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Post by Viced on Mar 25, 2021 3:34:23 GMT
All four obviously deserve their own posts... but I'm tired and it's been a long week (wait, it's only Wednesday?!) so I'm gonna half ass it. Isabelle Huppert in Elle - Multifaceted and enigmatic in the way only a Huppert performance can be. A performance/character that always keeps you guessing... harrowing in one scene, hilarious in the next. If she's not the best performance of the 2010s, she's close. Carice van Houten in Black Book - Carrying a WWII epic on her back... with a character (and performance) that go through the wringer... and then some. Remarkable. Emmanuelle Seigner in Bitter Moon - Fearless, ferocious, and heartbreaking. But fearless most of all... some of the stuff she does here... there aren't proper words to describe it. Sigourney Weaver in Death and the Maiden - Broken and brimming with anger before you even know just how much her character went through. Eerily believable and devastating.
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 25, 2021 15:57:25 GMT
Rod Steiger, No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)George Segal was BAFTA nominated here as the detective but the standout is far and away Steiger, as the killer, a role many actors would kill to play. There's a wicked fun to the role-playing under disguises and accents, which befits Steiger who often liked to jam and question character background with brogues or any odd cadence (Across the Bridge, Run of the Arrow, etc). There's also very much a hurting, psychological sickness underneath his killer. Denying a cup at one point he says "I've had my fill of tea" in such a simple diabolical way. He gives a lot of little lines a strangely bitter recoil like that, and it makes sense later on. "Don't you think I'm clever?" he says ogre-hoarsely to Segal. He seems to be repeating proof of himself, in his murders, and he speaks like he's darkly parodying lines he's said before. It's a great turn....and I like how he won his Oscar while this was playing in theaters. The Sergeant (another really great perf) was released later in the year... where he tackles another even more daring role.
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Post by wallsofjericho on Mar 25, 2021 21:59:32 GMT
J.T Walsh in Breakdown (1997)
Rewatched this thriller again and while Kurt Russell is great it's the J.T Walsh show for me. An actor I always liked and left us too soon. Prior to watching the film, I had no idea about this film, plot or characters and watched it randomly on Amazon. Walsh blurs the lines of his intentions brilliantly in the beginning of the film and peels back the layers as the film progresses and completely elevates this thriller.
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Mar 27, 2021 19:17:04 GMT
Anthony Hopkins - The Father" I will outlive you" the old man bellows at his daughter—a warning to her and a curse to himself. Tony Hopkins' Lear for our age of health and longevity, with the mind—his kingdom—in open rebellion. (He's too good to make it about an illness). It's a sign of majesty in an actor to be able to evoke youth in old age, and that's just what he does in his interactions with the young nurse: he resurrects the young man, the charming gentleman, the prankster. As long as he can fool and conquer infirmity, the crown stays firmly on his head. For Anthony more than for anybody else, senility is repugnant. Watch him play the old fool, mock nurses and nuns. He loathes the old man in him and is sharp enough to recognize the same revulsion in others, painfully evident in the scenes with his son-in-law in their high-voltage horror. He rages against what he perceives as the greatest humiliation of all—and his rage has a special cruelty towards his caring daughter (a great Olivia Colman). When, finally, this troublesome old man is revealed to be nothing more than an orphan in the universe, the film's mastery and Hopkins' art are completed. There's a segment in the Tavianis' Kaos about mothers and what happens when they die. What happens, the poet says, is that there's no longer a soul out there with you firmly on their thoughts. The world becomes indifferent. You are now, for the first time, truly alone. That's the kind of pathos, that's the level of feeling Hopkins is working with here... if there's such a thing as acting that engages with you spiritually or metaphysically this is it. At 82, he gives not just what is possibly the performance of the century so far and the crowning achievement of his career, but one that might well cause a paradigm shift. With actors living longer than ever and elders today facing some of our must urging dramas, writers may well wise up and capitalize on that. Hopkins has followed in the footsteps of masters like Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva (to name a few recent examples) and has made their work seem like preliminary findings. Here he strikes gold... makes it feel almost like the first and last word on the subject. Oh--the movie is phenomenal too. Destroyed me and elevated me... A pleasure knowing you Mr. Zeller PS. All film critics groups who neglected Hopkins this year should be cancelled
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 28, 2021 11:52:10 GMT
Lola Dueñas - AlleluiaShe is a femme fatale in a way but rarely has a femme fatale been this weak or this needy or...... this.....homicidal. She plays this part to the extreme in how it's portrayed by her director too - not exactly "realism" but not completely stylized either. In the first 10 minutes she throws away everything she supposedly stands for and then through her behavior poses a question back to you "well what did you expect anyway?" A totally, unhinged performance on the precipice of childish breakdown and full adult maniacal frenzy.
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Post by wilcinema on Mar 29, 2021 10:16:34 GMT
Deborah Kerr in The Innocents
My goodness, what a performance. The way she conveys the terror that maddens this affable but sexually repressed governess is astonishing. It's a movie that works on many levels, but without a performance like this, its effect would be greatly diminished. One of the great horror genre performances of all time.
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 29, 2021 21:07:36 GMT
Anthony Hopkins - The Father (2020)Javi 's eloquent writeup says it all. It's the best performance of the year and then some. Hopkins after a long career gives one of his very greatest perfs, flirting with his Top 3, and probably the greatest ever by an actor over 80. "Who is it that can tell me who I am?" Lear asked. Hopkins, a flat his fief, moves like someone fighting the wind or trying to catch up to their own confusion. The way he hesitates and scans and looks at things. It's a masterful performance of physical and psychological adjusting, within every scene. Hopkins so often exemplifies intelligence onscreen and that's turned around here. His defenses only maroon him more. Even his humor and charm turns on a sixpence. As he loses his ability to react, correct, or even question his confusions, Hopkins conveys a diminishing presence that's harrowing and heartbreaking. Like the dinner scene, rooms become rooms of disquieting deja vu. Details shift like a Polanskian web. I got chills a few times at these turns. And Hopkins is almost transcendent in how he balances nervous desperation with swings of such warmth.... Like the way he touches Colman's face, relieved she's really there. It's a great role (reminding me of the Sam Delany line - "The miracle of order has run out") .... supported by Zeller's expert writing and directing of mental and scenic deception..... he uses cinematic tricks but they always feel true and with Anthony's Anthony. Is there anything sadder than a man who has forgotten he loves coffee?
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Javi
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Post by Javi on Mar 29, 2021 21:20:46 GMT
I was waiting for your review Matt - did not disappoint! That's a terrific observation on his usual powers isolating him more. There's even that scene where Anthony outright flaunts his intelligence... but it becomes a curse.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 29, 2021 21:22:47 GMT
Anthony Hopkins - The Father (2020)Javi 's eloquent writeup says it all. It's the best performance of the year and then some. Hopkins after a long career gives one of his very greatest perfs, flirting with his Top 3, and probably the greatest ever by an actor over 80. "Who is it that can tell me who I am?" Lear asked. Hopkins, a flat his fief, moves like someone fighting the wind or trying to catch up to their own confusion. The way he hesitates and scans and looks at things. It's a masterful performance of physical and psychological adjusting, within every scene. Hopkins so often exemplifies intelligence onscreen and that's turned around here. His defenses only maroon him more. Even his humor and charm turns on a sixpence. As he loses his ability to react, correct, or even question his confusions, Hopkins conveys a diminishing presence that's harrowing and heartbreaking. Like the dinner scene, rooms become rooms of disquieting deja vu. Details shift like a Polanskian web. I got chills a few times at these turns. And Hopkins is almost transcendent in how he balances nervous desperation with swings of such warmth.... Like the way he touches Colman's face, relieved she's really there. It's a great role (reminding me of the Sam Delany line - "The miracle of order has run out") .... supported by Zeller's expert writing and directing of mental and scenic deception..... he uses cinematic tricks but they always feel true and with Anthony's Anthony. Is there anything sadder than a man who has forgotten he loves coffee?
Perhaps only the reverse - he remembers that he loves coffee BUT ruins every cup by constantly forgetting that he really, really hates coffee with milk
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 29, 2021 21:43:20 GMT
Is there anything sadder than a man who has forgotten he loves coffee?
Perhaps only the reverse - he remembers that he loves coffee BUT ruins every cup by constantly forgetting that he really, really hates coffee with milk That reminds me of (the amazing) Someone Behind the Door when Anthony Perkins asks Bronson how much sugar he wants in his coffee and Bronson (playing an amnesiac, for those who don't know) really sadly says 'I don't know.'
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Post by JangoB on Mar 30, 2021 0:02:31 GMT
Just to add to all the deserved raves for Hopkins in "The Father", another magnificent thing is just how effortlessly natural he is in a role that plenty of other actors would've undoubtedly used for BIG moments and BIG swings and LOOK AT ME passages. The restrained filmmaking itself also is of great help here (no banal visual representations of his mental state like the image getting blurry or the camera getting shaky) but it's amazing to see a role like this played without any trickery and without you seeing the wheels turning inside the actor's mind. This performance is a beautiful symphony - there're no sudden and obvious key changes in his music or phony lyrics in his song. He shows Anthony's decline without ever calling attention to it - every emotion and sign of deterioration grows out of him completely naturally. I guess it's testament to how Hopkins works - I dunno if he changed his approach (I doubt it) but I've recently watched an interview with him from the "Amistad" press tour (another masterwork by him) where he explained that his approach is not to sit in his trailer and ponder on the motivation or the meaning of a line or something. Nor is it to do it the method way. He explained that he first simply learned his lines so well that he wouldn't even have to think about them, and then just jumped into his scenes after hearing 'Action!' and lived them right then and there. And you know, it absolutely shows right to this day. Of course actors with other approaches can be amazing too but this level of talent combined with this natural an approach is a match made in heaven.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 30, 2021 0:33:22 GMT
Anthony Hopkins - The FatherI guess I may as well chime in - in this thread I mean - though I talked about the film and performance in the Greatest Actor Across All Mediums thread and in The Father thread itself. What is so uncanny about this role to me is how Hopkins great forte - his great acting "trick" (I don't mean that to be demeaning) which is his hesitation in replying - he's a great listener, among the best - and sort of the mixes his intellect and his vocabulary - the desire to use the exact right words so as not to be unclear or misunderstood is amplified in shattering ways here. In other roles Hopkins does not "halt" his delivery but rather seems to be formulating what he's going to say while still listening (Hannibal Lecter is never "searching" for words - his mind races). But more often Hopkins - especially in some big roles - Lear for one - halts his responses to a great degree after the person has finished speaking - he makes listening an active actor tool. He almost never immediately responds and here when he does that we are not sure if he CAN respond, at all. In this role when he hesitates we can not tell whether he's formulated the response or forgotten what was said to him or misunderstands what was said - or is cruelly playing with what has been said purposefully before lashing out. It's a perfect mix between an actor's technique and the role and that it came in his 80s is almost too unbelievable to be true. He almost never looks away in this role when someone is talking to him seriously because he's desperately trying to figure out what is being said and often can not process it or control his response even - when he does look away he's often lost or convinced he's a dupe (with his watch etc). There are many layers to this turn that Hopkins conveys to the audience like that - it's the one performance on film this year that I actually can see being studied as way to connect technique to choices.
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Post by Viced on Mar 30, 2021 17:36:11 GMT
A̶n̶t̶h̶o̶n̶y̶ ̶H̶o̶p̶k̶i̶n̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶F̶a̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ Claire Danes in Temple GrandinHBO really aired two slam-dunk lead Oscar winners (or at least nominees) in 2010... a lil disappointing they couldn't get big screen accolades. A brilliant technical performance... while always feeling honest, authentic, and human. Strathairn, Ormond, and O'Hara are damn good too.
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 31, 2021 18:01:08 GMT
Javier Bardem, as well as…… Luis Tosar, José Ángel Egido, Nieve de Medina - Mondays in the Sun (2002)Bardem was 32y/o doing this, and even more shockingly Tosar was 29y/o when he was cast. Playing nearly middled aged out of work men, it’s a great script and cast, with everyone feeling stuck and indignant, beginning to see themselves differently and darkly. Idling around their friend’s bar asking for free drinks bc their bad luck could use a break, it may as well be Harry Hope’s saloon. This is a very good-to-great movie that gives us so many specially observed scenes that start one way and then degrade as the awareness of reality returns. Like the the soccer game, sitting secretly far away they can’t even see the goal - their cheers are vicarious. Or the bank loan scene - without words we see how Tosar creates his own frustration, he pulls the walls in. Or Egido’s makeover - he’s become humorless bc his aging, to him, is no joke… he behaves as if always being watched. Or the short love scenes with Medina, who gives such a soulfully ached perf. Or the “on tv” scene, Bardem - best of cast - the cruel, clever host…. he’s the movie’s boastful and denying center, passioned but provoking, he contradicts his greater laments by aiming small.
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Post by sophiefox on Mar 31, 2021 21:19:46 GMT
Sidney Flanigan in Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020). she is great in her film debut, a true natural who is compelling and believable. i'm glad she gets a lot of recognition and critical acclaim and even critic awards for her performance. if it had been enough for a serious Oscar consideration in the end, i don't know, probably not, but she would have really deserved it.
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Post by wilcinema on Apr 2, 2021 10:35:05 GMT
Burt Lancaster in Birdman Of Alcatraz
I doubt cinema has ever had an actor as likable as Burt Lancaster.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 4, 2021 16:33:29 GMT
(especially) Van Heflin but also Robert Ryan - An Act of Violence (1948) -
Great-ish, logical and extremely well written noir about one guy following another .........but not for what you might think. Ryan is scary as fnck whenever he goes into these kinds of dark psychological roles - he could have played either role - but Heflin gives one of the performances of his life here when the plot turns and you know the whole story. He never overplays it - let's the details come out in his portrayal and hints at darker subtext than is even made explicit. Terrific post-war movie, and extremely well-played by these two.....
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2021 17:20:21 GMT
Jeremy Irons as the emotionally troubled twin gynecologists in Dead Ringers. The way he portrayed his characters' downward spiral was stunning and he was fully deserving of the N.Y. Film Critics Award he won that year.
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Post by isabelaolive on Apr 7, 2021 0:15:48 GMT
Isabelle Huppert - La Pianist
This is not the first time that I watch this performance, but watching it again after so many years, having more baggage and knowledge about cinema and acting, I can say that I was able to better understand the film and Huppert character. Before I thought an average film carried by good performances, but now I think it is a great film with a great performance. Every second that Huppert appears on the screen is a lesson! In the very first minutes of the film, when she argues with her mother, the way Erika transforms in a matter of seconds is almost scary. Few actresses can afford to perform at this level throughout their careers. Anyone who is used to Huppert's style knows that her strong point is to play 'cold' and reclusive characters, but even though in the role of Erika she is in her comfort zone, she brings great depth in the way she decided to approach the character.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 8, 2021 13:16:55 GMT
Ingrid Bergman - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)This is exhibit A in what was covered in an other thread about how US actors of the 30s era did not go into the psychological detail except for Cagney/Robinson and how other actors were mostly concerned more with presentation details (which is fine, but different to the way we see modern acting). Most people remember Spencer Tracy's turn here - and he's mostly ok with some high points - but there is nothing psychological about it (or in Fredric March's Oscar winning turn either actually)- it is too simply drawn - he goes from one character to another without the blur that is in the text - When he says "it isn't quite clear!" it rather is, wrongly so to us. But not to Bergman who is quite terrified and traumatized of what she can't quite understand, quite piece together, and is wary of everything around her here. She's marvelously unsettled and walking on eggshells constantly. The problem with this story is it is always monstrous without being truly, dangerous in an interior way - but Bergman appears in constant danger and sells it so convincingly....... it's kind of heartbreaking. This performance could drift into hysteria, instead it walks the line between it like the overall piece should. This is actually a great scream queen performance before the term was in vogue but it's not thought of as such because well bigger things were to come......
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 8, 2021 18:53:24 GMT
Ingrid Bergman - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)This is exhibit A in what was covered in an other thread about how US actors of the 30s era did not go into the psychological detail except for Cagney/Robinson and how other actors were mostly concerned more with presentation details (which is fine, but different to the way we see modern acting). Most people remember Spencer Tracy's turn here - and he's mostly ok with some high points - but there is nothing psychological about it (or in Fredric March's Oscar winning turn either actually)- it is too simply drawn - he goes from one character to another without the blur that is in the text - When he says "it isn't quite clear!" it rather is, wrongly so to us. But not to Bergman who is quite terrified and traumatized of what she can't quite understand, quite piece together, and is wary of everything around her here. She's marvelously unsettled and walking on eggshells constantly. The problem with this story is it is always monstrous without being truly, dangerous in an interior way - but Bergman appears in constant danger and sells it so convincingly....... it's kind of heartbreaking. This performance could drift into hysteria, instead it walks the line between it like the overall piece should. This is actually a great scream queen performance before the term was in vogue but it's not thought of as such because well bigger things were to come...... A neat little note to see how smart this performance is: Watch this scene at the very end - Bergman's one hand clutches into a fist - to throw a punch (she never does) - and her other hand in a fist then opens. When you watch that scene this suggests the fist - in a psychological sense - is her trying to "clutch" or get a hold of what's been happening to her too, get control - and the opening of the other hand is her literally but ALSO symbolically giving up/giving in to Mr. Hyde. Not only in this scene as played but as subtext to the film overall and within her performance specifically...........it's also quite sexual (think about it) as a scene and a visual cue. Both actors are good - but one actor is merely presenting (Tracy), and the other (Bergman) is aware of the many components of the piece overall and acting them through her behavior. It's............kinda awesome actually to look at for an analysis .........especially in 1941! @2:50
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speeders
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Post by speeders on Apr 9, 2021 17:56:17 GMT
Geraldine Page and Maureen Stapleton, Interiors (1978).
Best of the decade type of performances! First time I've seen a performance from either of them but I've already had several of their films on my watchlist that I look forward to exploring now.
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Post by wallsofjericho on Apr 10, 2021 10:40:49 GMT
Alec Guinness- Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Eat your heart out Gary Oldman and Johnny Depp! What Guinness does in this film is extraordinary, the level of precision and meticulous detail in which he defines each characterisation he plays and he makes it look so effortless. The movie itself is great and revels in dark and clever humour.
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speeders
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Post by speeders on Apr 10, 2021 11:39:38 GMT
Kirk Douglas, Lust for Life (1956).
Somewhat better than I had hoped! Really great performance as the legendary Van Gogh.
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 11, 2021 21:48:00 GMT
Christopher Lee & (especially) Peter Cushing in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)Like all great film teams they have chemistry all their own and this version of the often told tale has some charms all its own (except the start is slow - real slow). Once it gets going though Cushing's scientist is stark raving mad - he goes from quiet ruminations on his theories to being gloriously OTT - he was born to play this........and not being able to control himself is in a different way what Lee's monster does too - almost like a spoiled child who will then suddenly lash out if he doesn't get his way. Then you start to notice that Cushing is like a smart child who has gotten in over his head........there's a sad father-child AND brothers in doom dynamic at play between them that is more unique than the original (no, really) and these guys play it to the hilt. If you didn't know the Universal horror film was "the classic" version you might think it was this version instead in some ways at least....and Lee is not really monstrous - he's rather zombie like, the walking dead ..........again almost like a child with depression it seems until he lashes out.
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