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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 17, 2023 13:20:23 GMT
I remenber this used to be discussed in the IMDB days - although now that everything has been watered down by Generation Useless it is now less of a thing: Obviously you could say " Lady Gaga has been great 2 times in movies" and NOT call her "a great actress" but Heath Ledger who was great(er) 2 times would likely be called a great actor by almost everybody........I am not sure DDL has been "great" more than ~ 7 times and yet I rank him in the bottom half of the all-time top 10 film actors personally......far closer to the Brando / DePac/Nicholson GOATS than he is to his own era runners-up ......and I would have called him great actor pretty early on too....... Bradley Cooper is likely to win this year - his 5th nomination......I am not sure if he's ever been "great" on film.....good a lot (with Maestro pending).......but 5 nominations kind of makes you "great" in the general sense..... So for you - how many times do you need to see an actor BE great for you to call them great as opposed to an actor who gave "a few great performances"? Or does "great" exist only for the "greatest" actors to you or does it depend how they are great rather than a number? I mean clearly that word is overused - Jonathan Majors being called "a great actor" for a performance almost no one has seen isn't enough to make me care tbh.......but .........many would waste a lot of tears if his career is done.......  |
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Post by ibbi on Nov 17, 2023 13:52:51 GMT
Twice. Do something awesome, then do something awesome again without it being exactly the same stuff. Great is such a subjective term in this context you can throw up any reasoning you like, but that's enough for me.
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Post by stephen on Nov 17, 2023 14:25:02 GMT
I'm inclined to agree with ibbi. If you do it once, you can credit it being a perfect storm of great material, great direction, and being just "right" for the role. Do it again (preferably in a different genre and with a different filmmaker), and it's not a fluke.
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Nikan
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Post by Nikan on Nov 17, 2023 18:32:59 GMT
^ about it being a "two-time" thing. In post-method era I get it, but when it comes to films from 30s-50s I guess a lot of "great" screen presences did "their thing" more than 2 for certain... Gary Cooper, Bogart and Cagney among them. Now don't throw your "but when you come down to it those characters are very different" stones at me, I know, I know...  "transformation" wasn't an obvious-looking thing back then that's what I'm saying... As for the Q; you do 5 solid perfs where picking your #1 is personally tough for me: you great... any ranking I make in your generation-group will be either in favor of filmography or just that unexplainable preference in connection to them that I'm feeling. Like I know you can "justify" Olivier's supermacy to the rest of the Brits you bookkeeper  and I won't argue I love him... but I still prefer Laughton I think. He seems so peerless to me. * Case study: your main guy1. Dog Day Afternoon2. The Godfather / The Godfather: Part ||3. Glengarry Glen Ross4. Angels in America (TV) 5. The Irishman First 3 are hard to pick; then 6-9 could be Heat, Serpico, The Scarecrow and Sea of Love (interchangable). Once-in-a-generation strong lineup. |
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Post by TylerDeneuve on Nov 17, 2023 21:28:02 GMT
but Heath Ledger who was great(er) 2 times would likely be called a great actor by almost everybody........ This thread was such Tyler bait.  With your example of Gaga - her initial career as a pop star will always kneecap her reputation as an actress, despite being an Oscar nominee. See also: Cher and Barbra Streisand. Would anyone really call them "great" actors even though they've indeed been great a handful of times and are both Oscar winners? But, to answer your original question: for me, it would depend on how great you are as opposed to a number. I think your example of Ledger more than proves that.  |
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 17, 2023 23:09:45 GMT
there are only *so* many great characters/screenplay/opportunities but any time a performer is capable of giving a single great performance I'm willing to believe she can do it again. Jake Gyllenhaal is an interesting case here. I'm not sure if he's great but he's done great work in the past and probably could again if he stopped exclusively acting in genre movies. You've been dogging Elba, Pac, but Gyllenhaal is the far more disappointing of the two IMO because he's come closer to greatness than Elba ever has...
Ledger was great because neither of those performances were anything like the other. Had he stuck around longer I know he'd have had more to give.
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Post by countjohn on Nov 18, 2023 4:10:03 GMT
I'll say three times, there are people with two great performances I wouldn't call "great actors". You can be a one or two hit wonder but a three hit wonder isn't really a thing.
Oscar nods doesn't have anything to do with it, in a weak year you can be very ok (not even "good") and get a nod, especially for supporting.
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and I won't argue I love him... but I still prefer Laughton I think. He seems so peerless to me.
