Pacino/DeNiro/Nicholson
In my youth, these three men were considered to be great actors.
Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Chinatown, The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Mean Streets, Good Fellas, Scarface.
And now, not so much. Oh, perhaps the occasional Kevorkian or About Schmidt, but on the whole.... Did they settle too easily for whatever came along? Were they not quite the actors we thought they were, did the style change? Like many actresses, did they need youth on their side.
Now we still get excellent work from Robert Duval, Gene Hackman, Tommy Lee Jones, Dustin Hoffman. But these were more character actors than the three kings.
Is it the character actor that has the longer career? What do you think?
36 comments:
I think it's a combination of things. I think Hollywood is ageist. As an actor or actress you only have a certain amount of time that you're a viable candidate for decent roles. Then there's nothing until you get older and you're eligible for the aging whatever or the retiring whatever or the grandparent. Actresses have it far far worse on the age front. If you do action movies, I think you can eek it out a little longer; though they'll usually pair the older male actor with a female actress that looks young enough to be their daughter.
I think it's also about the name recognition now and not so much the performance. There's tons of actors and actresses who get roles that always amaze me, since they're terrible and it seems like no one ever sees anything they're in.
Too, I think there's a huge amount of just phoning it in. I think all three of these men stopped acting a long, long time ago and now just play themselves. Sometimes it works thanks to their charisma. Most of the time, however, it's like watching an SNL skit.
And I wonder how much of it is money. Just taking something for the paycheck. I mean, Daniel Day Lewis still does great work but he's probably acted in, what, a fourth of the movies that any one of these three have done.
I agree that the three have made some embarrassing films. I assume they need to work and their choices are limited. Of course, actresses of that age simply disappear, with the exception of Helen Mirren--and her last couple of parts haven't been worthy of her.
Oh to see these guys act in natural lighting shot with hand held cameras in movies made by Lumet, Rafelson, Cimino and Scorsese. Yeah, they were something back then starring in movies that today, would be considered minor hits. Hollywood was always about money but It wasn't always about multi billions.
Most of the movies you mention took place during a ten year blip (Goodfellas and Scarface were later) when Hollywood wasn't really sure the best way to make money and took its cues from both New Wave and Drive-in filmmaking. So they would fund all sorts of low budget films.
The screenwriters and directors who made these guys famous have also gone flabby. They can't all buy vineyards.
Hollywood makes mostly trivial movies now. There are very few challenging roles today. And, your three kings occasionally took roles for the money (I'm thinking about Nicholson as The Joker).
Yes, I think they have made huge mistakes in doing too many films for the money--especially DeNiro whose recent films are just appalling.
And so true, Dan the kind of directors that made these films are dead or have also had to make lesser works.
Yes, making a lot less films would have made for a more noteworthy career.
I don't think that Dustin Hoffman is a character actor. But I do think that Clint Eastwood is one and he's taken very good care of his career and his Eastwood "character."
I guess I am thinking of Barney's Version and Stranger Than Fiction where he actually got to play a character unlike himself and not the leading part.
I know I"ve seen these guys in things recently but don't really remember much. I guess de niro was in LImitless and he did OK, but as someone said, he just played his usual self.
I don't think that Harrison Ford is considered a "great actor" by the critics although "Regarding Henry" almost won him an acadamy award. But he has had a very long leading man career and has probably made more money than the three "great actors" combined and he is still working today. However, he may have jumped the shark in "Cowboys and Aliens" (which I have yet to see) if not before this film.
I agree with much of what has been said about the quality of movies and parts that might be available to these actors, and how that may affect the caliber of their performances. (Though I think something happened to Pacino when he made SCARFACE. He's never been the same since.)
Where I think we are often unfair to actors is in criticizing how they choose their roles. Actors act. It's what they do; their job. They want to woprk, I say work.I'll evaluate thier performance in the context in which it was delivered.
That being said, their work has become inconsistent over time. Part of the criticism may be due to the high standard they set in their primes, and part of it is because we know them so well now we can't help but think "That's Jack Nicholson playing The Joker."
Patti is absolutely right about her second list of actors. What may set these guys apoart is their willingness to expand the types of roles they'll take, exercising their craft muscles. Check out Dustin Hoffman in playing the crime boss in CONFIDENCE. Fantastic.
I think actors that play in thrillers may actually have longer careers and that may be true of Eastwood as well. It is far easy to find parts as there are so many thrillers.
I am not sure I saw CONFIDENCE. Have to check it out. I think when Hoffman took the role he did in MIDNIGHT COWBOY it opened the door for him to play diverse parts over the years.
Character actors by definition have longer careers. Robert DeNiro eased into character parts years ago and now appears in quite a few films, far more than either Pacino or Nicholson. Some of them are not very good films, but at least he's in constant demand. Same with Dustin Hoffman (CONFIDENCE was an excellent movie).
Actors who try to hang on to their vanishing youth nearly always pay the price. One that comes to mind is Tony Curtis. He never wanted to transition into character roles, so when he reached middle age, his career was effectively over.
But the parts DeNiro plays now will just erode the notion he was a good actor.
Something odd happened to Tony Curtis as he got older. He got "campy." I think that hurt him.
Have to check my library for CONFIDENCE. Oh, netflix, why did you forsake me.
With all three of those men, they got bigger than the characters they were playing. You don't see the characters, you see them. Character actors tend to become their characters, one the reasons we don't remember their names, but the parts the play always stick with us.
People change. Stay hungry but don't get fat.
They got fat. But if someone offered me $8 million to write the same story I wrote last month with new names, I'd be hard pressed not to take it, just as these guys do.
But what I would think is that they would guard their legacy at this point. That you can only spend so much money so why not take the high route and play for pride. It is probably too late for these three, but maybe their carelessness will be a lesson to today's princes.
Well, now that you have cable with Showtime, look on your on-demand menu. I've certainly been spending too much time this weekend, when not sleeping, watching the ShowCase channel (Showtime's 'indy'-trending channel).
Pacino and Nicholson really got rich enough not to have to care, and they, like Brando, letter their inner ham fly...and we know how well pigs fly.
De Niro has always done at least some bad films, and I think he enjoys keeping busy. I'd suggest he is probably still trying to fund his various arts ventures, and he still tries to do One For Himself in the sequence...EVERYBODY'S FINE and MACHETE were good work, no matter how trifling KILLER ELITE and the Fokker films are.
Or even let their inner hams fly. Hm.
What are these guys like in interviews? I've seen DeNiro interviewed (I forget by whom), and he was quite taken with himself. I must say, I do love Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones. Love them.
Oh for sure, the character actor has the longest career. No question. I think these sorts of actors don't have as much 'face' ego and are willing to accommodate parts, taking pleasure, I think, in the acting challenge.
Many characters actors somehow seem to live forever. :)
A steady income doesn't hurt either.
I was NEVER a fan of the three Kings you mention. Disliked all three intensely. To me everything they did was brutish and stereotypical.
Phil mentioned Marlon Brando on our walk today. How he was an earlier version of these three.
I liked those movies a lot but I can see how some would not. I think they may look stereotypical now but at the time...what were they stereotypes of?
In the case of DeNiro, I think I read or saw an interview with him where he said he wanted to do light stuff. I absolutely ADORE Gene Hackman. I can watch Hoosiers over and over and over again, and still enjoy Runaway Jury and The Chamber. Hackman is wonderfully scary even when he's trying to be/look and act normal. :) I think DeNiro is funny but I've hated seeing him take the Burt Reynold's route. But in the case of all these guys, I don't know if they make 'em like that anymore.
This is probably the #1 problem. They don't make that many movies like that anymore. And they'd have to settle for playing the parts that Ned Beatty or M. Emmett Walsh played.
Oh yes, I think charactor actors have longer careers - at least they are the ones I love watching for decades. Nicholson was great in One Flew Over the Cuckoo´s Nest, but for ages I have felt he as exactly the same person no matter which film I saw him in.
Meryl Streep seems is a chameleon actor who seems to have managed to walk the fine line between lead and character actor, and has managed her profile and reputation well over the years, for the most part avoiding turkey films that are purely cash vehicles. Perhaps Denzel Washington has managed the same on the male side.
Oh, yes. One Flew Over was terrific. I even like Meryl in Mama Mia-and that's saying something. She is always credible.
Meryl Streep is the rare exception on so many levels. I liked her in Mamma Mia too.
What did I mean by stereotypical? I meant that these three always (a generalization, I know) seemed to me to be doing the same sort of work. For instance, all those criminally inclined types.
Plus early on they seemed to trying to go Brando one better.
Robert DeNiro looks like a thug, so I suppose it's very difficult for him to do lighthearted stuff now. His appearance works against him.
I agree with Dorte. Same/old, same/old.
I know I'm in the minority. :)
No, I see what you mean. Not as if they were copying earlier male leads, but having a sort of p*ssing contest with each other. And that may be true.
You want a character actor with longevity? Charles Lane started acting in the early 1930s and continued almost until his death in 2007 at age 102. You've seen him. He's the hawk-featured guy that usually played a skinflint or curmudgeon.
I think Duvall (The Godfather & Apocalypse Now); Hackman (Mississippi Burning & The French Connection); Tommy Lee Jones (No Country for Old Men, The Fugitive & Men in Black); and Dustin Hoffman (Tootsie & Rain Man) are as good if not better than the three kings, which makes them more than character actors. These four actors are underrated in spite of their impressive body of work. They may seem to play second fiddle to some of the top-billed actors but for me they are right on top of the heap.
DeNiro has been painful the last dozen years, it seems (maybe longer). I always wonder if they're paying back favors (or just doing favors) lending their names to some of the garbage they're involved in. I'd say DeNiro is most guilty, then Pacino and then Nicholson, although I'll still watch a Nicholson movie if I haven't seen it (there are a few) but I won't pay to do so.
I looked him up and I must have seen him dozens of times but never knew his name. Painful is a good word to describe it. Desperate another.
I agree Prashant but it took us a look time to realize it.
I think it's harder for women to transition, because Hollywood simply uses fewer women over 40, or even 30.
Right now I'm hooked on the ABC series Revenge, and it's because Madeleine Stowe is the hottest evil matriarch ever. This role completes her transition, because 25 years ago she played the weakwilled daughter of Jane Alexander's evil matriarch in the miniseries Blood and Orchids.
I love Charles Lane! Posted about him on my blog a while back.
He was in every movie ever made.
Almost. :)
You see old movies from the early 1930's, there is Charles Lane. You see television shows from 10 years ago and he was still hanging in, doing a professional job.
Hoffman was as much a leading man as any of them - he has two Best Actor Oscars, remember - but in recent years he's gone for small, quirky fun parts, like the one Patti mentioned, BARNEY'S VERSION. I did love him in WAG THE DOG, too.
Nicholson almost always plays himself these days, with the occasional ABOUT SCHMIDT as an exception, but DeNiro is an embarrassment, what with all those hideous Fokker movies. I developed a lot more respect for his past work reading Richard Schickel's interviews with Scorsese but these days he's just pathetic most of the time.
There was always a Good Pacino and a Bad Pacino (the one he won his Oscar for was the latter) but at least he tries different stuff these days, and keeps up his stage presence.
Agree with everyone's remarks on Hackman. He was terrifying in UNFORGIVEN, and THE CONVERSATION remains a favorite.
Jeff M.
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