Q&A: Best "Crazy," Gay Identification, and Old Hollywood Favorites
Tuesday, April 7, 2015 at 9:25PM I'm a day late to our 'you ask, I answer' weekly party. But you didn't play along well with the rules this week. This time I asked for "weird" questions and got a bunch of the normal kind about favorite actresses! (Well, a few were weird. I love the Streep Hair question but I'll save it for another post) Since we're talking about weird let's start with this.
For some reason in the comments section this thing cropped up of people recommending I see After Hours (1985) and 'why haven't I seen it because it's got so many actresses and whatnot.' Bitch plz I saw that in 1986 on VHS (I broke my "R" Rated movie cherry in 1985, fwiw).I don't think it's prime Scorsese or anything but Scorsese movies are such sausage parties that I treasure it as a real outlier in his filmography alongside Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and The Age of Innocence... the only other ones that seem more interested in actors of the female persuasion.
But ignoring the assumption that I haven't seen it, it's a great film to bring up in a "weird" mood because everyone is a little touched. As a kid I L-O-V-E-D Terri Garr in everything.
HEY: since you asked - favorite performances of characters that are "a little touched"?
Oh great, now we have to define "touched" which is difficult. Two actors who I think do all time great work delineating the slow mounting crazy of their characters are Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (Best Shot APRIL 15th! Join us) and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. For non-violent 'something's off here' characters anything Shelley Duvall ever played amirite. She's so perfectly "off". Michelle Pfeiffer is scalpel precise with her sociopathic tendencies in White Oleander and with Catwoman's unravelling (particularly at the end -- it's like watching glass break and all the pieces of her shattering everywhere). Speaking of unravelling I will never ever ever forget that trainwreck "concert" from Ronee Blakeley in Nashville. Laura Dern, The Face, is really gifted with "heightened" crazy, less concerned with realism than auteurist mood, tone and style, especially with Lula (Wild at Heart) and, in her own words:
'...whatever I was in Inland Empire. I have no fucking clue!'
Classic actresses, unloved remakes, and more crazies after the jump...
But if you're speaking visibly bonkers -- actors going Mommie Dearest big with their psychosis -- I love the hell out of Fiona Shaw's crack-up in Black Dahlia, Steve Martin's dentist in Little Shop, Christian Bale's everything in American Psycho, Juliette Lewis's moodswings in Natural Born Killers, Brad Pitt's jumping bean lunacy in 12 Monkeys, and Bette Davis for time and all eternity in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
JOEYS: What remake does everyone hate but you secretly love?
Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998) all the way. I really do love it in an academic "exercize" way. He has balls and really so does Anne Heche who I will forever wish had become a big movie star. TV seems to have sanded off her edges but she was a thorny wonder for awhile on celluloid.
Classic actresses, jack lemmon, and straight romance after the jump...
FOREVER1267: What's your favorite bathroom scene in the movies?
That's easy. Kirsten Dunst and that guy with the lopsided smile whose name I always forget brushing their teeth in Bring It On. It's not Psycho because I never want Marion Crane to die and always hope she'll come to her senses before those violins begin to shriek.
CHRISTOPHER: Audra McDonald has six Tony's and two Grammys. She has a good shot at an Emmy now that HBO has filmed Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill; what would you want to see her do to complete the EGOT?
Ideally, a musical. I don't understand why they don't try for a definitive version of "Porgy & Bess" onscreen since the version we have from 1959 is rarely seen and not really well loved at that and she was great in that onstage. And with apologies to Tonya Pinkins who was out of this world phenomenal in "Caroline or Change" on Broadway, but if they ever film that (which they absolutely should) Audra would be great in it since we know they wouldn't consider Pinkins due to being considerably less famous and older.
ULRICH: As a straight man I wonder, how is it being gay having to watch romantic movies or other movies in which there's romance? in 98 percent of the cases it's between a man and a woman; straight love. Is it strange?
It is absolutely the most normal thing in the world. One of the benefits of being a minority is you are encouraged to identify with characters that don't look or feel like you for various reasons because you grow up in a culture that doesn't really reflect you back at you. It can be frustrating when you don't ever see yourself in the moving image but I also think of it as a gift. It can strengthen your imagination and your empathy for your fellow man if you let it. This question actually makes me think of the tired old belief that Disney still lives by (pretending their girls movies are less girly than they are in the first wave of advertising) that little girls will see little boy movies but little boys won't have it the other way around. I think everyone except straight white men, actually, is asked to see themselves in movie characters that aren't directly representational. And I think it's actually a detriment to straight white men that they're so pandered too; there's more to see in the world than what's in the mirror.
Jack Lemmon flirts with Judy Holliday in "It Should Happen To You"
MrW: Any thoughts on Jack Lemmon?
He makes me laugh really hard in Some Like It Hot (1959) and ugly cry in Shortcuts (1993). I think we call that range. But boy does he err on overdoing it sometimes. One Jack Lemmon I always like to recommend to people because not enough people have seen it is It Should Happen To You (1954) because it's really fun and Judy Holliday is a treasure.
JOEL6: Who are your top ten favorite actresse pre-1950? And three favorite performances by each
Let's say... can I just say "all"? No? Okay fine. Um... (in alpha order)
Judy helps me count my 10 favorites... liberally
- Judy Garland (#1)
...the rest are alphabetical - Mary Astor
- Fay Bainter
- Ingrid Bergman
- Louise Brooks (as previously discussed)
- Claudette Colbert
- Joan Crawford
- Bette Davis
... I will always love that Joan & Bette are so often together when alphabetizing stars and truth: I actually like their work about the same in some ways which would surely infuriate them. Both had star mojo in the biggest way. Bette was more genius but Joan more consistent, really. - Olivia de Havilland
- Irene Dunne
- Greer Garson
- Lillian Gish
- Vivien Leigh
- Carole Lombard
- Agnes Moorehead
- Maureen O'Hara (finally getting her due lately. hooorah)
- Ginger Rogers
- Norma Shearer (my pet)
- Barbara Stanwyck
Is that 10? I'm bad at math. The first two on the list, Mary Astor & Fay Bainter I didn't even realize quite how much I loved them until I started noticing how many of their films I'd actually seen and remembered that they were A+ in all of 'em. Under the subheading of 'I'm slightly cooler on them than other people seem to be but I definitely get the appeal': Dietrich, Garbo, Hayworth, Hepburn, Loy, Russell; Under the subheading: 'would like to see a few more but love what I've seen': Kay Francis, Miriam Hopkins, Marie Dressler, Gloria Swanson, and Janet Gaynor. Under the subheading 'I don't quite get it or I dont get it at all but I'm open to keep trying': Harlow, Jones, Oberon, Fontaine, Wright, Wyman, Young.
Marie Dressler is also flummoxed by this question
This question is way way too big. It's often easier for me to think of Old Hollywood and New Hollywood as two separate things for list-purposes and you can divide them by 1967, if you're following the logic in Mark Harris' brilliant "Pictures at a Revolution" or you can divide it anywhere between 1960s and 1970 I suppose. But it occurred to me the other day that films from the late 60s to early 70s are approaching their 50th birthdays so it's a little weird to call it "New Hollywood". Pretty soon we'll have to have three eras of Hollywood but how will we determine the line of demarcation? Old Hollywood (1920s through mid60s) New Hollywood (mid60sthrough ???) Newest Hollywood (??? through Armageddon)
DUSTY: If the Film Experience hadn't taken off, what would you be doing with your life?
Tragic Truth Bomb -- I'm still waiting for it to take off.
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Reader Comments (53)
Fake outrage culture is the reason why hammy performances are automatically criticized as over the top when they are more often than not perfectly inline with the character they're portraying.
@DJDeeJay:
Just for the record: I prefer 'Shakespeare in Love' over 'Saving Private Ryan', and I cheered when Halle Berry won. In addition to that, I believe Henry Fonda won his Oscar exactly for the right performance, Helen Hayes is a great choice for Best Supporting Actress 1970, and 'Rocky' over 'Network' is a choice I fully agree with ('Rocky' or 'Taxi Driver' not so much, though.)
But Al Pacino for 'Scent of a Woman' is a more blatant rifght award for the right actor at the wrong time for the wrong performance than Paul Newman for 'Color of Money'. Period.
That description of MIchelle Pfeiffer at the end of "Batman Returns" is PERFECT. By the end you may only be referring to the climax in the sewer, but the part right before that when Bruce asks "Who do you think you are?" and she tearfully says "I don't know anymore" is frightening and heartbreaking.
I'm weird and get more uncomfortable seeing gay romances on-screen than straight romances. With a straight person, I get I won't relate to it; with a gay romance, all this stuffffff comes up (they're both super hot and buff! I'm dying alone!) and I realize it has to do with me and not the material. I'm hoping for the younger generation it's all normal from the get-go and they won't be skittish l ike that.