Top Ten: Ewan McGregor Performances

Tuesday Thursday Top Ten

With Ewan McGregor back in theaters with Beginners and with it being Moulin Rouge! week and all, how about a list of our top Ewan performances?

I have only the dimmest recollection of A Life Less Ordinary and I just didn't want to include that awful Star Wars prequel trilogy on principle (though Ewan survived it better than most of the actors) and it's possible I forgot something else... but here we go.

10 "Jerome" in THE PILLOW BOOK (1996)
I love Ewan's ballsy (ahem) taste in material... at least at that point in his career. His screen persona often reads sweet but he's quite a wild child in terms of the cinema.

09  "The Ghost" in THE GHOST WRITER (2010)
A tricky cipher part -- who is he really? we can't know -- that he pulled off well. It helps that the movie is so damn good: top ten list!

Tilda and Ewan in "Young Adam"

08 "Joe Taylor" in YOUNG ADAM (2003)
Arriving so quickly on Moulin Rouge!'s warm heels this one was a shocker. Ewan re-embraced the amoral danger of his star-making roles in the 90s, absent the devilishly winking charisma that made his previous unsavories so palatable. Bonus points for sexing up Tilda Swinton and and expressing his love of condiments. We generally drown our burgers in them, but he prefers them on live flesh.

07  "Alex Law" in SHALLOW GRAVE (1994)
I haven't seen Danny Boyle's feature debut since the 90s but it was one sick and slick calling card with a very young long haired Ewan acing his soulless roommate act.

06 "Catcher Block" in DOWN WITH LOVE (2003)
He probably owed this flirty cocky shot at romantic comedy headlining via Moulin Rouge! but who is better suited to it. Plus, he looked so good in his suits. This is a movie I keep meaning to rewatch.

05 "Curt Wild" in VELVET GOLDMINE (1998)
We mentioned 'wild child' earlier. None of his roles embrace that concept quite as obviously. Ewan, who doesn't leash himself when acting (to our eternal gratitude), played the hell out of this unpredictable glitter-spraying, pants-dropping, drug-taking, boy-kissing, fucked-up rock star morphing from glam rock abandon to... sedated "Curt" Cobain?

NSFW

04 "Phillip Morris" in I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS (2010)
That twinkly-eyed sweetness was used to great fey affect in this uneven but funny romantic comedy about a gay romance that bloomed in prison and couldn't quite break wiggle out from behind those bars. Have any of you seen this yet? So many actors biff it when they play up "gayness" but Ewan, always so at ease on camera and free of judgements toward his characters (think about it) came across so naturally. Few actors are as good at playing romance onscreen, he nearly always makes a solid case for why the other actor/actress is gaga for him.

03  "Oliver" in BEGINNERS (2011)
A great part of the success of this whimsical melancholy exploration of a dying gay father (Christopher Plummer) and his lonely straight son (McGregor), is how sympathetically Ewan embodies the role and how much chemistry he always has with co-stars. Loneliness can be a huge self-sabotaging drag in real life -- often turning people off when the sufferer needs to connect -- but in the movies it tends to evoke empathy in audiences. You watch and you wait and you desperately want Oliver to find love and happiness and to smile broadly and often... partially because he's Ewan McGregor. Stop hiding that famous grin!

02 "Rent-boy" in TRAINSPOTTING (1996)
A performance worth diving into a toilet bowl to experience.

image via "fucking awesome ewan"

"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television to watch Ewan McGregor movies on!' (This film should have netted him his first Oscar nomination with ease. Alas... he's still waiting.)

1 "Christian" in MOULIN ROUGE! (2001)
When The Film Experience did a "Favorite Actors of the Aughts" in 2005, Ewan McGregor landed in the top 5 (yes, I hope to republish that later this year -- donate -- to look at the entire decade rather than just its first half) and here's what I had to say, paraphrased for this new context.

Ewan makes me feel. He makes me smile. Some actors we relate to as identity surrogates. We want to be them or see the story through their eyes. In the case of McGregor I find I'm always the other characters; I'm always with him. The apotheosis is the "Elephant Love Medley" scene. Like Nicole Kidman's 'Satine' I usually start out trying to resist Ewan McGregor (my critical/cynical self usually in control). As he keeps battering away at my defenses with his unique spark, humor, and openheartedness (both as character and actor), I start to cave. I resist, I complain, I explain all the reasons why not. But before long I am totally his.

It still applies. Come what may...

Mix Tape: "Perfect Day" in Trainspotting

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, with the scene that served as my introduction to Lou Reed.

At his best, Danny Boyle knows how to mix memorable visuals, dynamic editing, and pop music into one striking, powerful package. The overdose scene in Trainspotting, his saga of Edinburgh heroin addicts, has all this and more set to the morose tune of Reed's "Perfect Day" (an ironic song title if there ever was one). Anti-hero Mark Renton, eager for "one fucking hit," returns to the desolate apartment of a sleazy dealer, where he shoots up... only to fall into a catatonic stupor, which Boyle represents by having him sink into a hole in the carpet, as if into a grave.

This is when Reed's flatly casual voice breaks in, singing the lyrics ("Just a perfect day, drink sangria in the park...") in a subdued tone that belies their supposed cheerfulness. As the dealer deposits Renton's immobile body on the street to wait for a taxi, Reed bursts into the chorus, and already the irony is palpable: clearly, Renton is having anything but a perfect day. But the irony goes far beyond that simple "happy song, sad scene" incongruity—because the song is self-contradictory to begin with, and the scene isn't merely sad.

Boyle's depiction of the overdose traffics in the same dark, sometimes satirical humor as the rest of Trainspotting, and it's shot in the same kinetic, self-conscious style. For example, the burgundy carpet, which blinkers Renton's POV shots while he's unconscious, functions as both a metaphor for his isolation in the depths of his overdose, and as a bleak visual joke. Similarly, the grim way he's passed along from dealer to cabbie to hospital orderlies borders on kafkaesque. This is no self-serious afterschool special; Boyle has an eye for the funny side of excessive drug use.

This clash between tragic subject matter and flashy style could come across as ridiculous or tasteless, but any such tonal ruffles are smoothed out by the faultless use of "Perfect Day." Despite occasional dips into ironic enthusiasm on one end and melancholy on the other, Reed's voice is stable throughout the song, almost to the point of monotone; this makes it the ideal song to accompany Renton's comatose journey to the emergency room. Even in its loudest, most climactic moments, "Perfect Day" is still as steady and patient as an elevator ride, and balances out the bounciness of Boyle's camera.

And throughout the scene, it offers a bittersweet lyrical counterpoint to Renton's current predicament, with the line "You just keep me hanging on..." ringing out just as the dealer shoves Renton into the back of the taxi, and the closing refrain, "You're going to reap just what you sow," as a dire reminder that he brought this miserable situation upon himself. It's also starkly appropriate that a song partially about self-delusion and ignoring one's problems should arrive in the center of a film about drug addicts.

According to rumor, "Perfect Day" is actually about heroin, and that may be case, but its usage here isn't just a matter of finding a song whose topic matches the film. (Had that been the case, Lou Reed wrote a song called "Heroin" that could've been used instead.) The scene derives much of its sticking power from the very precise interplay between the song's unique tone, the editing, and the camerawork, which together sustain a forlorn mood laced with many ironies. This seamless integration of visuals and music brings a light touch to the protagonist's near-death and rebirth, and forever entangles "Perfect Day" with the image of Ewan McGregor dying in a carpet.