Take Three: Anne Heche

Craig here with this week's edition of the character actor column "Take Three". Today: Anne Heche

Take One: Birth (2004)
Whilst watching Birth I’m sure you, like me, were thinking: just what the heck is Anne Heche doing in Central Park? Near the start of Jonathan Glazer’s reincarnation baffler Heche acts in mysterious ways. She suspiciously sneaks out of a hotel lobby and onto the snowy streets of Manhattan. She’s rustling around in the bushes, digging a hole. Is she burying the gift intended for Anna (Nicole Kidman)? Is it even a gift? It looks like some sort of proof, evidence. Her character, Clara, holds the film’s secrets from the get-go. In accordance with the way Glazer structures the script in these early scenes, fragmented by Sam Sneade and Claus Wehlisch’s editing, Clara becomes an enigma we know we'll worryingly come back to later.

Heche’s scenes with Sean (Cameron Bright) after the friction of the plot has been replaced by psychic damage throw a puzzling curveball (the buried package!) to the remainder of the film. These moments provide us with Heche’s best, and most tense, work to date. Insidious, slightly witchy and perverse, Heche reveals a reverse deus ex machina that shows Clara to be the queasily spiteful and questionable presence of the story. Her face, shot in extreme close-up, displays a deliciously evil sheen as she devastates the young boy. On evidence here, I’m baffled as to why filmmakers aren’t snapping Heche up to play the kinds of complicated icy queens usually reserved for Tilda Swinton. Birth features an all-round stellar ensemble but if you haven't seen it recently watch it again to see Heche wrench entire scenes away from the lot of them.

Two more Heche triumphs after the jump including Psycho (1998). Yes, that Psycho...

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Take Three: John Hurt

Craig here with the third season of Take Three. Today: John Hurt

Take One: Brighton Rock (2010)
Hurt has alternated starring roles with supporting performances since he began acting in films with The Wild and the Willing in 1962. The amount of quality supporting turns he’s delivered over the years is vast: 10 Rillington Place, Midnight Express, The Shout, The Hit, Scandal, The Field, Contact, The Proposition, Melancholia, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are a mere few. His fine turn as accountant Phil Corkery in the Brighton Rock remake (backing up Helen Mirren, Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough and Andy Serkis) is a recent solid addition to the list and deserves due credit. Phil’s a gaunt shambles, but loyal to Mirren’s Ida, his long-time crush. He’s one of the old guard. A proud man accustomed to propping up bars whilst waxing forth about the state of the world. He’s the kind of bloke who changes his bow tie each day but wears out the same coat and pork-pie hat. Hurt blusters when faced with the criminal element, but in his staunch moral belief and touching devotion to Ida he comes through. Hurt’s on the sidelines for much of the time, but it’s to his credit that he’s still willing to, at this later stage in his career, take small parts when he believes in the material. He adds a nod of class to the film. That he gives us a characterful turn in only a handful of scenes – a minor glimmer amid a career of solid gems – owes much to his mastery of screen acting.

Take Two: Dogville (2003) with a nod to Manderlay (2005)
We don’t see Hurt in Dogville. But I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking that they recall him being in it – so vivid is his contribution to Lars von Trier’s polemic-play.

He’s the narrator of events at Kidman’s damned mountain hideout, a disembodied stream of words. He's a sage, an all-knowing set of omniscient vocal chords from above (and he is above, isn’t he?). Yet he’s an intrinsic part of the film as its voice, conveying the fabric of the town. From the opening moments he smoothly introduces us to the inhabitants of von Trier's alloegorial enclave yet he does so with just the tiniest creakiest sliver of alarm. Dogville was an inventive stage-bound tale and Hurt the vocal master of ceremonies relaying to us the trials of the belligerent lives treading the chalk-outlined boards. Maybe ol’ Lars saw Roger Corman’s Frankenstein Unbound (deftly narrated by, and starring, a sly Hurt) prior to choosing his Dogville storyteller. Or maybe – I prefer to think – he saw 2000’s The Tigger Movie (deftly narrated by a cuddly Hurt). Either way, Hurt’s narrator combines the shrewdness of a learned professor and the wise experience of a well-travelled uncle. It may seem a slight cheat to include Hurt’s throat work in Dogville, but his was the key, albeit invisible, performance. He may not have been in every scene, but he was within them; the thread binding Dogville together.

Take Three: The Elephant Man (1980)
Hurt and David Lynch set a particularly high bar for cinematic portrayals rich in tender empathy with The Elephant Man. It was brought about thanks to Mel Brooks’ love of Eraserhead, given its own surreal signature by Lynch’s astute direction, and completed by Hurt’s compassionate performance as ill-fated circus act John Merrick. His BAFTA winning and Oscar-nominated performance is rightly regarded as one of the best of the ‘80s. The performance's initial impression are made through a distorted middle-class accent, a laboured walk and a cloth bag covering his head which itself is shaped in elephantine fashion. But as the film continues it becomes a fully embodied performance.

Hurt plays beautifully off the facial reactions of his fellow actors: Anthony Hopkins, Hannah Gordon, Anne Bancroft and John Gielgud all convey various concerns that we as an audience are also experiencing. A great deal of Hurt's power in the role comes through his ability to create heart-rending drama through poignant interaction. Hurt's palpable delight at 19th Century niceties as Merrick revels in the elegance of high society is captivating. We’re with him in his discovery of refinement and eventual acceptance, so that when, as his condition dictates, he succumbs to inevitable death our feelings go beyond sadness into near empathic despair.

At the halfway mark Merrick sees a drawing of a child sleeping and forlonly turns to Anthony Hopkins' Treves.

Merrick: I wish I could sleep like normal people. Can you cure me?
Treves: No. We can care for you but we can't cure you.
Merrick: No, I thought not."

This last line comes without fuss or delay but with only a dreadful knowing. Hurt creates in Merrick a refined man of wonder -- it’s the age itself that's ugly. The Elephant Man is a heartbreaking experience every time. Now, ‘scuse me, I appear to have something in my eye...

Three more films for the taking: Alien (1979), Love and Death on Long Island (1997), V for Vendetta (2006). Previously on Take Three: Melissa Leo

Take Three: Melissa Leo

Craig here, back with the third and final season of 'Take Three'.

This week: Melissa Leo

Take One: Red State (2011)
Leo gives an ugly yet riveting supporting performance as Sara in Kevin Smith’s Red State. She’s the matriarch with no maternal manners of the Five Points Trinity Church and wife to Michael Parks’ Phelps-like religious nutjob. We first see her open a trailer door to three horny teens who, we eventually gather, she entraps with the promise of a ‘good time’. She’s chugging a beer, resignedly eyeing these unsuspecting victims, playing her part in their “punishment”. Leo makes Sara immediately unlikeable. She’s a fully paid-up cult member either lost in ecstatic zeal (when Parks’ Abin spouts his bile-filled sermons) or riddled with utter contempt for ‘outsiders’ (all other times). But at no point does Leo deliver a two-dimensional portrait of hatefulness.

It takes a seasoned pro to make such a distanced and indefinably spiteful presence feel truly compelling. There’s something horribly absorbing about the way Leo carries herself. [More after the jump]

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Take Three: Season 2 Wrap-Up

Craig here with a wrap-up of season 2 of ‘Take Three’, the Sunday Film Experience series which looked at three notable performances from a supporting or character actor's career. (Click their names to see the Take Three posts.)

Last Sunday’s ‘Take Three’ on Paul Dano was the last edition for a while. I’ve enjoyed writing season 2 a great deal. I hope they've been interesting to read, too. The series resumed in March with Marisa Tomei, an actress who has been doing some her best work in recent years; similarly, Barbara Hershey has seen a keen resurgence in her career recently, particularly with Black Swan; and Judy Davis, quiet on the big screen over the last few years, will again be a name on everyone’s lips with new movies due soon. Writing about Shelley Duvall and Isabella Rossellini was sheer pleasure. They're two actresses who have uncommon elegance, with quirks and kinks on the side in everything that they do.

Mackie, Duvall, Gugino

It was a joy to finally include Max von Sydow, a character actor master of genre variation, and Burgess Meredith, always dependable and commendable in everything he starred in. A couple of straight-up bona fide classic film acts, Boris Karloff and Gloria Grahame, were covered, too; I ended up unable to tear myself away from repeat viewings of Frankenstein and The Big Heat respectively. The Michael Biehn write-up in three James Cameron sc-fis nicely coincided with the Aliens ‘Hit Me with Your Best Shot’ posts (for which I also wrote this); and I gave Danny Glover, another ‘80s stalwart, his dues with a post on three of his most memorable performances.

Marsan, Karloff, McCarthy

A trio of actresses who are currently making marks on the movie map in a range of genres, and who have been grafting hard in support roles for some time, are Melissa McCarthy, Viola Davis and Alice Braga. These three add that extra vital ingredient to each film they star in and are as fiercely individual as they come. More versed in the art of crucial character acting, but still entirely deserving of attention, are Brooke Smith, Catherine Keener and Carla Gugino. All three have been active on our screens since the late ‘80s and continue to be three of the best performers the movies have.

Renier, Grahame, Davis

Jérémie Renier, Anthony Mackie and Michael Shannon have often played roles that perfectly display their unique talents. Each one proves enthralling to watch and deserve to be heralded as loudly and as frequently as possible. And three more who never cease to surprise with either film choices or strong work are Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Pitt and Eddie Marsan. 

I hope to post up another collection of character actors in the third and final season of ‘Take Three’, which will begin again in February 2012 – with more favourites, more unknowns and more variety. Until then, let’s hear your thoughts on ‘Take Three’ season 2 and who you would like to see featured next year...

Take Three: Paul Dano

Craig from Dark Eye Socket here with Take Three. Today: Paul Dano

Take One: The King (2006)
Disgruntled discharged Navy man Gael García Bernal rules the roost in James Marsh’s dark religion-themed indie The King. But Dano, as the dutiful square peg brother/son in the family Bernal infiltrates, does attempt a one-man, god-fuelled backyard coup, much to his own expense. The film is partly a hothouse take on Cain & Able and partly a nod to bad-couple movies like Badlands (brooding Bernal and Sissy Spacek-a-like Pell James doing bad things in cars). Dano’s Paul Sandlow, a pastor's son, sings and plays guitar in a Jesus-heavy, quality-light church rock band. That’s when he’s not pressuring the school heads into accepting his curriculum on Intelligent Design over Evolution. Paul’s doe-eyed sappiness appears to hide a certain cleverness yet, oddly, he’s one of the most sympathetic personalities in the film.

Dano’s performance is savvy. His dorky, modest Jesus freak teeters around the periphery of the action – spouting glassy-eyed school speeches about Him upstairs, defining smugness in a four-wheel-drive graduation gift – until emerging prominently as the plot hots up. Dano plays it all with a calm curiosity. By intuitively holding back, he manages to convey more, swerving cliché to deliver a turn replete with discomforting nuance. He may be a timid teen in a Christ crisis, but the threat of censure glints in his eye. He shouldn’t have banked on the promise of a “brother’s” honour. After his fateful face-off with Bernal halfway in, Paul’s merely a face on a missing poster and the subject of Bernal’s less-than-guilty conscience. But he makes each scene count before being sent down the river.

Take Two: Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
Dano must love dust. He’s sure seen enough of the stuff on screen in recent years. He saw blood and oil spilt in it in There Will Be Blood (see below) and stomped soil on the pioneer trail for Kelly Reichardt in Meek’s Cutoff earlier this year. And in theatres over the past few weeks he’s been kicking up a fuss in the stuff in genre mashup Cowboys & Aliens. Dano pops up early on as Percy Dolarhyde, the troublesome drunk son to local grump-on-horseback Harrison Ford. Their rocky filial relationship is a part of the background to the alien-busting action. But when Percy is lassoed by the rootin’ tootin’ extra terrestrial braggarts, and whisked away for some probably dubious shenanigans, it allows Ford’s character some plot momentum.

I missed Dano’s slapdash spoiled and cowardly presence, though, and wished he’d stayed for the duration. The movie required a dependable human villain throughout, to split the difference between the ramshackle townsfolk and the interstellar menace. A late, cheeky crowbar plot device means that we can’t resume our hiss-boo heckles at Percy’s clumsy tomfoolery, but at least he re-enters the movie. In his meagre handful of scenes Dano shoots it up then shrieks it up with barmy abandon. Percy is ultimately sold short, but Dano adds another fine small performance to his filmography. As a now well-established yet still young character actor he’s continuing to pay his dues in often largely peripheral roles. Cowboys & Aliens shows, alongside Meek’s Cutoff, that he’s cornered the market in sly and sheepish movie-dust slingers.

Take Three: There Will Be Blood (2007)
It took two roles (brothers Paul and Eli Sunday) for Dano to go up against maniacal oil plunderer Daniel Day-Lewis (as Daniel Plainview) in Paul Thomas Anderson’s explosively oily There Will Be Blood. The religion theme is again present but here Dano’s graduated to fully-fledged preacher. The role very nearly wasn’t his, however. Dano only had a few days to rehearse his role as Eli, the bigger of his two parts. Kel O'Neill was originally cast, but was replaced with Dano (who was only originally down to play the smaller role of Paul) two weeks into the shoot; a total of three weeks of scenes featuring Eli and Plainview had to be re-shot with Dano instead of O'Neill. However, any casting interruptions don’t at all impede him on screen. If anything, the immediacy adds to the fevered vitality of his performance.

Paul Sunday's polite staccato-voiced calm is miles away from the disingenuously bilious bluster of Eli Sunday. Dano expertly differentiates his roles, but also allows small drip-fed shreds of doubt to enter into both Plainview’s and the audience’s minds: are they both the same brother? Neither we, nor Plainview, ever truly know. Eli’s scenes of evangelism, his casting devils out of the congregation with screams that seem to break his voice and weird, fierce strain-faced air grabs, are riveting. He’s scarily good, too, in the epilogue, when he visits Plainview with an offer. When Plainview asks “I want you to tell me you’re a false prophet,” Dano’s unblinking, knowing gaze is priceless; one expression reveals the core falsity of Eli’s faith. His opportunism and barely-concealed weakness, here as elsewhere in the film, tells us just as much about what Anderson was striving for as Day-Lewis’ performance does. Dano didn’t strike gold like Day-Lewis did, but he mined the film for all its worth – and, through one means or another, he made good on the promise of that title.

Three more films for the taking: L.I.E. (2001), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), The Extra Man (2010)