As a movie lover, I find few things more satisfying –
or frustrating – than following the careers of actors I like. First, there are
the promising up-and-comers, like Saoirse Ronan, Emile Hirsch, Josh Hutcherson
and Garrett Hedlund, among others, who will
(hopefully) blossom into the next generation’s A-list. Then, there are the
already established thespians who, for whatever reason, haven’t been living up
to their potential. I can list dozens of actors that I think are infinitely
superior to the work they’ve been putting out lately or have faded from the
limelight and deserve more attention: Russell Crowe, Edward Norton, Jodie
Foster, Denzel Washington, Kate Hudson (though at this point, I’m starting to
wonder if Almost Famous really was a
fluke), Guy Pearce, etc., etc. I can guarantee you that every film buff alive
has spent the past two decades wishing that Robert De Niro would return to his Taxi Driver/Raging Bull glory days.
Thank you, Ridley Scott, for getting my hopes up.
But maybe more than anybody else, I would love for Tom
Cruise to remind audiences why he used to be the biggest movie star on the
planet.
Ironically, the things that most people dislike about Cruise
– his immense fame and influence, his highly publicized yet strangely enigmatic
personal life, his complete lack of self-consciousness – are part of why I find
him so fascinating. I’ve personally never quite understood the fuss over a
certain couch-jumping incident; yeah, it’s weird, awkward and maybe a tad
self-indulgent, but as far as celebrity scandals go, it isn’t exactly a racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic
tirade caught on tape or a conviction for drugging and raping a 13-year-old
girl, which apparently still gets you a
petition of support from your colleagues who think that your unparalleled talent
as a film-maker should pardon you from arrest. Anyway, the vast majority of
people nowadays (at least judging by Internet message boards, which should
always be taken with the utmost seriousness) may think of Cruise as a
couch-jumping, secretly gay, lunatic Scientologist, but to me, he’s
still the kid who slid across the room in his underwear to the tune of Bob
Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” in Risky
Business, poised on the verge of instant stardom. Even back then, he had this
feverish intensity, this effortless self-confidence, that was hypnotic
to watch, somehow seeming both vaguely superficial and entirely natural. I
don’t think it’s a stretch to say that, after the passing of Elizabeth Taylor
last year, Cruise may be the last genuine movie star alive.
R.I.P (1932-2011)
The entertainment media
has been doing a lot of doomsday prophesizing throughout the past decade; the
21st century has apparently heralded the death of originality, of
celluloid, of network television, of the film/TV/ music industry in general
and, most relevant to this blog post, of movie stars. Whereas it’s easy to
dismiss, say, the imminent death of originality as exaggeration (there will
always be artists with creative visions and the tenacity to fulfill them, even
in a business so dominated by, well, business), the concept of a movie star
truly is a
thing of the past. No matter how desperately the tabloids want to turn Brad
Pitt and Angelina Jolie into the modern-day Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, the
fact is that, for all their glamour and transcendent beauty, Pitt and Jolie
simply don’t have the same mystical allure as their supposed predecessors.
They’re too nice, too approachable, too normal.
When most people think of movie stars, they think of
paparazzi, high-class couture and comically large paychecks. Yet being a movie
star is about more than fame, fashion and wealth: it’s about presence. It’s about that charisma, that
elusive “It” quality that certain people just seem to radiate like sunshine. In
the heyday of the studio era, which lasted until about the 1960s, movie stars
weren’t treated as mere performers so much as idols, superhuman figures who
possessed everything that us plebians could only dream of, perfection
incarnate. People like Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly and Clark Gable weren’t
loved; they were admired, worshipped. When people went to see a movie, they
went not because they necessarily cared about the plot but because they wanted
to see Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on screen together. They had a
surreal aura, like gods inviting us to observe – but not experience – their
fantasy world.
Recently, however, the wall between them and us has turned
to glass; it still exists, but it no longer feels impenetrable. This is an era
in which “ordinary” people can communicate directly with celebrities via social
media sites like Twitter and Facebook, separated only by the barrier of
Internet anonymity; an era in which anyone can become world-famous simply by
posting a 10-minute video on YouTube or joining a reality TV show on Bravo; an
era in which every meaningless gesture, off-the-cuff quote and minor anecdote
is shoved through the 24-hour news cycle to be repeated, analyzed and discussed
by entertainment magazines, bloggers and random Tumblr addicts ad infinitum until
it resembles cud that’s passed through all four chambers of a cow’s stomach.
Fame no longer belongs only to the elite. The word has been cheapened to the
point of worthlessness, often less a sign of talent or appeal than of one’s eagerness
to embarrass oneself and look like a complete bitch/douchebag on national TV. We
now know that – shocker – celebrities are people too, not all that different
from you and me. If you’ve seen a reasonable amount of talk show interviews,
you’d probably know that most famous people are about as interesting as your
aunt and uncle (if your aunt and uncle are actually really cool people who
spend their weekends sky-diving or whatever, then good for you).
Ladies and gentlemen: the modern celebrity.
The sad truth is that movie stars have become more or less
irrelevant. Name recognition still has some value (a movie starring Leonardo
DiCaprio has a much better chance of being greenlit than one with a cast full
of no-names), but most modern audiences don’t watch movies because they want to
see actors; they go because they want to see whatever hyped-up sequel/eagerly
anticipated adaptation/fluffy rom-com/kid-friendly cartoon happens to be
playing at the moment. Blockbusters like The
Dark Knight and The Hunger Games
would be hits regardless of who played Batman and Katniss because more often
than not, people identify actors according to their characters, rather than the
other way around, and Batman is always going to be Batman, no matter who is
behind the mask. Hollywood seems constantly baffled by the fact that the
involvement of a popular, A-list actor doesn’t magically turn any movie into
box office gold, but it should come as no surprise that audiences didn’t flock
to the theaters for Will Smith’s turn as a sad sack IRS agent
seeking redemption for some mysterious crime or that Robert Pattinson’s
only successful movies so far are the Twilight
installments: people want to see Smith kick ass and Pattinson sparkle;
otherwise, nada. Whereas before, movies revolved almost entirely around actors,
relying on the stars’ names to draw in crowds, nowadays, the success of a film
largely hinges on the strength of its marketing campaign and its ability to pander
to lure in the target demographic.
Now
that the illusion, the belief in the innate superiority of the rich and famous,
has been shattered, we expect movie stars to behave less like shallow,
narcissistic divas and more like, well, us. We praise them for being amiable,
easy-going, down-to-earth, modest and basically just as “normal” as possible;
they’ve gone from objects of blind adoration to ordinary humans we like to
imagine we could be friends with. If anything, people nowadays regard actors
with a trace of skepticism. Especially considering the current state of the
economy, it seems woefully ignorant, even distasteful, to continue treating them
like royalty for essentially getting paid to play dress-up.
On anyone else, this would look ridiculous, but on Tom
Hiddleston, it’s badass.
No wonder it’s become cool to dislike successful,
high-profile celebrities: with their ridiculous amount of wealth and privilege,
they represent everything that’s wrong with our fame-obsessed culture (this is
a society in which entertainers earn more than doctors; is that not just a
little bit messed up?). It seems as though the higher a person climbs up the
A-list, the more people claim that they, for whatever reason, can’t stand him
or her. When an actor first breaks out, everyone clambers to swoon over her
incredible talent, her uncanny sense of instinct, her beguiling beauty and mature-beyond-her-years
poise, but once she truly reaches stardom – the mainstream, if you will – then,
she’s suddenly overhyped, unconvincing, an entitled [insert slur of choice]
who’s only popular because of her looks, etcetera. People like Brad Pitt and George
Clooney may be world-famous movie stars, but they’re not real actors. Because of their exposure, they’re somehow less
authentic, less believable.
Not
all of this is necessarily bad. In fact, it’s probably about time we stopped
pretending that celebrities are somehow special or important. Still (and maybe
this is just me), there’s something alluring about the idea of movie stars,
actors so forceful and charismatic that they can dominate the room – or rather,
the screen – simply by existing, simultaneously vivid and self-possessed yet detached
and inscrutable. I’m always somewhat bemused by people who claim that Tom
Cruise can’t act. Sure, he hasn’t exactly been setting the world on fire these
past few years; his most noteworthy role since 2005 is his extended cameo in Tropic Thunder (for which he was
inexplicably nominated for a Golden Globe; maybe the HFPA loved this line as much as I
did), though I still think that Valkyrie
is a perfectly good film. And like every actor, he’s had a handful of mediocre
performances (see: The Last Samurai,
the first two Mission: Impossible movies,
that ‘80s high school football movie whose title I can’t be bothered to
remember). But even more often, his presence has turned otherwise second-rate
movies into good or slightly less second-rate fare: in addition to Tropic Thunder, there’s Collateral, Vanilla Sky, Interview with a
Vampire and Born on the Fourth of
July, among others. His best performances – Rain Man, Jerry Maguire
and Magnolia – are characterized by a
mixture of brash arrogance and repressed self-doubt that’s thrilling to watch
precisely because it draws from his
real-life persona. On one level, maybe he is just “playing himself” (whatever
that means), but on another level, it really doesn’t matter.
Also, the guy is almost fifty. Fifty.
As much as I like many of them, I haven’t seen many newcomers who can bring that same electricity to the screen. I’ve seen flashes of
it here and there – Carey Mulligan in An
Education, Michael Fassbender in X-Men:
First Class, Anne Hathaway in Rachel
Getting Married - and I can easily see Ryan Gosling growing into a legitimate movie star, as he has been captivating in everything from 2002’s
otherwise unremarkable Murder by Numbers
to last year’s Crazy, Stupid, Love
(even his indie roles like Half-Nelson
and Blue Valentine have a certain
star quality to them). Yet there’s something a
bit too refined, too unobtrusive about young actors today, as if they don’t
want to be noticed. I mean, modesty is all well and good, but for once, I don’t
want someone nice. I want the Bryce
Harper of actors: someone daring, energetic, precocious and maybe
just a little cocky.
And
that’s why I’m disappointed by Rock of
Ages, which, according to almost
everyone, does not rock. It isn’t as though I expected the movie to be
good, seeing as it has the most arbitrary cast I’ve ever seen this side of a
Garry Marshall rom-com, but some part of me – the not-so-secret romantic who belts
out “Don’t Stop Believing” at the top of my lungs whenever it comes on the
radio – had a smidgeon of hope. A Hollywood musical paying tribute to cheesy hair-metal
rock of the ‘80s? How could it not be
amazing? Even more, though, I couldn’t wait to see Tom Cruise go all-out insane
as an egotistical, disillusioned rock star; it may be stunt casting, but it
seemed like the perfect comeback role, promising a return to the winking
self-deprecation and pompous swagger that Cruise is known for. I hope that
sometime, he gets that fourth Oscar nomination, and I can tell the haters “I
told you so”, but for now, I’m just going to listen to awesome ‘80s songs and imagine
the fun, tragic, nostalgia-fused, Darren Aronofsky-meets-Cameron Crowe tour de
force that Rock of Ages should have
been.
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