In honor of his birthday, let’s enjoy his show-stopping number in Pennies From Heaven<\/i>.<\/p>\n
I love how the cinematography here is old-school dance cinematography from the days of Astaire and Rogers and Cyd Charisse: Full body captured, including the feet – so we know that there are no tricks here. <\/p>\n
This is all Walken. You can’t fake this. <\/p>\n
Walken got his start on Broadway, as a child, in musicals. His background was musical comedy (which is fascinating to me, considering his reputation as a heavy-hitter actor in 1970s and 80s tough dramas). Walken came and spoke at my school and he talked a lot about his affinity for musical comedies, and how he tries to incorporate an “homage” to that legacy in any role he plays, regardless of whether it is appropriate or not. For example, in his searing performance in At Close Range<\/i>, he has a moment where he walks away from the camera and he does a small skipping dance step, which makes zero sense in terms of the character, and has nothing to do with anything in the scene, but Walken had to get it in there as a nod to his roots. Walken was laughing as he told the story. Why would that guy <\/em>do a mini jig as he walked away? No reason, except that Walken was playing him. <\/p>\n I love people who do what they want to do. The audience will not think, “Oh, there’s Walken paying INAPPROPRIATE tribute to his roots as a song and a dance man,” because is it even common knowledge that Walken WAS a song and dance man?? No, they will think, “Okay, I am terrified of that man doing a jig … because he seems unpredictable and not of this world.”<\/p>\n Walken spoke eloquently of how “outside” of things he felt (a feeling common to many child actors who grow up surrounded by adults, rather than peers). Normal life was not for him, was never for him, because he grew up as a child of the theatre and it set him apart. He didn’t play on the playground. He spent his days in tap class. It makes you a weirdo. And that sense of “otherness” is what contributed to his giant talent in films like The Dead Zone<\/i>, Deer Hunter<\/i>, True Romance<\/i> – the list goes on and on. If you didn’t know his background, you might think that his eerieness was because of his looks (the strange heavy-lidded eyes, and blankness behind them), but no, it was mainly because he grew up far far outside of the mainstream. <\/p>\n So much fun to see him here in 1981, 3 years after Deer Hunter<\/i>, for God’s sake, let it all hang out, let us see who he REALLY is.<\/p>\n