is a perfect storm of menace, sadist and sociopath. Widmark commands every scene he’s in with such a forceful presence and performance that as the film continues, you find yourself just waiting for him to appear. He also gets some classic lines such as telling a cop fishing for info that he wouldn’t give him “the skin off a grape.” Without Victor Mature’s understated performance Widmark’s Udo may have lost some of his effectiveness by seeming too over the top or out of place contrasted by a less convincing Nick Bianco. The two portrayals, however, balance each other perfectly and create a solid foundation of tension and excitement for this otherwise moderate noir.

Rest in peace.

People love Richard Widmark, you know what I mean?

RIP Anthony Minghella

Wow. Did not see this one coming. Shocking. My first thought was of Truly, Madly, Deeply and how much I love that movie.

I was not (to put it mildly) a fan of The English Patient -- but I must give props of the largest order to Minghella for directing one of my favorite movies of all time: Truly, Madly, Deeply.

Truly, Madly, Deeply is almost radioactive in my mind ... it is like I have to stay clear of it ... until I feel prepared to deal with it again. The story of Truly, Madly, Deeply is excellent - thought-provoking, the script is fantastic - with well-drawn characters, complex and simple scenes, beautifully written - comedy, grief, love - the acting is superb, and the direction is funny, warm, open, and accessible. It was his first film. Bravo. Minghella, in his casting of the film, the way he films her in his flat, the way he films the whole thing, creates a complete three-dimensional world that we, the audience, feel privileged to get to visit, even for a short while. It's a world that breathes. Even just thinking about that movie gets me all worked up.

I posted about Truly, Madly, Deeply here. If you haven't seen it, all I can say is: do yourself a favor. You are in for such a treat! Such a deep and wonderful treat.

Rest in peace. A sad loss.

Rest in peace, Roy Scheider

Sad sad news. New York Times obit here. More thoughts at Cinematical. Here's Jonathan's post - he includes a clip from Sorcerer.

And here is a not-to-be-missed post on Scheider from Jeremy at Moon in the Gutter.

A compilation of awesome posters of the Scheider-movies from the 1970s.

Probably best known for his role in Jaws, my favorite Roy Scheider performance is in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (although I am also partial to his performance in The French Connection). But his portrayal of Joe Gideon (Bob Fosse's alter ego) in All That Jazz - a dance man who smokes, fucks, drinks, and pops pills right into open-heart surgery - is one of the all-time great performances by an actor, period. He was nominated for an Academy Award.

Scheider was never afraid to get ugly in his work, or unlikeable, or grander-than-life. He had courage. I can't imagine anyone else in the part of Joe Gideon and ... Roy Scheider is most definitely NOT the obvious choice. But he claimed that part. He IS that part.

"Showtime!"

I think one of my favorite scenes is when they're all in rehearsal in the dance studio - and it's just not. working ... and it's all on him to figure it out, because he's the choreographer, he's the general in charge. Things get tense. But there's a block, somehow ... Gideon can't GET to what he wants to express. It's a classic scene (rarely portrayed on film) of the artistic process. It's not a forgiving montage - where we see, over time, the struggle, and then the triumph. No. We are in the muck and mud with him. He can't get out of the creative block. We are with him thru that. The scene goes on for what feels like an excruciating amount of time ... you yearn for them to cut away, like: let them just work out the problem on their own, leave me out of it. But then comes the breakthrough. Gideon figures it out.

Great great scene, one I treasure for many reasons.

Please leave your favorite performances in the comments section, as a tribute to this great actor.

I don't post the following clip to be in bad taste. I post it because it's perfect. And it is how I will remember him.

Bye-bye, Mr. Scheider. You'll be missed more than you'll ever know.

Heath Ledger, 1979 - 2008

I thought his performance in Brokeback Mountain was an iconic performance - strong, silent, a real throwback to another kind of male character (Josh Brolin in No Country For Old Men is a more recent example) ... The silent stoic Marlboro Man, with hidden depths. When he let it out, it was raw, jagged, ugly. The way he kissed Gyllenhaal against the wall during their reunion is an example. It was so violent and ferocious, you couldn't tell if it was a punch and a kiss. I was gobsmacked by what he did in the movie. You could smell the nicotine on the edges of his fingers, you could smell his sweat. This was not a man who spoke much, felt comfortable speaking ... and any time he did open his mouth to speak, it was as though the vocal cords took a while to realize: "Oh ... we're doing this now? We're talking?"

Gyllenhaal was good - but there were times when I remembered he was an actor, and it pulled me out of it a bit.

I never ever had that thought with Ledger. And I remember, too, his couple of scenes in Monster's Ball, another deeply portrayed kind of awkward guy, not used to speaking much - and given the right circumstances that character would probably be an awesome husband, partner ... But as it was, he was relegated to isolation, stoic silence. I hadn't seen Knight's Tale when I saw Monster's Ball, so that was my first impression of Ledger, and it has pretty much stuck.

A quiet (maybe shy) tough silent guy, a throwback perhaps, bulked up against feeling or vulnerability, meeting life with a clenched fist ... but oh, if you could just pry that hand open, what a generous soul you would find. That, to me, is who Ledger was onscreen. But then you would see him in interviews, and he seemed so slight physically - there were times I wouldn't even know that that was the same guy - he had such a presence when he was acting, he always looked totally different on the red carpet, or in interviews. His physicality in real life looked delicate, slim, slender, almost Orlando Bloom-ish. He was a sensitive guy, with lovely manners.

It made me realize that, yeah, he was acting in Brokeback. He did a helluva job.

Watch him sit and think in Brokeback. It's my favorite kind of film performance - spare, clear, emotional, visual, it's all in the eyes.

I'm really shocked and sad.

Rest in peace.

Share your thoughts about him at House Next Door.

And here at Edward's.

Alex has a post up.

Jim Emerson has a very moving tribute up. It begins:

Rare is the performance that can honestly be called a "revelation," but that's what it felt like to watch Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain." Not only did he bring iconic life and nuance to the existential loneliness of Ennis Del Mar, a taciturn but complex (and conflicted) character, but for such mature work to spring from the teen-idol star of "10 Things I Hate About You" and "A Knight's Tale" was... well, revelatory itself -- the astonishing revelation of a suddenly, fully developed actor who, in the superficial juvenile parts he'd played previously, had given little indication he was capable of such moving depth and clarity. Ledger emerged as if from a cocoon, gleaming with promise and flexing his wings.

Brendon at My Five Year Plan has a post which brought tears to my eyes.

Marisa shares her thoughts. That's one of my favorite moments in the film, too Marisa. Ouch.

Robbie at Reverseblog has a post up about Brokeback, and why that performance was so crucial.

If Brokeback’s pain proved exquisite for some and unbearably raw for others, odds are it was all because of Ennis’s internalized anguish, his disparity between how he felt and how he was told to act opening up a chasm within him too great to bridge.

I just re-watched Brokeback Mountain. I'm really sad about this one.

RIP Bobby Fischer

"When you play Bobby, it is not a question of whether you win or lose. It is a question of whether you survive."
-- Boris Spassky

“It was Bobby Fischer who had, single-handedly, made the world recognize that chess on its highest level was as competitive as football, as thrilling as a duel to the death, as aesthetically satisfying as a fine work of art, as intellectually demanding as any form of human activity." - Harold C. Schonberg

Memories and reflections from those who knew him.

The last anecdote - told by Edward Rothstein - is my favorite.

I held out for about 30 moves, and when I resigned, it was with flags flying and bands playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” I went down with honors. The game took about 15 minutes, of which 14 were mine.

Here's Fischer playing Fidel Castro:

A couple years ago, I read Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time , the story of his famous chess match against Spassky which took on (like the 1980 hockey game in the Olympics) the feeling of the entire Cold War, being fought on another kind of battlefield.

Here's an excerpt (I highly recommend the book):

The most interesting phenomenon about Fischer, however, is not the effect chess had on him, but the effect chess had on his opponents, destroying their morale, making them feel that they were in the grip of an alien hostile force to his powers there was no earthly answer ... Fischer appeared to his opponents to function like a micro-chip driven automaton. He analyzed positions with amazing rapidity; his opponent always lagged behind on the clock...Nor did Fischer appear to be governed by any psychologically predetermined system or technique. Take just one example, the twenty-second move of game seven against Tigran Petrosian in the 1971 Candidates match. Who else but Fischer would have exchanged his knight for the bishop? To give up an active knight for a weak bishop was inconceivable; it seemed to violate a basic axiom of the game, to defy all experience. Yet, as Fischer proved, it was absolutely the right decision, transforming an edge into another ultimately winning advantage.

Human chess players can often feel insecure in open, complex positions because a part of them dreads the unknown. Thus they avoid exposing their king because they worry that, like a general trapped in no-man's-land, this most vital of pieces will inevitably be caught in the crossfire. Common sense and knowledge born of history tells them that this is so. An innate pessimism harries them, nagging away, warning them off the potentially hazardous move. Not Fischer. If he believed his opponent could not capitalize on an unshielded king, if he could foresee no danger, then he would permit it to stand brazenly, provocatively unguarded.

Faced with Fischer's extraordinary coolness, his opponents assurance would begin to disintegrate. A Fischer move, which at first glance looked weak, would be reassessed. It must have a deep master plan behind it, undetectable by mere mortals (more often than not, they were right, it did). The US grandmaster Robert Byrne labeled the phenomenon "Fischer-fear". Grandmasters would wilt, their suits would crumple, sweat would glisten on their brows, panic would overwhelm their nervous systems. Errors would creep in. Calculations would go awry. There was talk among grandmasters that Fischer hypnotized his opponents, that he undermined their intellectual powers with a dark, mystic, insidious force. Time after time, in long matches, Fischer's opponents would suffer a psychosomatic collapse. Fischer managed to induce migraines, the common cold, flu, high blood pressure, and exhaustion, to which he himself was mostly resistant. He liked to joke that he had never beaten a healthy opponent...

In Reykjavik to cover the match, the novelist Arthur Koestler famously coined the neologism "mimophant" to describe Fischer. "A mimophant is a hybrid species: a cross between a mimosa and an elephant. A member of this species is sensitive like a mimosa where his own feelings are concerned and thick-skinned like an elephant trampling over the feelings of others."

There is no doubt that, like a psychopath, Fischer enjoyed that feeling of complete power over his opponent. Like a psychopath, he had no moral compunction about using his power.

Here is a lengthy obit in the New York Times. Well worth reading.

Excerpt:

The 1964 tournament also produced another of his legendary games, this one against the grandmaster Robert Byrne.

“It was one of his brilliant counterattacks,” recalled Mr. Byrne, who would go on to become the chess columnist for The New York Times. “He was playing Black, and he made a deep sacrifice, so deep that I did not understand it. It was a very profound combination, very beautiful.”

Mr. Byrne ended up resigning the game while he was still materially ahead. The result was so unusual that it confounded grandmasters analyzing the games for spectators.

Frank Brady, Fischer's biographer, wrote:

[Fischer] empathizes with the position of the moment with such intensity that one feels that a defect in his game, such as a backward pawn or an ill-placed knight, causes him almost physical, and certainly psychical pain. Fischer would become the pawn if he could, or if it would help his position, marching himself rank-by-rank to the ultimate promotion square. In these moments at the board, Fischer is chess.

"I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves," said Bobby Fischer to The Washington Post, on the eve of the Spassky match - when he was asked if it were true that he was "on edge".

Here's a photo from the Boris Spassky / Bobby Fischer match, 1972.

Here's an excerpt from Bobby Fischer Goes to War, describing a moment in the first game of the Spassky/Fischer match in Iceland:

Then, on move twenty-nine, Fischer did the unthinkable Picking up the remaining black bishop in the long fingers of his right hand, balancing it with his thumb, index, and middle fingers, he stretched out his arm and in one movement plucked off the rook pawn with his two smaller fingers while installing the bishop in its place.

This was inexplicable. In playing Bxh2 - bishop takes the king rook pawn - Fischer had fallen into a standard trap. At first glance, the undefended white rook pawn looks as though it can be safely pinched by the black bishop. At second glance, one sees that if the pawn is taken, white's knight's pawn will be advanced one square, leaving the black bishop helplessly stranded. White can capture it with nonchalant ease. Even for the average club player, the recognition of such a danger is instinctive.

Fischer was the chess machine who did not commit errors. That was part of his aura, part of the "Bobby Fischer" legend, a key to his success. Newspapers reported a gasp of surprise spreading through the auditorium. Spassky, who had trained himself not to betray emotion, looked momentarily startled. Those who have analyzed the match were equally dumbfounded. "When I saw Bobby play the move," wrote Golombek, "I could hardly believe my eyes. He had played so sensibly and competently up to now that I first of all thought there was something deep I had overlooked; but no matter how I stared at the board I could find no way out." Nor could Robert Byrne and Ivo Nei, who analyze the game in their book on the match: "This move must be stamped as an outright blunder." The British chess player and writer C.H. O'D. Alexander's verdict is similar: "Unbelievable. By accurate play Fischer had established an obviously drawn position ... now he makes a beginner's blunder." A television pundit on the US Channel 13 reckoned it would go down as one of the great gaffes of all time. The Los Angeles Times thought it could be explained only as a "rare miscalculation by the American genius." In Moscow, the correspondent for the Soviet state newspaper Izvestia, Yuri Ponomarenko, located the move's source in sheer greed. Bondarevskii commented that the move was "a vivid example to smash the myth of [Fischer] as a computer." Anatoli Karpov, the twenty-one-year-old Soviet star in the making, had a psychological theory involving both players: Spassky was afraid of the American and had sought to prove to himself that he could always draw with the white pieces. Fischer, annoyed, attempted to disprove this. "So he sacrificed a piece without rhyme or reason."

Years later, in twenty pages of exhaustive analysis, British grandmaster Jonathan Speelman concluded that even after Fischer captured the h pawn, totally accurate play could have earned him a draw. And to be charitable to Fischer, perhaps he recognized this intuitively. But that is hardly an explanation. For such a gambit had only a downside, offering no chance of victory. At best, with extreme care, it gave him the same result - a draw - that he could have achieved without any effort at all - indeed, probably simply by asking for one.

The game was adjourned after five hours, with Fischer's position in a hopeless mess.

Given this description of just one move during the match, it is not surprising that Arthur Koestler (blistering critic of Stalinist Russia - although once a Communist himself - journalist, novelist, all-around brilliant Orwellian thinker) - who covered the Spassky/Fischer match - wrote of his experience: "Funny to be a war correspondent again after all these years."

Miguel Najdorf, Argentianian grandmaster, said of Fischer: "Fischer wants to enter history alone."

And so he has.

A fascinating complex infuriating individual. Rest in peace.

More:

Jeff shares his memories of 1972, and what that match meant to him and his friends.

2007 Year in Pictures

Kurt Vonnegut, RIP.

2007 Year in Pictures

Tribute to Ryzsard Kapuscinski at the New York Public Library. Rest in peace.

RIP Deborah Kerr

A marvelous actress, with the breath of reality about her. She never over-did, or under-did. She just seemed alive. Like a real person.

I gasped when I saw the news she had passed on. So many performances of hers have left such a mark on me ... starting with The King and I, which I first saw as a small child and it made such an impression that I used to act out her big angry "private moment" number when she tells the King off - alone in my room. She was so feisty. So ... palpably emotional, without being too much, too melodramatic.

For example: watch her face when the King approaches her, one arm outstretched - ready to waltz with her like a Westerner. They never even kiss. But it's one of the most erotic moments in movies. Because of his face, yes - stern and open and passionate (all at the same time) ... but also because of hers - it's so open it's like you can see her pulse beating in her throat.

Wonderful. Classic.

Here is an insanely obsessive piece I wrote about Affair to Remember, for those of you who are interested. The post is mainly focused on Cary Grant (and the "Method") ... but naturally, she pops in from time to time. With the aura of cheese and the semi-annoying Leo McCarey morality-tale floating about that movie ... she is wonderfully natural, and it appears, at times, that she is veering off from the script - along with Grant. They play off each other, they have non-verbal signals and conversations, it seems as though she is not speaking "lines" ... but talking naturally. They're great together, too. A great pairing.

More on her here. Wow.

So much more to talk about. From Here to Eternity (speaking of Clift) - but I'll stop here for now.

Rest in peace, beautiful woman.

RIP Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine: Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

You and Hugh are together again. Bless you both.

Rest in peace.

RIP Michelangelo Antonioni

I'm with Keith: What the hell???

Michelangelo Antonioni:

"My habit of shooting rather long scenes was born spontaneously on the first day of filming Ceonaca di un Amore. Having the camera fixed to its stand immediately caused me real discomfort. I felt paralysed, as if I were being prevented from following closely the one thing in the film that interested me: I mean, the characters. The next day, I called for a dolly, and I began to follow the characters till I felt the need to move on to another exercise. For me, this was the best way to be real, to be true ... I have never succeeded in composing a scene without having the camera with me, nor have I ever been able to make my characters talk in accordance with a pre-established script ... I needed to see the characters, to see even their simplest gestures."

Excerpt from David Thomson's film encyclopedia:

Antonioni's world of sentimental and metaphysical dismay ought to include just such a figure as himself: a man of vast intellectual sensibility and artistic aspiration; a film director capable of stripping people down to fragile skins that can hardly brush against one another without pain; but a visionary of emotional alienation, so morbidly convinced of the apartness of people that he sometimes ends by photographing figures in a landscape. In short, within a brief time span he veered from psychological exactness to abstraction. For if his suspicions of human dissolution are sound, then films are only an absurd response to the fretful human instinct for self-expression. Even if one cannot always share Antonioni's torment, it has been an engrossing, if humorless, prospect to see him gradually immolate himself with doubts. He is his own character, turned away from us, speechless at what has been lost. As Monica Vitti sighs near the end of La Notte: "Each time I have tried to communicate with someone, love has disappeared."

And this, too:

The enigmas in Antonioni's work are as subject to time as monuments are to erosion, and the achievements of some films can offset or explain the apparent, or early, limits of others. For example, The Passenger helped us see the longing for escape and space in L'Avventura, and illumined the persistence of life at the end of L'Eclisse. I suspect that Antonioni's best films will continue to grow and shift, like dunes in the centuries of desert. In that process, if there are eyes left to look, he will becomes a standard for beauty.

Rest in peace. Here's the NY Times obit

More: Reverse Shot's essay on Antonioni

RIP Ingmar Bergman

Crap.

A compilation of links but I'm sure the tributes will be far and wide. Keith has some screenshots here. I can't believe it. I mean, he was 89, but still. Remarkable. A remarkable artist. Here's the one post I've written about a Bergman film - bah. Dont know what else to say at the moment. I'll ponder it. Ponder what he has given us and what we have lost. 4-page obit in the Times

RIP László Kovács

Renowned and influential (yet Oscar-less) cinematographer László Kovács has died - he was 74 years old.

"Oh .... I've got a helmet!"

"As the years go by, romance fades and something else takes its place. Do you know what is??"
"Senility."
"Trust."
"That's what I meant."

A few of his credits:

What's Up Doc
King of Marvin Gardens
5 Easy Pieces
Shampoo
Paper Moon
Easy Rider
Paradise Alley (Stallone's directorial debut - MARVELOUS movie - and marvelous LOOKING movie, which is Kovac's doing)
Say Anything
Ghostbusters

I mean - just to name a FEW.

His early gritty days were when he first made his mark - and so his influence is enormous - but think of the look of Paper Moon compared to the look of Shampoo and you will see the unbelievable versatility and artistry of this man. Wow.

He went on to work on some of the most successful films of the 80s - where his work became slick and commercial (these are not epithets) - and please. Say Anything. I mean, come on. But it is his work in the late 60s, early 70s, for which he will be remembered. At least by those who "know". It was important stuff going on then - a revolution in art, an explosion of creativity and courage. The stories being told, and how they were being told ... are startling, to this day. And whether or not you "like" those movies is irrelevant. It would be like discounting the influence of Joyce because you personally don't like him. That's an ignorant position. Kovacs was attached to many of the auteurs of the day - and you can kind of tell which movies are his. Even with his versatility. Shampoo LOOKS like a Kovacs picture, for example. Five Easy Pieces might be my favorite, but then - there's the Bogdonavich classics - and how THOSE movies looked. But without Shampoo, without Five Easy Pieces (keep going ...) - American cinema flat out would not be the same today. We would all be poorer for it.

He was IT for a while. The 1970s - in the aftermath of the collapse of the studio system - brought about a lot of good, and also a lot of crap - a lot of exploded ego, and a lot of mess - but that's to be expected, with a lessening of control. His work - his passion and ambition and just how damn GOOD he was - helped to create the look of the 1970s American movie (Hungarian-born though he was!). Helped put American cinema on the international map again, because we had been falling far behind the rest of the world, in terms of what we were putting out, and the conventions we were willing to accept and not question. Made us look shallow and uncurious. That all changed - and the way those movies look - still have a deep impact.

Oh, and of course there is a Dean Stockwell connection. They were both at their hippie/biker/lover-o-flowers height at the same time, along with Dennis Hopper and all the others. Kovacs was cinematographer on Psych-Out in 1968 (which is shrieking towards me, as we speak, from a Netflix facility on the eastern seaboard).

And I want to make out with the dude just for working on What's Up, Doc alone. i mean, honest to GOD.

I have some great quotes about him from a couple different books. I'll share them later.

Rest in piece Mr. Kovács. And thank you.

RIP Charles Lane

Charles Lane - one of last century's greatest and most prolific character actors - has just died at the age of 102.

Take a look at the guy's resume. Take a look at some of those titles. It's astonishing, the longevity. And also: the goodness of him, the straightforward no-bullshit spot-on goodness. He is ALWAYS good, no matter what the part, what the demands ... This guy was a jack of all trades. I believe there was nothing he could not do. Do you know how few people have careers of such longevity in acting? It's hard to keep fresh. It's hard to not have an ego. It's hard to keep the joy alive. He did. At the ripe young age of 100, he announced at an Awards ceremony, "I'm still available for work!" God bless him.

I noticed this URL in my referral log, and it is a marvelous tribute to Charles Lane's appearance on St. Elsewhere - thank you so much for your eloquence! She writes:

That performance has stayed with me for 20 years, and goes into my "unforgettable" file. Great fictional TV doesn't change the world, but it gave me a glimpse of what's good about humanity. I need that sometimes.

God, God, yes.

Edward Copeland has a tribute too.

Here is Dennis' post on the occasion of the man's 101st birthday.

I wrote a long post over a year ago about Charles Lane in the TV movie Sybil. It goes all over the place, at times - but I re-post it below, as a meager tribute to a man who has enriched my life immeasurably, just from all of his parts he's played, the example he's set, and the kind of actor he is. It is the kind of actor I most admire.

102 years old. Holy smokes.

Rest in peace, dear dear Charles Lane. I treasure your performances in my heart.

IN PRAISE OF CHARLES LANE

I watched Sybil last night. I've seen it a gazillion times. So what the hell. I sat down to watch that wrenching thing AGAIN. I've got a lot to say about it - about the acting, in particular - but I just wanted to write a small post of praise for Charles Lane, who plays the small-town doctor from Sybil's home town. He has one scene, and I've gotta say: he knocks that shit OUT OF THE PARK.

THIS is the kind of acting I love. I mean, I love my stars, too, you know I love my big ol' movie stars ... but the acting that really turns me on are these random people, these character actors, who show up - do their job SO WELL - and never get the glory. Mitchell and Alex and I talk a lot about people who we think win "10 minute Oscars". By that we mean - the people who do not star in the films, but without whom the entire film would not work. People who just kick some serious ASS in their parts. My favorite "10 minute Oscar" is Brooke Smith's acting in Silence of the Lambs. She's the girl in the bottom of the well. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins star - and they both give unforgettable performances. (Interesting that Hopkins is only on screen in that film for 15 minutes himself. Isn't that wild??? It seems like he is in it for MUCH longer - but he is not. Phenomenal. So I guess he DID win an Oscar for a performance not much longer than 10 minutes!) But back to these more unknown actors who show up and do their jobs like nobody's business: without the scenes of Brooke Smith in the well - the film would not have the same impact. And she just GOES THERE. What I love about her performance is that, obviously, she is a victim of circumstance. I mean, good Lord. She's AT THE BOTTOM OF A WELL. That sucks. But she is not a docile creature - she doesn't JUST weep and wail - We also see her strategizing. We see her kidnap the dog. Smart!!! I love when she's coaxing the dog down - she's using the normal voice you use when you're talking to a dog - but she's so pissed, so DETERMINED that she will survive this ordeal - that she also says stuff like, "Come on, you little fucker ... get in the fucking basket ..." I love that. It's so real. And yet so unexpected. A lesser actor would just play the victim. She would play to the hilt the "oh my God, I am so TRAPPED" - Brooke Smith plays that as well, but she also expresses the rage one would feel when one is so trapped. It's a fantastic choice. She seems like a real girl. I also love when Jodie Foster bursts into the room - and then says down into the well, "Okay ... I'll be right back." And we hear Brooke Smith start shouting, "Don't leave me - you fucking bitch!!!" hahahahaha I just love that. She's not just falling over herself in gratitude ... she has HAD it ... she wants OUT. Do not leave me down here!! Anyway - for me, that's a perfect example of a 10-minute Oscar. She knocks it out of the park. The movie wouldn't be the same without her performance. Even though the two big stars show up and do THEIR jobs really really well too. I've met Brooke Smith a couple of times - at stage readings, and stuff like that, and I have no idea how to say, "Uhm ... you won a 10 minute Oscar in my mind!!!"

So back to Charles Lane. Here he is - this is about the age he was when he played this part in Sybil.

Joanne Woodward plays the psychiatrist Dr. Wilbur. I have so much more to say about Joanne Woodward ... I need to do a big Woodward post - she's one of my favorite actresses - but I will keep my focus. I will try, anyway. So anyway, Dr. Wilbur ends up taking a trip to Sybil's old hometown to see if she can kind of piece together Sybil's childhood for her - since Sybil can't remember any of it. She goes and looks up the old doctor who used to treat Sybil for the "normal childhood aches and pains" - to see if he could maybe illuminate anything for her. Charles Lane plays that doctor, Dr. Quinoness. He doesn't have any huge emotional outbursts, he doesn't have any showy explosion of rage ... His part is simple. He is a country doctor. He works out of his house. He has been a doctor for seventy years. He has wonderful manners, he is welcoming and kind. The kind of man you would love to have as your doctor. You just GET that from the second he appears on screen. He ushers Dr. Wilbur into his office, and he's carrying a tea tray with a teapot, and a couple of mugs on it, a little creamer. Just the way he offers her the tea tells you everything you need to know about his character. He's old-fashioned, he's kind, and he is welcoming to this outsider - she may be an outsider, and she may be a woman wearing a white pant suit with a big Peter Pan collar (I love Woodward's clothes in this movie - they're SO mid-1970s!!) - but she is also a doctor, and he treats her with respect. As a colleague. I don't know - it's really subtle - but without that colleague-to-colleague honesty and respect, the scene wouldn't work.

Joanne Woodward's acting in this entire film is literally masterful. But I'll write about her later. Argh. Getting sidetracked!! Even though Dr. Wilbur is angry at what has happened to Sybil, even though she is in a rage at what happened to this little girl, she doesn't bring that anger to this scene. She is on a fact-finding mission ... and this man was not one of the evil-doers. She's appropriate with him. He is a fellow doctor. She starts asking questions about Sybil's health when she was a child. He is kindly, and tells about when Sybil had her tonsils out, and how frightened she was. Dr. Wilbur says, "Did you ever treat her for anything else?" This is when he says, "Oh, the normal childhood aches and pains." Woodward then asks if he still has the file - "I would consider it a great professional courtesy if I could have a look at it." There's no animosity here. Charles Lane gets up from his desk, "Let me see if I still have her file ..." He goes to a file cabinet and shuffles through the folders. He is forthcoming, direct ... he's not CONSCIOUSLY hiding anything. But at the end of the scene, we realize that ... he knew. He knew what was happening to Sybil. I just got goosebumps all over again remembering the last moment of the scene ... But I'm getting ahead of myself.

He finds the file. He sits back down and starts reading out loud: "Fractured elbow. Hand burned from the stove. Fractured larynx. Broken ankle." Etc. The list goes on. As he reads, you can feel his energy change. It's like - seeing it all in one place, hearing the litany of horrible injuries ... makes him realize the reality - makes him SEE, yet again, after so many years, what was so obvious at the time.

Charles Lane trails his voice away ... there's a long silence between the two of them. Nobody speaks.

Woodward says, "Normal childhood aches and pains, huh?" But she doesn't say it with hostility, or as an attack on him. She's just pointing out what she sees. I love how she says that line. Then she says, curiously, "Did you ever speculate?"

This is where Lane's beautiful acting really comes to the fore. And I have to say this: he does the rest of the scene, except for the final moment, looking out of the window. We do not see his face. He stands with his back to her, talking ... An actor needs his face. The actor's face is one of the most important ways he can tell his story. BUT - oh how powerful it is to have an actor turn his back to us ... How much it can tell you about the emotions he is experiencing, it can be extremely powerful - if used effectively. This is what Charles Lane does here.

He gets up. Goes to the window. His BACK is eloquent. Do you get that? His very BACK is eloquent. You just FEEL for this man, this WITNESS. This kindly gentle man ... who had had evidence of horrible child abuse in his town ... and had done nothing.

After a while, he starts speaking. He leads off with: "I've never told anyone this before ..."

It's a moment that makes me catch my breath every time I see it. Again, he doesn't do it in an overdramatic way, he's not being an ACTOR in this moment. He's being a PERSON. A man, an old man, who has kept a secret for thirty years. He knew. He knew.

But he doesn't show his hand too early, as an actor - and this is why the moment is so powerful. He doesn't greet Dr. Wilbur with a guilty conscience. He doesn't SHOW us the things that the character himself doesn't even know yet. He's not being protective of himself. But once he reads all of her injuries out loud ... he knows that his moment of reckoning has come. He remembers. And it's a painful moment for him. This is why he stands and looks out the window. He is filled with grief at his inaction back then. Again, though: none of this is overplayed. You don't think: "Oooh, look at this actor having a great moment." You think: "This man is tormented. This poor man."

Now this next will be a paraphrase - I wish I had the script in front of me, but this is the general idea:

He says, staring out the window ... all we get of him is his back - his slightly stooped over back, "I treated her for a bladder infection when she was five years old ... very unusual for a child of her age ... I would imagine if you did a gynecological exam on her now, you would see what I did. Scarring of the inner walls, hardened destroyed tissue. Now - we know that the Lord sometimes creates mistakes in nature - but the Almighty had nothing to do with what I saw inside that little girl."

It is an absolutely devastating moment.

Woodward just sits there, listening. She doesn't speak. She doesn't need to.

Then - Charles Lane - the beautiful character actor Charles Lane - turns around and looks at Woodward.

He says, "I imagine in your line of work, you hear a lot of confessions."

Again: it is a devastating moment. Beautifully and simply played. He doesn't say "will you hear my confession?" It is implied. He wants forgiveness. It is out in the open now. Not just what happened to Sybil - but his complicity in it. He does not START the scene with this self-knowledge. Dr. Quinoness has not been walking around with a load of guilt for 30 years. He has suppressed what he saw way back then. But now he remembers. And it is a terrible terrible moment for him. This kindly old man, wearing glasses, and a black suit. A terrible moment for him.

Dr. Wilbur says to him, kindly, "Dr. Quinoness, it was a long long time ago."

Cut back to Charles Lane, looking at her. His face is simple, open, and pained. He says, and he is truly asking, "How do I find absolution?"

Cut back to Woodward, looking up at him. She has no answer for him.

The scene ends there.

There are many other amazing scenes in the film with some of the best acting I honestly have ever seen ... but that small scene between Charles Lane and Joanne Woodward is my favorite in the entire film.

It's because of what he brings to it.

In less than 5 minutes, he creates a completely three-dimensional character. It's a very important scene - because of the information it imparts. Charles Lane's part is simple: he is there to provide some exposition. That's it. That's the point of the scene. Dr. Wilbur gets confirmation of Sybil's abuse. Now she knows. It's confirmed. But - and this is partly because of the writing - which is quite good - in this scene in particular: Charles Lane takes it to another level in those last two moments - looking out the window, not being able to face her as he confesses that he knew ... and then turning back to look at her - asking for absolution.

It's just a perfectly played scene, on every level it needs to be. Not EVERY actor who has a small part in a big film shows up and makes such an impression. Not EVERY actor knocks a 5 minute scene out of the park. It's very difficult. It's almost easier to STAR in something - because you can develop your character over time, you have many scenes to do it in, you can show THIS side of the person you're playing in THIS scene, you can show THAT side of the person you're playing in ANOTHER scene - You have TIME. I mean, you have more pressure on you, of course ... but at least you have a lot of screen time to do your job. Not so with our 10-minute Oscar crowd. They have ONE scene, sometimes ... and they MUST nail it - in less than 10 minutes. It's tough, man.

So I just want to take a moment to sing the praise of Charles Lane's unsung work in Sybil. It's perfection.

Here is his long resume. He was already an old man when he filmed Sybil - and he is still alive. He just celebrated his 100th birthday. He was actually honored at last year's Emmys - he was one of the founders of the television academy - and he is now its oldest surviving member. I loved this bit of trivia:

Was honored on March 16, 2005 at the TVLand Awards for his long career and his 100th birthday. When he received his award, he said in his still-booming voice, "In case anyone's interested, I'm still available!"

God bless him!!

But his career ... I mean, LOOK at this career.

THAT is the career of a character actor. Stars' resumes are always much shorter. Character actors, successful ones, do 10 movies to a star's one. They show up, do their job for 3 days, and move on to the next one. Charles Lane worked constantly in television - appearing multiple times on I Love Lucy and many other classics.

He has been working since the early 30s. He was in Twentieth Century, he was in It's a Wonderful Life - he was in Arsenic and Old Lace - he was in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - Also, as I scrolled down his resume, I noticed how many times he was "uncredited". He was a workman. Showed up, said his 5 lines, moved on to his next job. Bless those people.

Charles Lane said, "Having had so many small parts, there was a character I played that showed up all the time and people did get to know him, like an old friend."

Old friend indeed. He brings his history with him to every part. You may think of him as "that guy". Oh, wait - that's that guy!!

His work in Sybil is what I, personally, love about acting. It's the kind of thing where I look at it and think: "That. That is what I admire. That is what I want to do." There's no vanity in it. There's an understanding of script analysis - there's an understanding of how your part fits in to the whole - there's also a fearlessness in just doing what the part demands.

Watch how he turns back to her from looking out the window. Watch how he says, "How do I find absolution?"

It don't get any better than that.

RIP Anna Nicole Smith

I wrote some of what I felt over at Alex's- but I'll add a bit here.

It's strange to remember an ad campaign - and normally I don't - but I remember Anna Nicole Smith's Guess campaign, when she first made her splash. It was kind of startling, as I recall. Guess sometimes has a misogynistic feel to their campaigns - the whole heroin chic thing ... but the Anna Nicole campaign did not have that anti-woman feel to it. It was campy. It had a referential quality to it - there was the great photo (which I'm trying to find) of Anna Nicole and a brunette sitting at a table at what was supposed to be an awards ceremony. Anna Nicole is smiling at the camera, spectacular cleavage on display. And the brunette (also gorgeous) is glancing sideways at Anna - looking at her bosoms. There is an actual photograph of Jayne Mansfield [corrected! thanks, Pappi!] and Sophia Loren - sitting side by side - and Loren is surreptitiously eyeing Mansfield's bazoombas. So the ad campaign had a kind of humorous quality to it - I enjoyed them. Also: A woman with those dimensions? When models like Elle McPherson and Linda Evangelista - tall lanky broads - ruled the day? The Guess ads were eye-catching. Truly. I loved them. I loved her kind of silly blonde vibe, there seemed to be a self-effacing quality to the photos. Now I don't think Anna Nicole Smith was truly aware of what she was doing ... she was pretty and all that ... but I don't think that she was like Marilyn Monroe - a true MASTER of print work. Nobody knew how to be photographed like Monroe. I think Anna Nicole Smith used what she had ... and if she was part of a good campaign, that used her properly, she could shine.

But I never got the sense that she was really in charge of her image, like Monroe was.

That was part of the sadness I felt surrounding Anna Nicole Smith. We now live in the era of EX-supermodels. When people like Cindy Crawford and even earlier - lauren Hutton - etc. - have to diversify, go into business, whatever ... Models never were that big a deal in earlier days. They would have their day in the sun on magazine covers - and then disappear into obscurity. No more.

And Anna Nicole Smith never seemed to fit into that post-model thing. Who knows why. I think she was surrounded by bad people who did not have her best interests at heart. I watched only one episode of her reality show and couldn't bear any more. The thought of how blatantly she was being used made me uncomfortable. And like I said over at Alex: Yes, she was complicit. Yes, she agreed to do the show. Yes, yes, yes. I know all the arguments. I think they're all correct. But I still felt sad for her.

I also feel lucky. I feel lucky that I have good friends. That I have had good boyfriends. All of them. That I have a family who gives a shit. I have people in my life who can say to me, "Uhm ... do you really want to do that?" When I've had my depressions (which I don't have anymore, knock wood) - I have people who surround me, with love, support ... they listen, they give advice ... and even if I can't appreciate it in that moment, I am buoyed up. If I am injured (emotionally) - then I have friends and family who can pick up the slack for me until I am better, stronger. I am lucky. I am lucky but also: I chose well. I have the strength of character to choose well.

Anna Nicole Smtih did not have that. And I guess it makes me sad.

Anyway. I went out and found some of my favorite images of that age-old Guess campaign - and I'll post them here, in memory. I remember these images. How long ago was that campaign? Years, right? But the images have stuck in my head. They're just delightful, I think.

I hope you rest in peace, Anna Nicole Smith, and I hope you can hang out with some angels up in heaven who will treat you better than your "friends" did in real life.

RIP, Jack Palance

Jack Palance has died. I'm sure others can be more eloquent about this well-loved and LONG successful actor (look at his IMDB page - especially look at the dates .. there isn't really a significant GAP like there are with many old actors, gaps that show that they couldn't get work for, oh, 10, 20 years ... No gap. Palance has always worked.) ... so I will just note his passing with sadness. I always liked having him around. Crotchety, old-school, talented, didn't make a big deal about it, but obviously gave a crap about his work.

Oh ... and a little bit crazy.

You know:

I love nuts like him.

He will be missed.

Update:

I knew I could count on Alex. She has written a beautiful and detailed tribute to the guy. Palance fans - you don't want to miss it.

A preliminary obit in The Times which kind of captures why I liked the guy.

RIP, William Styron

I gasped out loud when I read the news this morning. I suppose it's not a shock. He was 81. Before I read the obit, I feared that he would have committed suicide. But it appears that he died from pneumonia, and general weakening from old age.

The obituary in the Times is extensive, respectful, and very informative. I didn't know a lot of his story, although I have read most of his books. He's not an easy writer. He never takes the easy way. He has many detractors. His book Confessions of Nat Turner will probably be held against him in certain circles forever (oh, whatEVER). As well as Sophie's Choice - which, while obviously highly praised and made into this major successful movie - also has its detractors. But vengeance was his - at least in the form of success. Pulitzer Prizes, Book Awards galore. He was a heavy-hitter, one of the few in the current-day pantheon. His books were anticipated, waited for. Many people disliked them. Hardly anybody was indifferent. I read Confessions - a long time ago - and I also read Sophie's Choice - I read that one when I was in high school, and I read it after I saw the movie - which pretty much made such a deep impression on me that it took weeks to regain my balance. I had to read the book. The book is much darker than the film - and also - it is incredibly graphic, sexually. I mean, you get that sense in the film - how Sophie tries to narcotize herself through sex - it's a drug, to forget, to lose herself ... and I had never read such explicit scenes. I was, like, 15 or something. But the movie had had such an impact that I couldn't let it go, and I plowed through that dark, wrenching, unforgiving, TERRIBLE book - because I needed to still be in that place, I couldn't go back to who I was before I met Sophie. Not yet, anyway.

And then - many years later - in response to Primo Levi's suicide - which many people were outraged by (this was a man who survived Auschwitz ... how DARE he take his own life??) - William Styron wrote a small book about his own depression (which, I agree with Styron - is completely the wrong word for the actual phenomenon. He prefers "brainstorm".) But anyway, Styron was angry at what he saw as a total lack of understanding at what depression actually WAS - and to take your own life, as Mr. Levi had done, was a completely personal decision, and only someone who had actually experience