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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jul 19, 2022 19:22:06 GMT
And comment on them if you like...
Straw Dogs
Papillon
Marathon Man
Kramer vs. Kramer
Wag the Dog
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jul 19, 2022 19:51:09 GMT
Straw Dogs
Kramer vs. Kramer
Marathon Man
Wag the Dog
NS Papillion
Love him in Straw Dogs which is probably Peckinpah's most challenging & reflective film. Hoffman's transformation from beta to alpha is really scary to watch as he taps into these previously unknown reserves of sadism. It is to toxic masculinity what Full Metal Jacket is to the military industrial complex. The Kramer vs. Kramer performance I remember liking but I have no desire to revisit that film at all. Marathon Man was very solid but he was better in President's Men that year. And while he's amusing in Wag the Dog, that movie belonged to Anne Heche.
his two best are Lenny and Graduate.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 19, 2022 20:17:43 GMT
Straw Dogs
Kramer
Marathon Man (he's too old for it tbh)
Wag The Dog
PapillionStraw Dogs is a major performance - in his great run 67-88 on film / TV his singular gift was out-thinking roles he wasn't right for - and especially / specifically roles of masculinty where he took his weaknesses and played them as a dangerous asset within his own character's persona - he did this a lot and all his best performances were dangerous commentaries - ones in a way that were about what "made" a man - and the connection to his overall character: Midnight Cowboy (feral animal really), Straw Dogs (the link / separation of intellect and force) Lenny (overly sexualized obsessive - his best perf), Straight Time (creature of habit / routine, animalistic like a domesticated dog who reverts to snapping - his most underrated), Death of a Salesman (hollowed out to such an extent that he no longer believes his own bluster as a man, husband, father, employee - he is impotent .......in more ways than 1).In the next 30+ years - he botched this specific quality - often - and it hurt his status a bit - in Billy Bathgate, Family Business, Confidence, American Buffalo......somewhat got it back in Luck before it got cancelled .......of course what makes this funny and ironic is he also played a man........ playing a woman  Dustin Hoffman - late career - talking about James Bond in this way, btw ^
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jul 19, 2022 21:04:17 GMT
his singular gift was out-thinking roles he wasn't right for - and especially / specifically roles of masculinty where he took his weaknesses and played them as a dangerous asset within his own character's persona What specific weaknesses are you referring to? Do you just mean his physicality in general didn't lend itself to masculine roles, or is it more than that? |
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 19, 2022 22:03:28 GMT
his singular gift was out-thinking roles he wasn't right for - and especially / specifically roles of masculinty where he took his weaknesses and played them as a dangerous asset within his own character's persona Do you just mean his physicality in general didn't lend itself to masculine roles, or is it more than that? His complete physicality mostly but aside from just his body - he was short without quite having Pacino's magnetism or masculine energy - he could blend into a background way more .............he also had qualities of a little brother or a puppy dog - even his eyes are puppy dog-like where DePac's are more, you know....... scary  .................he's overtly more sensitive than his peers - which is part of it - also his voice and his ability to modulate it was "weak" - or whatever you'd like to call it - it was a non-Alpha Male voice ........ and he could never quite lose it either (like Ed Norton).............he also played more overtly smart characters in the 60s / 70s - professionals or students / professors .......... he had an academic quality - and while his peers could play that - he had it and did it a bit more ....... Hoffman could play The Last Tycoon with nothing incongruous about it..........where De Niro seems stifled by merely wearing a suit .......so when Hoffman went into THEIR "Alpha Male" roles - he had to use a different set of skills to even have a chance to pull it off..........what was so brilliant about him is he did it intellectually to suggest something physical ..........he didn't hit the gym etc. That's why in those roles when he loses power - and he always loses his masculine power up until his career imploded ....... the effect is sort of volcanic - when he beats M. Emmet Walsh - in a scene that doesn't look much like a movie "fight" at all (and because of that is more terrifying) or when he says "I don't think I can walk anymore" in Midnight Cowboy - you relate to the actor and to the character in 2 ways not just 1:
There's the performance of the character but also the performance the character has been giving in his own internal life.........if he really "can't walk anymore" ..........then ............he can't LIVE anymore ........which is scarier because of how he shaped that role - because you know how "tough" or "dangerous" he is / was from Hoffman's portrayal.......he would go very deep into backstory........ |
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