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Jan
21
Written by:
Bill Bonfanti
1/21/2009 3:06 PM
Hello all, Anders again. As I promised you last time young Bill is alive and well. Unfortunately, there were some complications delivering his family of kidney stones, none survived. However the good news is that they are made of calcium and you can get your fix from a gallon of milk. I guess the executives at FILMGO liked my last blog (or they fear that if I don't get to air my gripes I may become homicidal ) and have invited me to return (again they are heavily medicated ) . Now I know that my last blog was about super hero flicks, and at the risk of being redundant this blog is kind of in the same realm. Hey write what you know, they say (I know a lot of other things too... sports, politics, marriage, etc. but this is a film site). Well, that being said let's get to the point.
I want to bring to your attention to an injustice. Many people may think that this has been remedied, and maybe it has started to be, but I feel like bitching about it so deal with it! First off let me say that I am thrilled that Heath Ledger won the Golden Globe for his performance in The Dark Knight. In my opinion it is well deserved, and possibly one of the better performances I can recall in recent memory. The injustice is this. What about the other actors in these types of films? Case in point, same movie.... Christian Bale. Again, not slandering Heath's performance, I loved it, but how does Bale get no recognition for playing three different characters in the same movie? Three you ask? Yes three... Batman, the brooding crime fighter; the pompous, almost irresponsible Bruce Wayne that interacts with the public; and the Bruce Wayne that interacts with Alfred, Lucius, and Rachel. Bale pulls this duty off with ease, yet Ledger gets all the accolades. The same can be said for Tobey Maguire's Spiderman / Peter Parker. I have long said that most important element in casting a hero role, is dealing with the alter ego first. Without these performances these movies are nowhere near as believable. Anyone can play the guy with the mask. The struggles of the alter ego are what give these characters their depth.
It makes me wonder, is Ledger getting all these accolades solely based on his performance? Or is he being rewarded for his entire body of work due to his tragic death? It is a very real question. If Ledger was alive, is he getting all this buzz? I hope so, but I don't believe so. The truth is the blockbuster genre has never been taken seriously during award season, until now. Does this reverse the trend? I don't know.
Think of all the memorable performances given by Harrison Ford? The man was the ultimate cultural icon of my generation. Nominated once, yes but c’mon. The problem with Ford is that (and Bill and I have had this conversation may times) is that he makes it look too easy. Think about the alternatives though, does the Star Wars franchise take off the way it did if Kurt Russell is playing Han Solo? Maybe. I guarantee that the Indiana Jones franchise goes nowhere with Tom Selleck. The ability to bring one of these heroes to life on the big screen is just as impressive as Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, or Sean Penn in Milk, or picks the award winner/ nominee and the part to which he was praised for.
The problem is these great performances are taken for granted because of the source material. With the trend in Hollywood being to develop every comic book and graphic novel into film adaptations, a mighty percentage of performances are going to come in these types of movies. You can tell when the performance doesn't work right? Need I mention Ben Affleck as Daredevil or Nic Cage (an academy award winner by the way) as Ghost Rider? So obviously if an Academy Award winner can flop in one of these roles, then the contrary would be that it takes a tremendous amount of acting chops to bring these roles to life. I just wish the academy would notice is all.
I would love to thank Heath Ledger for his outstanding performance as the Joker. Maybe it will wake up the powers that be that make these decisions come award time in the future. But in the meantime all I have to say is these movies are the very fabric of our culture. The genre should not take away from the fact that there have been some great performances over the years. They are meant to entertain, and they do, they are meant to be fun, and they are. So my question to the academy is, and I quote the late Mr. Ledger here, “WHY SO SERIOUS? “.
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4 comment(s) so far...
Re: Why so seriously screwed up?
You make some really interesting points, Andres. I never considered the argument for Bale because of the 3 different parts. I don't actually agree that he was playing 3 different roles (just two, I think - Bruce Wayne dealing with Alfred was just another side of a more developed character), but I can see how you'd make that point.
My take on Ledger's award-winning performance is that it's a fluke and will be noted as such for all eternity. My prediction is that there will be no shift in paradigm in Hollywood: Unless the source material is something really somber and reality-based (like the brilliant Maus, for example), films based on graphic novels will always sit at the children's table. The reason Ledger was able to snag an award was because the stars were aligned in just the right way - for three reasons at least that I could think of: 1) the serious theme of the film (with a plot that could be seen as taking a swipe at the Bush Administration, and Hollywood loves that); 2) the unstoppable juggernaut at the box office that it became; and 3) Ledger's death.
When it comes right down to it, awards aren't given out because of the performance alone, but like so much else, because of it and a host of political factors as well.
By Ange66 on
1/22/2009 12:49 PM
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Re: Why so seriously screwed up?
"Anders" I made a typo in your name in my comment above. Sorry!
By Ange66 on
1/22/2009 12:50 PM
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Re: Why so seriously screwed up?
nicely done glad all here i will be reading and writing more and of course I will never be serious seriously later
By frankie72669 on
1/22/2009 1:16 PM
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Re: Why so seriously screwed up?
Hello my friend. As you well know I agree with everything you've said above. There have been plenty of terrific performances from accomplished actors in comic book and adventure films that certainly deserve the praise of the Academy. The best example of course as you stated above is Harrison Ford as Indy. He fits the role so effortlessly that his performance is taken for granted. The fact that he wasn't nominated in 1981 for Raiders is criminal. The truth is no one (with the exception of the nominees) remembers who won in 1981. Films like Raiders that are still thrilling audiences decades after they are released are the ones that deserve to be celebrated come awards time. One of the most aggregious errors in the history of cinema is ET losing Best Picture to Ghandi in 1983. ET has certainly thrilled more audiences over the last 25 years than Ghandi has and will continue to for decades to come.
As for whether Heath Ledger would've still been nominated if he were still alive today, I believe he would've. The only overall difference to the success of The Dark Knight had Ledger not passed away is the overall box office receipts. Without the curiousity brought on by this tragedy, there is no way in hell that Dark Knight grosses $530M. It would've been lucky to outgross Iron Man or Indy 4.
By bill on
1/22/2009 11:23 PM
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