Not that I know what the theme is for this month, nor does it matter! for this post, but I was watching me some Midsummer Night's Dream, the film adaptation made in 1999 with a big cast; Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Stanley Tucci, Calista Flockhart, Anna Friel, Christian Bale, Dominic West (McNulty!), David Strathairn, Sophie Marceau, Sam Rockwell, and I was trying to see Christian Bale as not the psycho of American Psycho. I try to do this in most of the movies I see him in to see if I can see something else other than deranged anger, rage, hysteria, and trouble in his eyes. It's very hard to do that, especially when a lot of his characters since that movie include hyper male or hyper crazy people (Batman Begins/Dark Knight, Terminator 4, Prestige, ... well those mainly I guess because I haven't seen the Fighter). But for a few moments in this movie you can see him look in a slightly different light, even though really he's still the psycho. I'd like to see Newsies to really test this. This got me thinking, what other characters are nearly impossible to separate from their actors when you see the actors in anything else?
We've established Christian Bale in American Psycho. I might try combining Indiana Jones and Han Solo into one super character that will never leave Harrison Ford. Jeff Daniels is pretty much forever Harry Dunne in Dumb and Dumber. Please provide more as I hit a wall in thinking of them, but I'll comment forever!
But for me, Christian Bale is always Jack Kelly, the rough and tumble but really a sweethearted newsie. The only time I saw American Psycho I was very confused, emotionally. It seems more important which you see first/more, but I think that culturally, the sort of widespread agreement on which character defines an actor is about when his big break came. I doubt that Newsies was a box office smash, but American Psycho was a big deal and got a lot of attention. And the way the Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies came out, I doubt anyone's strongest impression of Ford was from Air Force One.
ReplyDeleteObviously this one has yet to play out, but Daniel Radcliffe is certainly going to struggle with this after a decade and 8 films of being Harry Potter. Though he was in a stage play in England where he got naked.
Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller
ReplyDeletegoooooood point.
ReplyDeleteeven though I haven't seen them, Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter?
ReplyDelete