— Today has been muggy as hell. There is a haze of mug in the air. The city across the river looks sickly, drowsy, and OUT of it. There is not the usual glitter. It’s too hot.
— Thunder has been grumbling in the night air for a couple of hours now. I can hear the leaves in the trees starting to move outside … sudden gusts of wind … so probably some sort of storm approaches. It will be a relief. I don’t have AC in my apartment.
— I have the hardest time sticking to my ‘weekend to-do list’ which is always a mile long. Honestly, I need more discipline. I only checked a couple of items off today, and I hate that feeling. I consistently feel like Scarlet O’Hara … “tomorrow’s another day!” Yeah, that’s true, Scarlet, but what about TODAY, huh? Let’s try working on stuff TODAY! At least I got a new coffee pot, because my old one suddenly died this morning. Check it off the list.
— Saw Cinderella Man tonight. Renee didn’t ruin it for me. An analysis of why this is the case (besides my contempt for her) will follow. But Russell Crowe is wonderful, Paul Giamatti is fantastic, and my favorite part of the movie is how vividly it invokes the Great Depression. Times were tough … and movies, in general, have a hard time dealing with that fact. They feel the need to sentimentalize it. Except for, say, Grapes of Wrath. I truly got the sense of hardship. The boxing scenes are brutal. The sound effects – the sound of the punches – were awful, almost worse than the visuals. Renee is her same old phony self – commenting on the character the entire time, simplifying her, boiling her down. It’s an extremely unimaginative portrait. She does not come to life, because Renee Zellweger, at the get-go – probably from the first read-through – decided who this woman was, and never let any surprises come out from that moment forward.
— Mainly it was good to see the movie to hang out in air-conditioning for a while.
I love the way you talk about movies. One thing: What did you mean when you said that Renee was “commenting on the character the entire time”?
Ahhhh, I love that question. But I fear I won’t be able to describe it.
An actor who “comments” on the character as he or she plays it is telegraphing to the audience certain judgments: “This character is not educated.” “This character is simplistic.” “This character is not like me.”
This is not good acting. A good actor doesn’t judge the character like that. Because if someone is dumb in real life, for the most part they don’t walk around saying, “Hi! I’m a really dumb person!”
Actors can be snobs. If they play a character who doesn’t have a formal education, then they “comment” on that by … say … dropping the “g”s in their speech. It’s lazy acting, basically. It’s a shortcut. The actor’s mindset is: “If I drop the g’s at the end of words, then the audience will know I’m not educated.”
It’s also a judgment on the character, it’s the actor saying to the audience with their body language and choices: “I AM NOT LIKE THIS PERSON. I AM PLAYING A CHARACTER”
Imaginative fearless acting plays be NONE of these rules. Why can’t an uneducated person speak properly? Why can’t a violent person have moments of tenderness?
If you think of performances that really moved you – I would bet that the actor wasn’t making any editorial comments with their performance. Marlon Brando in Streetcar was not commenting on Stanley. He wasn’t letting us know: I AM NOT LIKE THIS GUY. He wasn’t judging Stanley, no. He left the judgment up to US in the audience. He just presented the character that Tennessee Williams wrote.
I have to think of a better way to describe this. Actors love to play broad characters – it’s a lot of fun – but a lot of times it’s scary to really become a character so unlike yourself, and so to protect the ego, the actor will ‘comment’ on the role. Letting the audience know: Don’t judge me. This is just acting. I’m not really like this.
With great acting, you forget it’s acting.
Oh, and I think Renee comments all. the. freakin. time.
She is always sort of winking at us in the audience, saying: “Do ya get it? Do ya get the character? I’m not really like this.”
she never fully loses herself in the part. Russell Crowe in this movie I just saw seemed like he WAS that guy, he lived in that world … she was just an actress who had a really good job.
Ahh. I think I know what you mean. I want to like Renee, but she does seem remote (even in Chicago, which I loved, she seemed like an actor playing an actor playing a showgirl, if that makes any sense.) How do you describe, say, Madonna in Swept Away? I mean, besides “bad”. She tries so hard (and I really do think she was brilliant in Evita) but when she’s acting she’s just… a failure. A wooden, grotesque failure. Why is that? What’s she doing? My only hypothesis is that she thinks there is no way that any character is as fascinating as she is so maybe she seems bored with them. That’s just a guess. I’d love to hear your take.
I think with Madonna it’s actually a lack of talent. Plain and simple. She doesn’t have the aptitude for acting. To think that anyone can just do it is insulting … it’s a craft, you need to have some kind of gift for it in the first place! And because she’s so good at what she does (my opinion – I love her music) – she thinks that she SHOULD be good at acting. She’s marvelous in her videos. They’re all like mini-movies, and she completely transforms herself in every single one – but when she has to try to be someone else and have it last throughout an entire movie – she can’t do it.
Maybe her ego is so strong and so self-protective that she can’t let go? I personally think that she can’t maintain the sense of “let’s play make believe” which is so essential to any good actor. She can maintain the “make believe” for 3 minutes, in her videos – but somehow it fails her in a full-length movie.
I don’t think it’s for lack of trying. She works her ass off, obviously. – I just think that some people got it, and some don’t. She still hasn’t accepted her lack of a gif for acting though and seems angry and defensive when she is criticized.
What do you think?
Also: I think since her Kabbalah transformation, she has lost a great bit of her talent, period. She is now trying to educate and enlighten, as opposed to entertain.
Actors should never set out to educate and enlighten. THAT’S NOT IN THE JOB DESCRIPTION. It’s a wonderful by-product … I have been hugely enlightened by certain actors performances … but that shouldn’t be the goal.
I think that’s her main goal now. So she’s boring.
To think that anyone can just do it is insulting … it’s a craft, you need to have some kind of gift for it in the first place!
I am so glad to hear you say that! It’s like with writing or art or anything else: there has to be some God-given, fundamental tendency to excel in the area if you want to attain any real success.
Regarding Madonna, I agree that she’s fabulous in her videos. In Swept Away there’s a scene where the guy is imagining her singing. She absolutely comes alive. She shines. She dazzles. She’s just Madonna being Madonna – singing and telling a little mini-story with her song. Then it goes back to the real story of the movie, and she just doesn’t resonate at all.
I love her music. Last night I went for a long drive and I was thinking about the Express Yourself video and how that video really opened up a new way of thinking about women in the 1990s and how it was very beautiful with those bright primary colors and the soft-focus lense, etc. I was trying to figure out how I would make that video (I might blog about it later) but the thing I kept coming back to was that it could ONLY be done first by Madonna. If anyone else had attempted it, it would have looked ridiculous. She nailed it though – she’s a genius when she can be whatever incarnation she wants for 3 minutes at a time.
American Life was tunesy and nice for background music. Nothing really startling or surprising – it sounds like a continuation of Music. She says that her next album will be out late this year/early next year. I have to admit, I’m dying to see more of the new look that she’s been showing up with (have you seen it? The old British Lady look with the tweeds and ridiculous hats and canes?) I do fear for the music, however. Everything that’s come out of her mouth lately has been about Kaballah and I don’t want to hear more about Kaballah. As you said, she’s boring because she’s trying to teach, to lead us all to salvation. I’d follow her to hell if she’d put out an album as good as Like A Prayer. But this new album, I have serious questions. I’ll buy it – I just don’t know if I’ll like it.
Back to the acting stuff… Nicole Kidman shocked the heck out of me in Moulin Rouge. That scene where she goes to tell him that she’s leaving him – she’s so cold. She doesn’t flinch. It really left me breathless. I liked her in the Interpreter (her acting was good, I thought, but the movie was just so-so.) I think she’s one of the best actresses of our generation, which is a little disappointing. Which modern actors/actresses do you like? In the past, there were so many good ones to choose from. Now they all seem to be morphing into gorgeous/pencil thin people who have passable – but not extraordinary – acting skill.
Oh, Moulin Rouge!!! God, I just loved that movie. I had such an intense response to it that it kind of shocked me … I didn’t go in to that movie expecting it to be so emotional. I actually wept the first time I saw it. I love him as well. He’s my favorite.
And modern actors/actresses? Hmmm. I like Angelina Jolie a lot – and always have. I like her freedom, her unpredictability. But she’s also surprisingly vulnerable, too. She’s not just a wild woman, a bad girl – that’s just her reputation. She reminds me of a young Brando. You never know what she will do – I find her exciting.
I think Joan Allen may very well be on a Meryl Streep level of genius. It’s just that there aren’t roles like that for women her age anymore. But she absolutely amazes me.
My favorite actor is probably Jeff Bridges. The Fisher King is one of my favorite movies ever. He makes acting look so easy – which is probably why he’s never won an Oscar, or even been nominated. He’s like Cary Grant. Cary Grant’s work was so effortless that people forgot he was acting … But in terms of his acting, I don’t think anyone out there can touch him. Have you seen Door in the Floor?? See it if you haven’t. It came out last year. He plays a children’s book writer … a selfish closed-off man – he is just amazing. But then he always is.
Younger actors? It’s harder to say. I will see Ewan McGregor do anything. I would watch him read the telephone book, I don’t care. Now I admit. I find the guy toe-curlingly sexy, but it’s not just that. I remember seeing Trainspotting and encountering him for the first time, and thinking: “Day-um, that boy is GOOD.” I love how he still does these small Scottish films that no one sees (except for me – haha) – He hasn’t forgotten his roots. I think he’s very talented. Moulin Rouge!!! Ahhhhhhh!
I actually really like Brendan Fraser a lot too. I had quite a Brendan Fraser obsession for a while. What I love about him is that he seems to always be having a BLAST. He’s funny, charming, fearless … That movie Bedazzled – with Elizabeth Hurley – was not very good, but it’s worth it to see it just to watch him. And there’s also his work in Gods and Monsters which … convinced me: damn, this guy is a movie star. He’s amazing.did anyone see that??? I love that movie. It’s a serious part for him – quite a departure – and he’s amazing.
I love Kate Winslet. I think she, out of all the people I’ve mentioned, comes close to having that old-time movie-star thing going on. She’s beautiful, yes – but not in a cookie-cutter way. The movie stars of old were all so individual! Now we’ve got a kind of sameness with all these women – I think it’s because they all use the same stylists? No idea … but in the olden days (haha) Bette Davis was BETTE DAVIS. Marilyn Monroe was MARILYN MONROE. Kate Winslet, to me, has that same individuality. I love her work.
Off the top of my head, these are my favorites.
You?
Oh and about Madonna and Kaballah:
i saw an absolutely fascinating interview with her done by matt Lauer right at the time American Life was coming out. He’s interviewed her many times, so they definitely had a nice rapport – and she wasn’t really guarded with him. She talked a lot about Kabbalah, and when she did, this kind of glazed cut-off look came over her fact. It was disconcerting. I always loved the Madonna of old: the trash-talking girl from Detroit with the tough-girl accent. She had an accent like Eminem! Now she has this kind of phony British diction and it doesn’t really work … To me, it seems like she’s hiding.
I think her Kabbalah stuff is toning her down – she now judges her old self for being ‘selfish’, ‘materialistic’ … but … er … that’s why we love you, Madonna!!! You were honest about who you were!
During the interview – she had to go make an appearance at a small London record store – for the release of her album American Life. She was going to sing a couple of songs from it.
And I couldn’t believe it – but Madonna was achingly bad. I watched it with my friend Jen and it was so bad that we covered our eyes in embarrassment. She was stiff, self-conscious, and kind of arch about the whole thing. Which just doesn’t work for her.
The most telling thing was that the crowd who was there just loved her and made her sing Like a Virgin, even though she didn’t want to. She said something like, “I never sing that song anymore…” which … just made me feel sad for her. Like she is invalidating her former self, because she was ‘bad’. She’s had a conversion experience with Kabbalah, and now she can’t let in any fragments of that old Material Girl. But the crowd was so insistent that she sang it.
But she sang it really slowly – and she “commented” on it the whole time – she kept interjecting her own thoughts in between lines, like: “God, I can’t remember the words …” or “It’s been so long since I sang this …” Her sexuality seemed to be all bound up. Madonna? Repressed sexuality? Huh?
She seems embarrassed by who she used to be … and you just CAN’T be. You have to accept it – your mistakes, your failures … You can’t wipe the slate clean. I think with Kabbalah she is trying to wipe the slate clean, but in so doing – she is also wiping out what is wonderful and creative about her.
I hope she bounces back – I really do. I love her new look too – with the top hats and monocles. She’s an icon. I will buy her next album – I buy all her albums.
Sadness. There were a ton of other great comments in this post. Emily, LB, more RTG … now they’re all gone. BUMMER.