RIP - One of the great actors ever - I can tell you that in our great actors poll only Olivier ranked higher for me for UK actors and he was a curveball among all actors - you often didn't know what to make of his performances unless you went back and revisited him and rethought it and reconsidered it. He never changed - you did, he challenged perceptions and conformity in his choices and your expectations.
In 1994 he gave 2 astonishingly different performances in The Browning Version and A Man Of No Importance and got nodded for nothing - that's how much the awards bodies ever matter btw. I would recommend that people who don't know him start there because in that year he was entirely a baffling genius - he was greater before of course but when I think of him, I think of him there. Sly old fox he was.
Post by therealcomicman117 on Feb 8, 2019 15:49:36 GMT
Wow I had no idea he was in such poor condition. No wonder he retired from the screen. He was such a superb actor. I think my favorite performance is Under The Volcano, where he brings such raw and angry energy to alcohol. It's moving work. RIP!!!
Oh god, that's exactly what you need after a shitty day doing your rounds in the hamster wheel of life!
He was a great great actor. I repeat myself: He was greeeaaat. As I've mentioned in the Nolte thread, everybody and their mother are called great these days, but this guy, boy, he earned it.
This isn't that surprising news. He really vanished from the public eye in the last decade or so and it was known he was in poor health. I was still hoping in all my simplicity there's a chance he might pop up somewhere in the future.
There's this: He was probably the greatest 'unknown' actor alive, at least what the general awareness of most people is concerned.
RIP. I might put him in the Top 5 for actors, ever, so it's a big loss, even though he wasn't working anymore.
So many great performances, but I wanna single out the only feature he directed - Charlie Bubbles, a flawed movie, but very personal, surreal, stylish, sporadically fascinating. He made it in '66 (released '68) - influenced by the French new wave and Fellini. Believe it or not, Stephen Frears was his assistant on it. Think about this, his first starring role Saturday Night Sunday Morning definitive Kitchen sink, second Tom Jones title role in a Best Picture winner, one more Night Must Fall I haven't seen, then he directs an expensive production starring himself that rips into (his own) privilege, womanizing, ego. It's a pretty daring move I think and he might've directed more, he showed some flair, if it wasn't deemed such a failure.
Oh this hits hard. I was literally googling him yesterday because I wanted to see what he was up to and if there was any chance he was gonna make a comeback into film (there wasn’t any new information). Definitely one of the greats.