Regarding Leah's post about Burt Lancaster and how it came to be that we have been holding our very own Burt Lancaster Film Festival....
It all began last summer when Meredith and John came to visit. I had just bought a new biography of Burt by NPR reporter Kate Buford (the NPR tie-in is critical...otherwise I wouldn't have sought it out). John saw the book and mentioned how much Fran like Burt as an actor. I was impressed with stories of behind-the-scenes liberal activism in the 50s and 60s (for example, he gave $$$ to Martin Luther King and many other causes). And then there's the sheer shock factor of seeing a really youthful picture of a face you only know as an old man. For the same sense of surprise, check out Gary Willis' biography on John Wayne--the youthful photo of 20-something Wayne, whose face I always thought looked like something a truck had run over, is a sight to behold.
But the real game worth playing here doesn't have a name yet. Maybe we could call if "Reincarnation." Or, "Greek Gods-Roman Gods." Let me explain. Just as the Romans took over all the Greek archtypes and gave them new names (Hermes to Mercury, Hera to Juno, etc) so too can you take movie stars from the classic era (pre-1975, I so declare!)and describe their current "reincarnation."
Here is an example: Bruce Willis is the new (or Roman, or reincarnated version of) Burt Lancaster. Both are burly, he-men action stars with the same approximate emotional range. Burt was extremely savvy in setting up the first independent production company; Bruce was extremely saavy in accepting roles in small independent movies such as 12 Monkeys and Pulp Fiction to expand his reputation/artistic career.
Here's a more obvious one: Julia Roberts is the new Audrey Hepburn. Both starred in films that were essentially light, frothy romances with the occasion prestige big-budget picture. Julia has yet to do anything on the level of My Fair Lady, but to be fair, she can't sing and neither can Audrey--she was dubbed.
Sometimes playing the game provides a wonderful excusion into high-handed pop culture analysis. The sort of thing that was so common in the 90s were academics wrote PhD dissertations on the meaning of Madonna and gender flexibility. Not bad if you get tenue with it. (All we get for that kind of writing is hooting and hollaring over email and now blog sites.)
So here are a few more (along with the silly cultural analysis that goes with it)....
The new James Dean is.....TOM CRUISE!! This was originally going to be the subject of an entire blog while I was looking forward to seeing his new movie. How can I say such a thing? Let's see--Dean's archtypical role, his superpower as a Greek God so to speak, was his boyishness. His roles were those of the son (angry, sullen, remorseful) set against the stern, ineffectual or absent father. The archtype of the Boy or Son's journey is very popular. Of all the best actors in the 50s (Clift, Brando, Newman, Lancaster, the list goes on), no one has embodied the emotional authority or been copied as much as James Dean. The others, in fact, played men. Dean didn't live long enough to make that transition. In his sullen, defiant stance against parental authority, ie: the social mainstream of the post-war America, he also rings a chord of recognizable anxiety within the audience of that day who didn't feel too comfortable taking on the mantle of post-war World's Policeman, Imperial ruler of the Free World, etc etc. In other words, Dean PERFECTLY reflected the emotions of emerging youth culture at that time.
The next "boy" or "son" whose own life so precisely paralled the zietgiest of the time came from the world of Rock and Roll. (As youth culture moved from movies to music). I would nominate the next IDEAL BOY as a tie: John Lennon and Paul McCartney. John captures the Dean-like angst but combined with Paul's overall optimism, more clearly reflects the growing optimism of the 60s, economic prosperity, increased comfort in our society with our political role, and therefore open to ideas such as All You Need is Love. (Dean's haunted eyes seemed to preclude the possibility that love would ever be enough if, in fact, it would ever show up).
And so...we continue to grow in comfort and prosperity and now the Ideal Boy is TOM CRUISE. He's almost 40 now, but look over his career--the majority of his films are the trials and tribulations of Coming Of Age. How to Succeed in Business by doing Risky Business. All the Right Moves. Top Gun. Cocktails. Born on the Fourth of July. Magnolia. Jerry MacGruire. Vanilla Sky.
It's all about "How can he establish himself? How can he get the girl? What's at stake as he moves forward to independence and makes his (first) mark on the world? How can he combine moral integrity with a) getting the girl, b) getting the career, c) having the best haircut?
All I'm saying is that times have changed and one measure of that is the distance between James Dean, Lennon-McCartney, and Tom Cruise.
It all began last summer when Meredith and John came to visit. I had just bought a new biography of Burt by NPR reporter Kate Buford (the NPR tie-in is critical...otherwise I wouldn't have sought it out). John saw the book and mentioned how much Fran like Burt as an actor. I was impressed with stories of behind-the-scenes liberal activism in the 50s and 60s (for example, he gave $$$ to Martin Luther King and many other causes). And then there's the sheer shock factor of seeing a really youthful picture of a face you only know as an old man. For the same sense of surprise, check out Gary Willis' biography on John Wayne--the youthful photo of 20-something Wayne, whose face I always thought looked like something a truck had run over, is a sight to behold.
But the real game worth playing here doesn't have a name yet. Maybe we could call if "Reincarnation." Or, "Greek Gods-Roman Gods." Let me explain. Just as the Romans took over all the Greek archtypes and gave them new names (Hermes to Mercury, Hera to Juno, etc) so too can you take movie stars from the classic era (pre-1975, I so declare!)and describe their current "reincarnation."
Here is an example: Bruce Willis is the new (or Roman, or reincarnated version of) Burt Lancaster. Both are burly, he-men action stars with the same approximate emotional range. Burt was extremely savvy in setting up the first independent production company; Bruce was extremely saavy in accepting roles in small independent movies such as 12 Monkeys and Pulp Fiction to expand his reputation/artistic career.
Here's a more obvious one: Julia Roberts is the new Audrey Hepburn. Both starred in films that were essentially light, frothy romances with the occasion prestige big-budget picture. Julia has yet to do anything on the level of My Fair Lady, but to be fair, she can't sing and neither can Audrey--she was dubbed.
Sometimes playing the game provides a wonderful excusion into high-handed pop culture analysis. The sort of thing that was so common in the 90s were academics wrote PhD dissertations on the meaning of Madonna and gender flexibility. Not bad if you get tenue with it. (All we get for that kind of writing is hooting and hollaring over email and now blog sites.)
So here are a few more (along with the silly cultural analysis that goes with it)....
The new James Dean is.....TOM CRUISE!! This was originally going to be the subject of an entire blog while I was looking forward to seeing his new movie. How can I say such a thing? Let's see--Dean's archtypical role, his superpower as a Greek God so to speak, was his boyishness. His roles were those of the son (angry, sullen, remorseful) set against the stern, ineffectual or absent father. The archtype of the Boy or Son's journey is very popular. Of all the best actors in the 50s (Clift, Brando, Newman, Lancaster, the list goes on), no one has embodied the emotional authority or been copied as much as James Dean. The others, in fact, played men. Dean didn't live long enough to make that transition. In his sullen, defiant stance against parental authority, ie: the social mainstream of the post-war America, he also rings a chord of recognizable anxiety within the audience of that day who didn't feel too comfortable taking on the mantle of post-war World's Policeman, Imperial ruler of the Free World, etc etc. In other words, Dean PERFECTLY reflected the emotions of emerging youth culture at that time.
The next "boy" or "son" whose own life so precisely paralled the zietgiest of the time came from the world of Rock and Roll. (As youth culture moved from movies to music). I would nominate the next IDEAL BOY as a tie: John Lennon and Paul McCartney. John captures the Dean-like angst but combined with Paul's overall optimism, more clearly reflects the growing optimism of the 60s, economic prosperity, increased comfort in our society with our political role, and therefore open to ideas such as All You Need is Love. (Dean's haunted eyes seemed to preclude the possibility that love would ever be enough if, in fact, it would ever show up).
And so...we continue to grow in comfort and prosperity and now the Ideal Boy is TOM CRUISE. He's almost 40 now, but look over his career--the majority of his films are the trials and tribulations of Coming Of Age. How to Succeed in Business by doing Risky Business. All the Right Moves. Top Gun. Cocktails. Born on the Fourth of July. Magnolia. Jerry MacGruire. Vanilla Sky.
It's all about "How can he establish himself? How can he get the girl? What's at stake as he moves forward to independence and makes his (first) mark on the world? How can he combine moral integrity with a) getting the girl, b) getting the career, c) having the best haircut?
All I'm saying is that times have changed and one measure of that is the distance between James Dean, Lennon-McCartney, and Tom Cruise.
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on Sunday, June 30, 2002 at 1:08 PM.
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