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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 21, 2020 12:05:44 GMT
Another of the 2018 GOAT poll thread micro-matchups: Maybe the two best comic actors ever - up there at least - Robin Williams (who finished 23) vs. Peter Sellers (who was 37).Williams has an Oscar and 4 nods........Sellers has 3 nods and a very unique career that grows in stature with every passing year it seems......you could argue in some ways they were too talented for movies. Who is your pick here and share any thoughts on placement in the GOAT would you rank either as a best of generation performer (?) - comedians are always underrated but of course these guys were more than just that:
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Post by wallsofjericho on Jun 21, 2020 12:50:40 GMT
This is a really good comparison. Both are such unique actors as well and as of this point I slightly favour Williams when I factor in his darker work in One Hour Photo and Insomnia.
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Post by pupdurcs on Jun 21, 2020 13:04:03 GMT
This is a really good comparison. Both are such unique actors as well and as of this point I slightly favour Williams when I factor in his darker work in One Hour Photo and Insomnia. Williams could often do badly misjudged dramatic and comedic work though. Sometimes in his dramatic work he could be cloyingly and off-puttingly sentimental, and actively make a film worse. Things like Jakob The Liar, Patch Adams and What Dreams May Come came with an extra helping of "sappy" in part because Williams couldn't modulate properly. In comedic terms he could be brilliant, but also hit and miss. He gets it just about right in Mrs Doubtfire, but is kind of cringeworthy to watch in Jack or Toys.He was exceptionally talented, and I liked the darker, restrained dramatic turns he took as his A-list movie stardom began to slip ( One Hour Photo, Insomnia), but he was a frustratingly inconsistent star and actor. He gave bad performances more often than people like to remember, imho. I'd comfortably go Sellers. Peaks just as high (if not higher), but much more modulated and consistent.
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Post by wallsofjericho on Jun 21, 2020 13:11:18 GMT
This is a really good comparison. Both are such unique actors as well and as of this point I slightly favour Williams when I factor in his darker work in One Hour Photo and Insomnia. Williams could often do badly misjudged dramatic and comedic work though. Sometimes in his dramatic work he could be cloyingly and off-puttingly sentimental, and actively make a film worse. Things like Jakob The Liar, Patch Adams and What Dreams May Come came with an extra helping of "sappy" in part because Williams couldn't modulate properly. In comedic terms he could be brilliant, but also hit and miss. He gets it just about right in Mrs Doubtfire, but is kind of cringeworthy to watch in Jack or Toys.He was exceptionally talented, and I liked the darker, restrained dramatic turns he took as his A-list movie stardom began to slip, but he was a frustratingly inconsistent star and actor. I'd comfortably go Sellers. Peaks just as high (if not higher), but much more modulated and consistent. Did you like Williams Oscar winning turn? I often feel that's his most overrated performance.
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Post by pupdurcs on Jun 21, 2020 13:22:48 GMT
Williams could often do badly misjudged dramatic and comedic work though. Sometimes in his dramatic work he could be cloyingly and off-puttingly sentimental, and actively make a film worse. Things like Jakob The Liar, Patch Adams and What Dreams May Come came with an extra helping of "sappy" in part because Williams couldn't modulate properly. In comedic terms he could be brilliant, but also hit and miss. He gets it just about right in Mrs Doubtfire, but is kind of cringeworthy to watch in Jack or Toys.He was exceptionally talented, and I liked the darker, restrained dramatic turns he took as his A-list movie stardom began to slip, but he was a frustratingly inconsistent star and actor. I'd comfortably go Sellers. Peaks just as high (if not higher), but much more modulated and consistent. Did you like Williams Oscar winning turn? I often feel that's his most overrated performance. Yeah, I didn't love it. It fit his modus operandi of forced sentimentality in much of his dramatic work at the time (and the Oscars ate that shit up, especially in the 80's and 90's). But compared to some of the even more misguided overly sentimental would be Oscarbait performances he'd go on to give, it feels positively restrained. He got it just right in Dead Poets Society (the balance of sentimentality without being too mawkish) , but his attempts to recapture that all felt forced to me.
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Post by urbanpatrician on Jun 21, 2020 13:29:29 GMT
No way Williams is better than Sellers.
Williams is not bad and I can see why people would vote him into a Top 25 all-time poll, but his appeal is largely the sappy, youthful, and awww shucks kind. And he's not Tom Hanks at all, I don't see the equivalence of Williams to Hanks.
Yeah, .... by far Sellers, he was the premiere comic actor.
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Post by TerryMontana on Jun 21, 2020 14:46:26 GMT
Sellers was a phenomenal comic actor but I prefer the more dark/dramatic Williams. He was better when he didn't play in comedies.
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Post by pupdurcs on Jun 21, 2020 14:58:34 GMT
Sellers was a phenomenal comic actor but I prefer the more dark/dramatic Williams. He was better when he didn't play in comedies. I think Sellers was a gifted dramatic actor, and maybe has the best dramatic performance between them in Being There (he was also excellent in Lolita). His potential as a dramatic actor was huge, but he died relatively young before he could start exploring that side to his fullest.
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Post by TerryMontana on Jun 21, 2020 15:02:51 GMT
Sellers was a phenomenal comic actor but I prefer the more dark/dramatic Williams. He was better when he didn't play in comedies. I think Sellers was a gifted dramatic actor, and maybe has the best dramatic performance between them in Being There (he was also excellent in Lolita). His potential as a dramatic actor was huge, but he died relatively young before he could start exploring that side to his fullest. He was riveting in Being There. In Lolita, would you believe me if I said I don't remember? It never comes alone...
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Jun 21, 2020 15:10:50 GMT
Sellers was a phenomenal comic actor but I prefer the more dark/dramatic Williams. He was better when he didn't play in comedies. I think Sellers was a gifted dramatic actor, and maybe has the best dramatic performance between them in Being There (he was also excellent in Lolita). His potential as a dramatic actor was huge, but he died relatively young before he could start exploring that side to his fullest. Sellers was a immensely talented performer, who could play a variety of character, but also had a darker side to him. Some of his earlier British sink type films have been a great find for me. Like I highly recommend Never Let Go, he's not the lead ( Richard Todd is), but he plays a gangster, and he's really straight and serious. I think it shows the kind of roles he could have taken, if he wasn't so committed to playing multiple roles in silly farces.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 21, 2020 15:26:35 GMT
Sellers was a phenomenal comic actor but I prefer the more dark/dramatic Williams. He was better when he didn't play in comedies. It's funny to me that Williams is maybe held back in this poll for being sappy (at times) when he could also at his best be movingly emotional and Sellers maybe was more brilliant without affecting you (just playing devils advocate here I know Sellers could move you too at times).......in some ways it's like penalizing an actor for the one thing he did well isn't it? For those who haven't seen it, here's a clip from one of Williams best turns - his Emmy nominated performance on Homicide: Life on The Street. This was a great role for him imo......he has to play "normal" or "average" here.......interesting to think what would Sellers do with this role too (because I think he could do it in a way also).........but it's really surprising how many times Williams who was not in any way remotely "average" actually acted "average" ......
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Post by wallsofjericho on Jun 21, 2020 16:51:13 GMT
Did you like Williams Oscar winning turn? I often feel that's his most overrated performance. Yeah, I didn't love it. It fit his modus operandi of forced sentimentality in much of his dramatic work at the time (and the Oscars ate that shit up, especially in the 80's and 90's). But compared to some of the even more misguided overly sentimental would be Oscarbait performances he'd go on to give, it feels positively restrained. He got it just right in Dead Poets Society (the balance of sentimentality without being too mawkish) , but his attempts to recapture that all felt forced to me. On the subject of Sellers, just read up on how many actors he influenced including Williams. Guys like Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Eddie Murphy, Sacha Baron Cohen and Mike Myers.
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Post by countjohn on Jun 21, 2020 18:24:11 GMT
I'm as big a Sellers fan as there is. The best comedic actor ever in sound movies. As you alluded to with the "too talented for movies" statement the medium (having to have a script/story and being limited to the POV of the camera) could be limiting for him. Felt like you should have just thrown him up on a stage and let him do whatever he wanted, much like Chaplin and Keaton. I'd consider him for the top ten movie actors period.
I don't dislike Williams at all and I think he may have been better at conventional "tugging at the heartstrings" dramatic acting, but it's hard to imagine Williams doing anything like Sellers in Lolita, Being There, or the grave seriousness of Mandrake in Dr. Strangelove.
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Post by pupdurcs on Jun 21, 2020 18:25:51 GMT
I'm as big a Sellers fan as there is. The best comedic actor ever in sound movies. Eddie Murphy would like a word.
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Jun 21, 2020 19:33:20 GMT
Yeah, I didn't love it. It fit his modus operandi of forced sentimentality in much of his dramatic work at the time (and the Oscars ate that shit up, especially in the 80's and 90's). But compared to some of the even more misguided overly sentimental would be Oscarbait performances he'd go on to give, it feels positively restrained. He got it just right in Dead Poets Society (the balance of sentimentality without being too mawkish) , but his attempts to recapture that all felt forced to me. On the subject of Sellers, just read up on how many actors he influenced including Williams. Guys like Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Eddie Murphy, Sacha Baron Cohen and Mike Myers. You can definitely see the influence of Sellers on a lot of comedic actors, particularly Eddie Murphy and his love of playing multiple characters in a film.
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Post by pupdurcs on Jun 21, 2020 19:37:22 GMT
On the subject of Sellers, just read up on how many actors he influenced including Williams. Guys like Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Eddie Murphy, Sacha Baron Cohen and Mike Myers. You can definitely see the influence of Sellers on a lot of comedic actors, particularly Eddie Murphy and his love of playing multiple characters in a film. It all started with Alec Guinness though, who was Sellers' idol, who really made the multiple character concept feasible in Kind Hearts And Coronets. We should give credit where it's due.
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Jun 21, 2020 19:43:37 GMT
You can definitely see the influence of Sellers on a lot of comedic actors, particularly Eddie Murphy and his love of playing multiple characters in a film. It all started with Alec Guinness though, who was Sellers' idol, who really made the multiple character concept feasible in Kind Hearts And Coronets. We should give credit where it's due. Oh yeah, Sellers was definitely influenced by Guinness. In fact when they worked together on The Ladykillers early in his career, Sellers had nothing but gushing things to say, because Guinness was his idol, and he basically watched his every move as an actor, taking inspiration from that.
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Post by pupdurcs on Jun 21, 2020 19:51:31 GMT
It all started with Alec Guinness though, who was Sellers' idol, who really made the multiple character concept feasible in Kind Hearts And Coronets. We should give credit where it's due. Oh yeah, Sellers was definitely influenced by Guinness. In fact when they worked together on The Ladykillers early in his career, Sellers had nothing but gushing things to say, because Guinness was his idol, and he basically watched his every move as an actor, taking inspiration from that. Yeah, I feel like subconsciously maybe one of the reasons I don't put Sellers super-high on my general all-time actors ranking ( though he is up there in my comic actors all time ranking) is because I kind of see him as an Alec Guinness who doesn't do stage, doesn't do Shakespeare or the classics, and isn't anything close to as an accomplished a dramatic actor. I think Sellers is a great actor (more specifically a brilliant comic actor), but when I came to the realisation that he was just a much, much more limited version of Guinness, it's harder to rank him as highly as I probably would if I didn't know about Guinness.
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Post by Mattsby on Jun 22, 2020 2:39:18 GMT
reposting below my appeal for Robin from the Best Actor born in the 50s thread where he got zero votes, along with, um, Kevin Costner.
--- The Fisher King, Insomnia, Awakenings, Good Will Hunting, Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, Mrs Doubtfire, Moscow on the Hudson, One Hour Photo, The Birdcage (“Fosse, Fosse, Fosse!”), The Secret Agent (a small but bone-chilling perf, and uncredited!) ……and I know I'm forgetting some. It's wild how many of those are dramatic, dark perfs. And this is one of the most singularly hilarious humans ever? He was a brilliant bolt of humor... Yet so talented at playing tenderness and even disturbing parts. Like that anecdote from the recent doc, how the cameras on Mork and Mindy literally couldn't keep up with him, that's kinda how I feel about his career - he was too talented to even catch but we gotta lot of wonderful glimpses. ---
He's one of my purely fav people to watch...... but having said all that, I didn't hesitate to vote for Sellers here. Sellers has several all-timer perfs and so many overlooked genius little perfs. Even though he died so young at 54 he has a rather sweeping batch of perfs - even perfs within perfs - and it flat out shocks like magic that the same man is behind all of them.
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Post by cheesecake on Jun 22, 2020 2:52:54 GMT
For those who haven't seen it, here's a clip from one of Williams best turns - his Emmy nominated performance on Homicide: Life on The Street. This was a great role for him imo......he has to play "normal" or "average" here.......interesting to think what would Sellers do with this role too (because I think he could do it in a way also).........but it's really surprising how many times Williams who was not in any way remotely "average" actually acted "average" ...... Such a good episode!
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Post by cheesecake on Jun 22, 2020 2:53:53 GMT
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 22, 2020 22:20:49 GMT
1 bump - another good poll nice and close - and Williams on Sellers below:
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Jun 22, 2020 22:41:06 GMT
What Sellers did advancing the form of film comedy cannot be understated. Just his technique alone, using his wonderful vocal dexterity as his first tool in developing and building off the sound of the character, was genius and obviously the strongest influence he had on Williams even putting aside the penchant for mixing low and high humor. Every major post-60s film comedian either owes a tremendous debt to Sellers or they're just bad, that's the short of it.
All that being said, Williams has a very special place in my heart that would be as unfair for me not to acknowledge as it would be for me to try to separate those feelings from any kind of debate between him and someone else. Robin Williams is the urtext on which I based my own sense of humor, high energy, and sentimental humanism. In teasing apart his style from Sellers, Williams seems much more willing to impose his own absurdism on a situation (i.e. the Genie) while Sellers, though equally capable as he demonstrated with the titular character in Strangelove, usually prioritized maintaining a character's dignity and finding humor in playing off or parallel to the absurdity rather than inhabiting it. Williams' dignity were usually more preserved for his dramatic characters, which is what I think made him strong at delivering even the most maudlin text - the ending of Jack or all of Bicentennial Man come to mind, both bad films but films that I would not call Williams himself bad in where a lesser actor would be disastrously cloy.
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