Central Casting Part III

Paul Newman and Elke Sommer in The Prize (1963)

First of all I want to say that Paul Newman was by all accounts a very good man. Everybody from the town where GSL spent his early childhood, Westport Connecticut, has an anecdote about how kind and considerate he always was which stood in stark contrast to how Martha Stewart carried herself when interacting with the neighbors. Paul Newman gave zillions of dollars to charity and stayed married to the same wonderful woman, Joanne Woodward, all the way to the end.  But why on earth would they cast him as a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in The Prize (1963)...and when he was only 38? Paul Newman was fabulous in Cool Hand Luke, The Sting, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Hustler, et al. I'd like to recommend two movies he made with his wonderful wife Joanne Woodward,The Long Hot Summer and the very charming, and often overlooked A New Kind of Love about Fashion Week in Paris. Paul Newman was great as Fast Eddie and Cool Hand Luke but to play a Nobel Laureate requires a bit of gravitas that wasn't in his repertoire.

Leo in Gangs of New York

Gangs of New York was supposed to be Martin Scorsese's magnum opus that was delayed for years, ran tens of millions of dollars over budget, and his financial backers were getting more than skittish so I feel this led to the poor decision of casting Leo Dicaprio as the young street tough Amsterdam Vallon.  This was not long after his huge commercial and critical success in Titanic and he was good in that role and several others as well.  The movie was a big disappointment for a lot of reasons and some of the blame should be on miscasting Leo. Colin Farrell would have been much better in the rough and tumble milieu of lower Manhattan in the 1860s. Daniel Day Lewis was superb as Bill the Butcher in a performance that left you feeling rueful for what might have been.

*** A couple of days ago Leo emerged from one of his 4 homes (that he ferries to via private jet when he isn't renting the world's 5th largest yacht from a United Arab Emirates oil billionaire) to go to the United Nations to lecture the rest of the world about how we need to lower carbon dioxide emissions.

Dustin Hoffman and Nicole Kidman in Billy Bathgate (1991)
 

Dustin Hoffman is the male counterpart to Meryl Streep. A great acting talent who has been very good in a number of roles but I can never stop feeling him acting. Like Ms Streep, he loves to do accents and they always sound as if he's been talking that way for about 3 hours. In Billy Bathgate Hoffman sounded like little GSL circa 1970 doing his Edward G. Robinson Little Caesar impersonation for the girls medley relay team.  This role would have been much better suited for Hoffman's old roommates when they were all just starting out back in the mid 1960s: Gene Hackman or Robert Duvall who I rate as the two best American actors.  Hackman and Duvall actually look and sound like guys who could kick somebody's ass.  Hoffman was convincing in Midnight Cowboy but I really don't think he could make Mrs. Robinson go coo-coo-ca-chew.

Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in The Graduate (1967).

Central Casting Part II

Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada

I am often disappointed to see what could be very good movies ruined by poor casting decisions. The most celebrated contemporary actress is Meryl Streep although I've never been a fan.  Yes, she can play a wide range of characters with lots of different accents and chew up the scenery as good as anyone ever has but I don't go to movies for the acting; I go for the story.  With Meryl Streep, I can never get beyond that I'm watching an acting exercise to showcase her 'great range' so her characters never interest me. The Devil Wears Prada would have been much better served with Kristin Scott Thomas or Rene Russo...and some better writing.

Kristin Scott Thomas (top) and Rene Russo

 Remember the movie Unfaithful (2002) and all the buzz it caused? It was a breakthrough role for the wonderful Diane Lane and Richard Gere will always be convincing as a man who any woman would quickly grow bored with but what about the little boytoy?  Ladies, I know many of you were all agog over this slice of Latin Beefcake so you can keep him but we simply must rewrite the script to make this cupcake not an antiquarian book collector (are you f%*&ing kidding me?!?!?!) but rather a male model or waiter/aspiring actor who would much prefer to curl up with a mirror rather than a First Folio.

I'll have a couple more later in the week. Which movies would you cast differently?


Olivier Martinez in Unfaithful. I know what you're thinking...he looks exactly like
 every antiquarian book collector you know.

Central Casting Part I

Truman Capote with Lee Radziwell

The most fascinating 'celebrity' of my lifetime has been Truman Capote. To grow up as an All-American boy in the 1970s... especially in a very conservative Southern city, and see this bizarre creature on the Johnny Carson show was unforgettable.  Homosexuality back then wasn't acknowledged or spoken about.  Gay only meant happy. The word most often used was "sissy" but it was more in the context of temperament rather than behavior.  Capote's persona was so over the top that it bordered on freak show. He had the perfect name, so memorable and pleasing to the ear, and that voice was something off a Saturday morning cartoon.  As for my family, I have an Uncle L who is gay but it was never spoken about...not that it was thought of as a dirty secret but in the grand WASP tradition if talking about it was awkward better to leave well enough alone...as if it were a 'drinking problem' or mental illness and we had some of that too. 


Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote

Philip Seymour Hoffman who so tragically died recently won the Oscar for his lead role in Capote. PSH was a genius of an actor but I felt his physicality was all wrong for the role; PSH was much too large as Capote was tiny and that was so central to his persona.

Toby Jones as Capote in Infamous

 

I preferred English actor Toby Jones's performance in Infamous that unfortunately got mostly overlooked due to Capote's bigger budget, publicity, and awards.  In 1989 there was a one man Broadway show starring Robert Morse as Capote called Tru that was also taped and later presented on Public Television. Morse won the Tony on Broadway and an Emmy for the TV presentation. It's available in 9 installments on youtube and I think it's brilliant.

Robert Morse in Tru

Back around 1990, I asked my grandmother, 'Dodie', what was the latest on Uncle L and she told me he was working on getting a hit play onto TV and she was drawing a blank on what the play was about (this was likely early symptoms of what would later be Alzheimer's) and she finally said "oh you know what's his name...the gay writer" and we had this somewhat awkward long pause and then I offered up "Truman Capote" as I wondered if there might be some 'acknowledgment' of Uncle L also being gay.  We left well enough alone.