Curio: Jacks of All Trades

Alexa here. I couldn't let Jack Nicholson's 75th go by without weighing in. In the past I've spied some curios that feature moments from his long career, like an Academy's Players Directory from 1961 that featured him as a young actor, and some amazing finger puppets inspired by The Shining that are, alas, no longer available. So here are some that feature my favorites of his performances, along with a odd little item from my own collection.  

Chinatown poster by Claudia Varosio, available here.

Czech poster for Prizzi's Honor, designed by Zdeněk Ziegler, available here.

German poster for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, available here.Click for more, including Heartburn matches and an As Good As It Gets hankie...

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Jack Attack

Jack Nicholson is 75 years old today. He has only made 3 movies in the past eight years and his last great performance (About Schmidt) was a full decade past. His frequent absences would be a much greater loss to cinema if his current taste didn't lean more Bucket List and less Schmidt. But he has meant so much to so many moviegoers for so many decades that his big day is definitely worth celebrating.

So herewith ten random things off the top of my head that I love about Jack Nicholson... and it shouldn't surprise you that most of them involve his actress co-stars. That's not just because you're reading this at The Film Experience but because, for all of Jack's showboating style, he regularly ups the game of his leading ladies (and vice versa)

• "Dear Ndugu..." (About Schmidt)

• the fascinating and atypical restraint of his character work as Eugene O'Neill in Reds (1981). He lets Warren Beatty & Diane Keaton lead (which they do spectacularly well -- what a great movie) but manages to leave an indelible searing impression all the same. I sometimes wonder if it's his best performance.

• That it took him a good  long while to become JACK NICHOLSON -- he started in 1956 and he wasn't really JACK til 1969's Five Easy Pieces, and those slow burn rises to superstardom really ought to inspire all great actors who are looking for a defining breakthrough.

• The electric but very different push/pulls of his beastly seductions of Michelle Pfeiffer in Witches of Eastwick (1987) and Wolf (1994). They had great chemistry together. 

• Chinatown (1974) in general and in its entirety. Also specifically in just about every scene. Let's simplify...

• Chinatown (1974) !!!!

• "Do I ice her? Do I marry her? Which one of dese?" Dumb pussy-whipped Jack in Prizzi's Honor (1985) who is talking about Irene (Kathleen Turner) but might just as well be describing his topsy turvy relationship with his ex (Anjelica Huston) too. 

...His women keep pulling the rug out from under him, the Oriental rug to be precise.

 Right there on the Oriental. With all the lights on. 

• Everything about The Jack & Shirley Show within Terms of Endearment (1983)

• His long friendship with Warren Beatty, also newly 75. Imagine the influence and power they've wielded in their time on American cinema.

• "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" My favorite Jack Nicholson moments are rarely the iconic ones that everyone knows (in which I always find myself feeling "pull it back!") but his literally splintering-crazy work in The Shining is the best of his YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH style screen beats. 

Your turn!

What's your favorite Jack Nicholson performance? Which screen moments from his long history stick with you.

Distant Relatives: Five Easy Pieces & Greenberg

Robert here with Distant Relatives, which explores the connections between one classic and one contemporary film.

Growing up is Hard to Do
Hollywood has always been interested in man-children, and they've gone through a variety of manifestations through the years. During the silent era they were innocent clowns filled with the insecurities and curiosities of children. During the age of the screwball comedy they were flailing baffoons unable to compete with their strong professional female counterparts. In the 1950's they were dark brooding rebels looking for causes and that lead the way to the serious sixties, where young men were similarly angry (though lighter on the melodrama, heaver on the realism) painted as victims of a combination of social indifference and their own unambitions. Though if you called them "victims" to their faces, they'd probably punch yours. This contingent was fronted from Britian by the likes of Finney and Harris but soon found plenty of eager representatives in the US, not the least of whom was snide, sarcastic, and so-damn-cool Jack Nicholson. In Five Easy Pieces, Nicholson plays Bobby Dupea, a man meandering through life, trailed by the shadow of his lost potential, trying to understand who he is as adulthood passes him by.

 Almost forty years later, Ben Stiller, a man who has made his living playing the goofiest kind of man-child plays the dark and cynical Roger Greenberg, a man also trying to figure out his life in the face of shattered potential. He has a lot in common with Bobby Dupea. In both cases, the impetus for our characters' confrontations with their immaturities comes in the form of a move. But while they're both going west, they're actually heading in two different directions. Bobby is going to his family's house in Seattle, where his person will be juxtaposed against their culture and civility. Even if we want Bobby to get his act together and take his place in the world of his family, we feel as out of place there as he does. Roger meanwhile has just moved to Los Angeles where his cynicism is juxtaposed against an even greater immaturity; immaturity as an accepted state of Nirvana. He asks while at a child's birthday party "Why are all the grown men dressed like kids and all the kids dressed like super heroes?" It's a beautiful symbol for a world in which dreaming for great power and great responsibility evolveds into longing for no power and no responsibility.

 

As much as a misanthrope as Greenberg is, we feel for him at times, if only because we get to experience the horrors of L.A. through him. [more after the jump]

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'Training Day' Flashback & Double Oscar Wins

Ten years ago tomorrow, the bad cop / good cop drama Training Day debuted in theaters. It was a relatively inauspicious debut (for our purposes) in that, though the film was an instant hit, Oscar fanatics weren't really breathlessly awaiting its debut like it was a 'prestige picture' per se. The film surprised and wound up with two nominations for its leading actors, one in lead (Denzel Washington) and one in supporting (Ethan Hawke) because that's how Oscar do.

All it took was a couple of awesome soundbites and a sense that Denzel Washington was peaking as a movie star with that loss for Malcolm X still a regularly discussed Academy embarrassment and *BOOM* Julia Roberts was all

I love my life!"

.... and it was Oscar Number Two for Denzel!

Were you watching? 

King Kong ain't got shit on him.

Oscar #2 let Denzel into the slim ranks of actors with two competitive gold men. Here's the complete list in the order it occurred (because I like to make things difficult for myself).

1. Luise Rainer (The Great Ziegfeld and The Good Earth 1936-1937) 
2. Bette Davis (Dangerous and Jezebel 1935-1938)
3. Walter Brennan (Come and Get It and Kentucky 1936-1938) *
4. Spencer Tracy (Captains Courageous and Boys Town 1937-1938)
5. Fredric March (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Best Years of Our Lives 1931/32-1946)
6. Olivia deHavilland (To Each His Own and The Heiress 1946-1949)
7. Vivien Leigh (Gone With the Wind and Streetcar Named Desire 1939-1951)
8. Gary Cooper (Sergeant York and High Noon 1941-1952)
9. Anthony Quinn (Viva Zapata! and Lust for Life 1952-1956)
10. Ingrid Bergman (Gaslight and Anastasia 1944-1956) *
11. Peter Ustinov (Spartacus and Topkapi 1960-1964)
12. Shelley Winters (Diary of Anne Frank and A Patch of Blue 1959-1965)
13. Elizabeth Taylor (BUtterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf 1960-1966) 
14. Katharine Hepburn (Morning Glory and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? 1932/33-1967) *
15. Helen Hayes (The Sin of Madelon Claudet and  Airport 1931/32 -1970)
16. Marlon Brando (On the Waterfront and The Godfather 1954-1972)
17. Glenda Jackson (Women in Love and  A Touch of Class 1970-1973)
18. Jack Lemmon (Mister Roberts and Save the Tiger 1955-1973)
19. Jason Robards (All the President's Men and Julia 1976-1977)
20. Jane Fonda (Klute and Coming Home 1971-1978)
21. Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and California Suite 1969-1978)
22. Melvyn Douglas (Hud and Being There 1963-1979)
23. Robert DeNiro (The Godfather Part II and Raging Bull 1974-1980)
24. Meryl Streep (Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie's Choice 1979-1982)
25. Jack Nicholson (One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and Terms of Endearment 1975-1983) *
26. Sally Field (Norma Rae and Places in the Heart 1979-1984)
27. Dustin Hoffman (Kramer vs. Kramer and Rainman 1979-1988)
28. Jodie Foster (The Accused and Silence of the Lambs 1988-1991)
29. Gene Hackman (The French Connection and Unforgiven 1971-1992)
30. Dianne Wiest (Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets Over Broadway 1986-1994)
31. Jessica Lange (Tootsie and Blue Sky 1982-1994)
32. Tom Hanks (Philadelphia and Forrest Gump 1993-1994)
33. Michael Caine (Hannah and Her Sisters and Cider House Rules 1986-1999)
34. Kevin Spacey (Usual Suspects and American Beauty 1995-1999)
35. Denzel Washington (Glory and Training Day 1989-2001)
36. Hilary Swank (Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby 1999-2004)
37. Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot and There Will Be Blood 1989-2007)
38. Sean Penn (Mystic River and Milk 2003-2008)

* They won again after this for a total of 3 Oscars (except Hepburn the all time leader with 4 competitive acting wins)

The thing I find most interesting about seeing them all together like this is that it instantly reveals that if someone is going to win a second Oscar it usually happens quickly after the first... 3 to 6 years being common. (which immediately makes you wonder about people by the name of Helen Mirren, Marion Cotillard, Javier Bardem and Kate Winslet). The list also shows us that the late 1930s were just brutal for actresses whose names weren't Bette or Luise, that the 1970s were the most friendly towards previous winners and that 1938 and 1994 are strange anomalies, years in which three of the four Oscar winners had already won gold. It's only so long before we have a year with all four since there's a first time for everything.

Third time acting wins have only happened in 1940, 1968, 1974 & 1997

Only four people have ever won more than two acting Oscars and the last to join the club was Jack Nicholson in 1997 for As Good As It Gets. The universe assumes that Meryl Streep will be the fifth, but will she? Quite a few two-timers are still working.

Answer Me These Questions Three

1. Which three double winners did you find most deserving of both?
2. Which three would you immediately remove if you had a time machine?
3. Who do you think is joining the two-timer ranks next? 

Reader Spotlight: Ester

The TFE reader community investigation continues. Get to know more about the other people reading this site! Maybe they're reading what you're reading at exactly the same time! Today we're talking to Ester in Brooklyn who is also a writer.

Nathaniel: Do you remember your first movie experience or obsession?

ESTER: My father took me to see the theatrical re-release of Song of the South in 1986, when I was four. I'm sure he gave me a lecture afterward about historical inaccuracies but all I remember is the animated "Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah" bluebird and being enthralled by the big screen. A little later on, I became obsessed with Jack Nicholson. It started with "Chinatown," which I would watch anytime I was sick because it was guaranteed to make me forget what hurt, and "Terms of Endearment," because I adored his relationship with the ballsy, hilarious Shirley MacLaine.

Imagine yourself as supreme empress of the cinema. What would you do?

I would...

• declare a moratorium on anything to do with superheros, vampires, or superhero vampires. (Exceptions may be given for pre-adolescent Swedish vampires and Lisbeth Salander.) Sequels would have to be justified in a five-page paper about what their purpose is beside the making of more money to be spent on more sequels. 
• have Pixar lead workshops on Film 101 that are mandatory for any director, writer, or producer whose movies score in the red on Rotten Tomatoes or MetaCritic. 
• take away all of Tim Burton's CGI toys.
• double the budget of Focus Features (and appoint myself to their development department).
• bench Michael Bay and divert his money to Amy Pascal to produce several strong, smart, female-driven comedies.  

How to decide? Categories?

Three favorite actresses. Go

I could have a favorites list that's all "Kates": Hepburn, Blanchett, Winslet, with runner up Catherine Keener. Or one that's all TV actresses: Edie Falco, Mary Louise Parker, and Allison Janney. Or just redheads: Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, Julianne Moore. For all-time favorites, I probably have to go with the stars, classic women who manage to be incisive, funny, and mesmerizing over numerous roles: Katharine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep. But I am not happy about having to leave Kate Winslet off the list. 

On your blog you list Quentin Tarantino, Nora Ephron and Charlie Kaufman as influences. I was curious about seeing all three names in the same list. What do you love about their work?

What I love in a movie is some combination of chemistry, intelligence, creativity, audacity, and truth (in the sense that the film is true to itself and its own internal rules, not to any objective standard). Charlie Kaufman is the kind of writer I trust completely because he has thought through every important aspect of a movie: what kind of world does he want to create? What kind of message does he want to send, and how can he communicate it without being didactic? How will characters, dialogue, and visuals all combine in service of that message?  Charlie Kaufman movies aim to please the eye, the ear, the heart, and the brain. They're not very sexy but eventually he'll aim for the loins too. (I hope.)

Meanwhile, no one does vengeance better than Quentin Tarantino. In his hands, vengeance is not a mindless act of good against evil: in Kill Bill, viewers are encouraged to sympathize with the human targets, even Bill himself. Elle Driver is the exception, the only cartoonishly villainous character, and even she is so great that you don’t want to see her die. This is why Tarantino, in Inglourious Basterds, gently raises the question of whether even Nazis deserved to be gunned down, roasted alive, scalped, mutilated, and otherwise inconvenienced. Of course the Third Reich needed to be brought down (and what a job he does of it, too). But no one, no matter how despicable, should have their head bashed in by Eli Roth. Watching Inglourious Basterds, you simultaneously get to enjoy the fantasy and let the fantasy go.

QT is not as abstract or theoretical as CK, but he understands that the smartest movie must still be fun, and vice versa.

Nora Ephron's When Harry Met Sally often gets dismissed as a chick flick, which is too bad, because it's psychologically astute and laugh-out-loud funny, even on the twentieth viewing. None of her other movies are as strong but I also love the dry sense of humor that shows up in her essays and the fact that she continues to make herself relevant & a force to be reckoned with. If failing really is not the falling down but the staying down, she has never failed.

Wow, I love that. I may start employing it as a mantra. Okay final question: Have you ever dressed up as a movie character for Halloween?
The closest I've come is trying to be Joan Halloway from "Mad Men". I had the boobs but not the poise.