← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · AntiYuppie
Thread ID: 17877 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2005-04-20
2005-04-20 21:26 | User Profile
Sobran is one of the best commentators on the sad decline of cinema over the past few decades. However, he doesn't go far enough here - it's not just that today's pretty boy stars cannot speak eloquently or memorably, most of the time they barely even utter anything coherent due to a combination of their own incompetence and vacuous scripts. -AY
THE LOST ART OF SPEAKING April 5, 2005
by Joe Sobran
Not long ago, I read that Hollywood is worried about
a shortage of young male stars who can play big roles. I'm not surprised. And I think I can give the chief reason in a single word: voices.
Think of the great male stars of the past: Humphrey
Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne, Fredric March, Ronald Colman, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, William Powell, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Richard Burton, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Gregory Peck, Montgomery Clift. They weren't all pretty boys, though Cooper, Grant, Colman, Olivier, Peck, and Clift were extraordinarily good-looking; but they all had memorable voices. You can't picture them without recalling how they sounded. Nothing conveys personality so fully as the voice.
Burton's and Welles's resonant voices are legendary;
but, as with the others, what was distinctive was less the timbre than their delivery. They put their stamp on every line they spoke. All these old stars did. Mimics loved them.
And today? There are plenty of handsome,
ingratiating young stars -- Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Colin Farrell -- but few of them have either good voices or recognizable styles of speaking. Their speech can only be called forgettable. That's why they can't play heroic roles convincingly; they can only play kids. You can hardly imagine them in serious conversation. Can you imagine any of these hunks carrying CASABLANCA, REBECCA, or FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, or holding his own with actresses like Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, or Myrna Loy? The mimics must be starving.
A notable exception is George Clooney, who combines
good looks with a fine voice and real wit. He may be the best-equipped actor in Hollywood today, equal to both serious drama and romantic comedy. He knows what to do with a good line. Still, he lacks the special touch of the great old stars. Maybe it's that the scripts aren't what they used to be.
Another exception is Hugh Grant, who also has looks
and voice and is probably the most charming actor in films today. It may help that he comes from England, where people tend to speak in complete sentences, sometimes without obscenities.
For the most part, only a few aging stars have
riveting manners of speech that force you to listen: Paul Newman, Robert De Niro, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Clint Eastwood, and above all Jack Nicholson. Give Nicholson a decent script, and he'll still bring down the house. Just by talking. Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman also bring a measured conviction to every word they speak.
Ah, those scripts. In the old days, and let us not
hesitate to call them the =good= old days, literate men like Morrie Ryskind, William Faulkner, Scott Fitzgerald, James Agee, and Raymond Chandler wrote screenplays worthy of the best actors. Today's writers are a pretty sorry lot, and anyway dialogue now plays a smaller part than violence and special effects. By the time the script reaches the screen it has been worked over by so many hacks that any inspiration in the original has usually been edited out. Many of the wittiest scripts in Hollywood today are written for animated films -- TOY STORY and SHREK, for example.
Many of the old stars also moved with a physical
grace that is now rare. Cary Grant had been an acrobat, and it showed in his moments of slapstick; he brought consummate skill to looking awkward. Cagney started out as a dancer, and his agility made him exciting in his violent roles. Burton had been a star athlete. Olivier was the most charismatic stage actor of the last century; Agee wrote of him, "No actor since Chaplin has been so complete a master of everything the body can contribute to a role."
Brad Pitt beefed up impressively as Achilles in
TROY, but it takes more than muscles to make a powerful screen presence; an actor has to be able to suggest danger even in repose. Marlon Brando could be ominous when he was merely chewing a matchstick -- or just listening quietly. Pitt never conveys heroism except in a few violent moments; he doesn't grasp the truth of Artur Schnabel's remark that you have to play Mozart =between= the notes. A real artist knows how to use silence.
But the most popular male star in film history
remains the one who captivated the world without speaking a word: Chaplin.
2005-04-20 21:49 | User Profile
I watched a show a few years ago that claimed that older writers have trouble finding work. The entertainment industry wants mostly 20-somethings to do their writing. Better hip than smart?
ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX have nothing I want to watch. They've lost me completley and probably forever. Even if they managed to have a good show, I wouldn't know about it because I don't even flip past those channels. I'm about to ditch satellite. There's a few good things to watch, but I'm tired of all the erectile drug commercials, among other things.
2005-04-20 22:10 | User Profile
I am also happy to report that my TV watching has collapsed during the recent two years - many days can go without me getting even an urge to open the "boob-tube."
Petr
2005-04-23 18:04 | User Profile
Excellent column, AY--Sobran's always superb when he writes on film...wish he'd squander less ink on that crackpotty Shakespeare/Bacon speculation, though.
Note that all of the memorably-voiced actors named are either 1). Pre-Brando or 2). Brits.
The acting methods of Stanislavsky came to dominate Hollywood following WWII--the best known U.S. exponent of that school was Lee Strasberg (who depicted the Lansky/Roth character in the Godfather movies).
Mumbling came to be associated with "authenticity"--clear diction with affectation. Clooney is a rare exception (his mother's singing career undoubtedly made him more conscious of the value of Voice).
2005-04-23 18:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]I watched a show a few years ago that claimed that older writers have trouble finding work. The entertainment industry wants mostly 20-somethings to do their writing. Better hip than smart?[/QUOTE] I have read the same thing. The late Paddy Chayefsky (Network) used to comment on it, and I read the same comments from a guy on FR who did screenplays.
Movies these days seem to be all about imagery and special effects. And, of course, the omnipresent feminization and blackification.
2005-04-23 20:31 | User Profile
Hollywood should be boycotted as a rule. And whites should act as a group not going to see anti-white movies. Why subsidize the people who want your culture and kind dissolved in the subhuman sea?