Too Brassy: Alec Baldwin

At one point in Ian Parker’s sympathetic yet pointed feature on Alec Baldwin, for the September 8 issue of The New Yorker, the popular actor laments his lack of headliner parts in big-ticket films. Recalling Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of Howard Hughes in The Aviator, the Martin Scorsese-directed biopic in which he costarred, Baldwin remarks: “To be Leo! To have a huge role like that! To play the role that is the fizz in the drink, you know what I mean? You are the movie! I wish I could play the lead role in one movie, one great movie.”

Thus far, he’s right, he hasn’t. Sure, Baldwin has starred in movies. And he’s made huge impressions in movies. But almost never at the same time. He was Jack Ryan in The Hunt For Red October but was dwarfed by Sean Connery. He costarred with Antony Hopkins in The Edge but was less memorable than a grizzly bear. He had perhaps his most tailor-made leading part in Malice, but the movie wasn’t worth anything beyond his performance, and not many people saw it. Meantime, Baldwin has just one scene in Glengarry Glen Ross and is unforgettable. His performance in The Cooler (no relation) was recognized with an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, yet the film was largely overlooked. When Baldwin is big, the movie is small. When the movie is big, Baldwin’s role is small.

The pattern is obvious, but prior to reading Parker’s well-written article – the rare Hollywood profile that doesn’t begin with the author mentioning the restaurant he’s sitting in and the outfit the celeb is wearing – I hadn’t picked up on it. Baldwin has been a star for so long that it’s easy to assume there must have been a string of hits somewhere in the past (ala Michael Douglas, for example). But, no. Given Baldwin’s string of solid supporting performances in The Last Shot, The Aviator and The Departed, and now his scene-stealing part on the critically acclaimed TV sitcom 30 Rock, Baldwin is arguably at the peak of his career. Yet his comments to Parker reveal how disappointed Baldwin is with his view atop this somewhat modest summit.

Of course, it should be noted that whining appears to be part of Baldwin’s nature. Fear, on the other hand, is not. Remembering his father, Baldwin says: “My father wasn’t a violent or mean-spirited person, but he was a very strict disciplinarian in school and he knew that some of these kids only understood one thing … The older I got, I learned to behave as he did, which was not to be afraid of anybody. And I’m not afraid of anybody. Wherever I go, I don’t have a drop of fear in my whole body. Never. Never.”

For Baldwin the actor, that’s a problem. In parts big and small, there’s an unmistakable Baldwin-ness to all of his characters. Jack Nicholson has developed a famous (and frequently irksome) Jack-ness in his performances, but as recently as 2002’s About Schmidt he showed himself capable of stepping out of it. Baldwin always seems to have the brass balls of his Glengarry Glen Ross persona. It’s hard to tell where the actor ends and the character begins. Meanwhile, to think of DiCaprio in The Aviator is to remember the scene where the obsessive-compulsive and germ-phobic Hughes finds himself trapped in a restaurant restroom, unable to touch the door handle. When DiCaprio stares at the handle, he looks like a man in prison. If Baldwin were to do it, you might expect the doorknob to explode under the power of his intense gaze.

This is what I was thinking as I read Parker’s article. And then, to my surprise, Baldwin reveals that he sees his unwavering intensity as a problem, too:

“Do you want to know the truth?” Baldwin said to me not long ago. “I don’t think I really have a talent for movie acting. I’m not bad at it, but I don’t think I really have a talent for it.” He described the film actor’s need to project strength and weakness simultaneously. “Nicholson’s my idol this way. Pacino. There’s a mix you have to have where the character is vulnerable, the character is up against it, but there’s still a glimmer of resourcefulness in his eye—you look at him and the character is telegraphing to you this is not going to last very long. ‘I’m down’—Randle McMurphy, Serpico, whatever it is—‘but it’s not going to last, I’m still going to figure my way out of this.’” In contrast, he referred to Orson Welles. “Welles was a powerful actor, but he wasn’t always a great actor,” Baldwin said, with, perhaps, a faint nod to his own career. “Even when Welles was lost, he was arrogant.”

Baldwin’s self-awareness in this regard is refreshing. And the more I saw his personality revealed by Parker, the more I began to wonder if his narrow onscreen dynamism might be the result of something more than a lack of fear. Perhaps, just perhaps, the man – opinionated, arrogant, thoughtful, brash, sulking, pompous, etc. – is too complex to hide behind the façade of a character. Gene Siskel’s favorite tool for evaluating a film – cited frequently by Roger Ebert – was to ask himself whether the movie was as interesting as a documentary of the same actors having lunch. When it comes to Baldwin, it’s as if he’s still waiting for the role more complicated and compelling than he is. Baldwin isn’t someone I’d like to have lunch with, but he sure makes a fascinating subject from afar.

“WTF?!” - Fight Club

I couldn’t make it through my initial viewing of 1999’s Fight Club without being sick. The problem wasn’t the considerable violence that drew the scorn of critics, it was something I ate. Somewhere between the formation of Project Mayhem and the death of Robert Paulson, I realized I couldn’t sit in the theater anymore. I bailed, leaving my friends behind. This was sacrilege, walking out on a movie, but the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach wasn’t regret, it was stomach flu.

More than an hour into it, Fight Club had failed to grab me. I had been intrigued at times but never engaged. In most circumstances I would have headed right back to the theater the next day to finish what I had started. But the next day came and I did nothing. A week went by. Then a month. I passed on completing Fight Club right on through the rest of its theatrical run, eventually borrowing it on DVD from a friend who couldn’t stop talking about it.

That friend, Brew, was thrilled about Fight Club. And he wasn’t alone. I was. Among guys our age – early 20s then – Fight Club was something of an instant classic. I’d call it an instant cult classic now, because I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that it ever took deep roots among general audiences, but at the time it was the movie to see and to discuss, at least on my college campus. Based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk and directed with slick grittiness by David Fincher, Fight Club had people debating its philosophies while admiring its aesthetics (including women, who accepted the blood and violence as part of the cost of admission to see a shirtless Brad Pitt if nothing else).

When I eventually watched Fight Club on DVD, I was familiarly equivocal. It looked nice and it talked a big game, and the performances were commanding, but it didn’t speak to me. 1999 was the year of American Beauty, Magnolia and Being John Malkovich. It was the year of The Insider, Boys Don’t Cry and The Sixth Sense. These films felt worth pondering, not necessarily in that order. Fight Club felt as deep as a frat party. And yet its base of ardent fans was, and is, undeniable.

So when I started my “WTF?!” series with The Big Lebowski, I knew which film would be next. And rather than shout my confusion into empty space, I decided to take it to the source. Last week, I watched Fight Club again. So did my buddy Brew. What follows is our ensuing conversation over e-mail.

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[Warning: Nothing but major spoilers ahead, plus some graphic imagery from yours truly. Do not read this post if you haven’t seen the movie.]


JB: Last week I watched Fight Club for the first time in about seven years. When recently I decided to give it another chance, to try and dig down and discover the appeal that had eluded me, I was surprised to discover that many critics from the top national papers had slammed Fight Club upon its release. Though I recalled controversy over the film’s violence, that’s certainly not the response I had remembered. We’re both 31, and among guys our age I think it’s fair to say that the movie was an instant classic. If the first two rules of Fight Club (no italics) are “Don’t talk about Fight Club,” the first two rules of Fight Club (with italics) seemed to be “Don’t say a discouraging word about Fight Club.”

Now, I know you’ve recently watched the film for the first time in a few years, and maybe you have a different opinion. But you were a champion of this movie back when it was released and watched it frequently when it came out on DVD. So, as best you can, give me the outline of its appeal to you back in 1999. Was it David Fincher’s style? Was it the film’s themes? Was it the redefining plot twist heading into the final act? What?

Brew: To start, let me reiterate what you mentioned: this film did appeal to me very much upon my initial viewing. Why? I don't know that it was Fincher's style. I did find Seven to be a fascinating experience, and The Game was equally intriguing. Much like Fight Club, both of those movies explore dark themes and they're finely crafted. If I were to watch all three back-to-back without knowing who directed them, I don't know that I'd assume it was the same person. The plot twist you mention is interesting and memorable, but these movies, and Fight Club especially, aren't movies that I think back upon and focus on any plot twist as the defining element the way I would with an M Night Shyamalan thriller.

For me, this movie went beyond style and twist. It hit me in the face. Perhaps that had everything to do with being a male in my early 20s and unsure of where I was going in life. After watching it again recently, I think that's a fair assessment. In my early 20s, I could identify with Edward Norton's character and his lack of interest in the mundane, everyday routine of mindless consumerism and shallow experiences. He was sleepwalking through his days much like I felt I was doing at the time.

Beyond that, to be blunt, the movie was badass. But I wouldn't say that the violence and the call to action were really the defining attraction. Instead it was the search for self-awareness and for passion in something you believed in. I think Norton's character points it out quite well when he states that Fight Club “isn’t about winning or losing,” and the same could be said of the movie.


JB: You’ve touched on two of the film’s key themes, which frequently overlap but aren’t actually the same: The first is the need to feel something, anything. Norton’s character at the beginning of the film is battling more than just the general malaise of the everyday routine. He’s locked in a serious depression. For me, the strongest part of the picture is its first 30 minutes or so, when he’s attending all those support group meetings and finding raw feelings inside himself that he doesn’t understand but needs to explore.

But this theme overflows into the second key theme, which is more problematic, about the reacquisition of manhood. Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden observes that men of his generation haven’t had a Great War or Great Depression, the implication being that this peacetime ideal of accumulating wealth and status is empty and naturally unmanly. He implies that men have this primal itch that must be scratched. Hence Fight Club is born as a test of manhood, both actual and metaphorical. If you don’t look too deeply into some of the contradictions of Fight Club’s and later Project Mayhem’s philosophies (we’ll get to those later), yes, it is “badass.” And I can see how many young men would be drawn to it, the same way they’re drawn to NFL games, with the drunk fans frequently forgetting that whether their favorite team wins or loses really is no reflection on their personal worth. But having said that, I must admit that I’m surprised to hear that you were drawn to it, considering that you’re one of the least violent people I know.

So I guess my question – and I realize I’m asking you to turn back the clock – is this: Did Fight Club provide for you the kind of inexplicable yet fulfilling catharsis that Norton’s character feels going to all those support groups? In other words, did it give you some sense of inner peace to see a character struggling with the same feelings of dissatisfaction that you were experiencing? And/or was the pure physical brutality and bloodlust a key ingredient? Which is to say: Did this movie make being a man feel macho again?


Brew: The first 30 minutes are definitely crucial to exposing Norton's character’s depressive state and his need for the alter-ego, Tyler Durden. I am curious, though, why you're sold on those initial scenes and Norton's character’s need to probe into those feelings that "he doesn't understand but needs to explore," yet you're not as intrigued by his process of discovery. To me, that's the most arousing part. That's where Norton’s character becomes more than an anonymous voyeur hiding out in the back row of support groups. True, his method of self-discovery may be repugnant to many, but it's fascinating nonetheless.

I would generally consider myself a non-violent person, but I think Tyler's fundamental question is justified: "How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?" Since I earlier referred to the movie as "badass," this might seem like a contradiction, but I wasn't a fan of the excessive violence. In fact, I always look away during the scene in which Jared Leto's character is beaten unconscious. So how can I still be drawn to the film? I don't think being in a fight has to be synonymous with physical violence. I certainly wasn't looking to run out and punch my neighbor when the movie ended. I wasn't inspired to become violent. I think each person can identify in their own way, but a fight could be any struggle that you have to surmount.

You asked if this movie made "being a man feel macho again"? Interesting. It would be tough to argue that it didn't. I mean everything about Tyler Durden is so cool, right down to the name. And who wouldn't aspire to be a Brad Pitt-type man? But for me, personally, it was more about that "Spiritual War" that Tyler refers to. I was more inspired by the theme of personal growth than violence and destruction, and becoming a macho man. However, we only have to look back upon the history of the 20th Century to see countless examples of disassociated youth identifying with a charismatic leader and the violent results that ensued.

JB: That’s a fantastic point, and I think it has a lot to do with early reactions to the film. If Roger Ebert has a major fault as a critic, it’s that films that offend his moral sensibilities are almost certain to get panned (unless the film is Birth Of A Nation or directed by one of his pets, like Spike Lee or Quentin Tarantino). One of the closing observations of his Fight Club review is: “Whatever Fincher thinks the message is, that’s not what most audience members will get.”

I’m torn about that statement, because I think he’s right while also being wrong. He’s right in the sense that I suspect that many young males probably didn’t see through the contradictions of Tyler Durden’s philosophies and probably didn’t see the physical fighting as symbolic of anything beyond what it was. But that doesn’t mean that the fights aren’t symbolic, as you noted. And if the film had been about people having promiscuous sex, and if in response the religious right ignored the symbolic and/or cautionary elements and objected that the film would inspire kids to fornicate like rabbits, Ebert would have called their complaints hogwash, and he would have been right. So there’s some hypocrisy there.

But to use another bit of Ebert’s review, he called Fight Club “macho porn,” and I think that’s about right. And maybe that’s where the fear or danger is. If you suspect that men will respond to the glorified violence with an almost sexual arousal, perhaps you don’t trust those men to think with their heads instead of their dicks. Maybe the complaint becomes: With the blood rushing away from the brain, can men be expected to reflect on Fight Club’s deeper themes any more than they would reflect upon the plot virtues of a Jenna Jameson picture? I’m not saying I agree with this argument, but I think that’s the root of the objection. Fight Club is a cautionary tale, yes, but it isn’t overt about it, and considering the ways it romanticizes violence (and it does), maybe it needed to be.

Having said that, let me explain why I think the first act of the film works while the rest falls apart: I am drawn to Norton’s character’s self-discovery. And if Tyler Durden were more than just an element of his tortured soul, I could have bought into Fight Club (probably not Project Mayhem, but at least Fight Club). The scene where Norton’s character and Pitt’s first slug one another outside the bar is assuredly macho porn. (When Durden says, “I want you to hit me as hard as you can,” he might as well be saying, “I want you to ejaculate all over my face.”) However, I identified with that scene as a continuation of that self-discovery. The support groups were great, but they didn’t quite do it. Norton’s character is stunned to discover that, wow, slugging someone and getting slugged shatters the malaise with a sledgehammer. He’s drawn not to the fight but to the feeling. It works.

Here’s the problem: When later it is revealed that Norton’s character and Pitt’s character are one and the same, the poetry of that initial scene is ruined. Because what really happened? What really happened is that Norton’s character slugged himself in the face. Is that testing yourself? Really? Is that engaging in a spiritual war? I don’t think so. And I hate to nitpick, but it also calls into question how Fight Club evolved into a duel sport. Remember: when those guys run over to watch two guys brawling behind the bar, eventually joining in, what they are really running over to watch is one guy pummeling himself. Can you imagine seeing that and wanting to join the movement? It doesn’t make sense.


Brew: Ebert makes an interesting case, but I find him to be over-the-top in his condemnation of the violence, which he refers to as “the most brutal, unremitting, nonstop violence ever filmed.” Really? Was it that extreme? I know the concern is the target audience and how they might react, but I don’t recall chaos breaking out when the movie was released. To echo your point, one of my contentions is the conscious decision to single out this movie while giving a free pass to something that has at least a comparable level of violence: Pulp Fiction or Natural Born Killers, for example, both of which he gave four stars. I think the thing you have to consider and that’s easy to overlook is that Tyler Durden doesn’t represent the sole voice of the movie. The movie’s message isn’t exclusively tied to his philosophizing.

That said, you referred to this movie as “macho porn”? Don’t you think that’s being a little harsh? Are you saying that solely because you see the violence as sleazy? Because when you throw out a word like porn – despite Jack Horner’s objections, by the way – you’re basically saying this is beneath serious consideration. It’s a freak show! Let me go a step further and ask you if you feel a director has a moral obligation to take into account the viewer’s intelligence level and propensity for violence before they release a film? Certain topics are taboo, but other than the obvious, does that responsibility exist in this day and age? And, if so, who’s to judge?

I think you have to ask if those scenes with Norton and Pitt are meant to be taken literally, and I mean that aside from the obvious: Brad Pitt's Tyler Durden doesn't exist. I'm not suggesting that I have an answer for you or that you don't get it, but we don't really know how much of this movie is playing out in Norton's character’s mind. If you specifically examine the scene that you mentioned where they have their first fight, then, yes, it's pretty difficult to argue how that could make any sense. And I can see how that would taint your view of the movie. I have questions of my own: Who is actually driving the limo when it crashes? And how does a self-inflicted gunshot wound rid Norton’s character of Tyler's presence?

Let me ask you one final question before we move on: I'm curious to know if you actually enjoyed the movie up until the end and it was only in retrospect, when you knew you'd been deceived and put the pieces together, that the film failed you? You stated that you could have bought into Fight Club if its foundation was concrete. To be more specific, I want to know if everything we've discussed as far as the content was still acceptable up until the point where you knew that the plot just didn't add up in a homogeneous, conventional format.


JB: I’m glad you asked. I can’t say that the movie lost me toward the end, because it never really had me. I was mostly engaged in the first act, by the quest of Norton’s character to feel. And that carried me through the inception of Fight Club, which is an extension of that quest. But the film lost me soon after that with the transition into Project Mayhem, which extends the men-discovering-manliness theme of Fight Club but not so much the theme of Norton’s character discovering himself. As of that point, Fight Club becomes a different film, and from the very beginning Project Mayhem didn’t ring true for me. Tyler Durden is constantly talking about breaking free of societal expectations, about rediscovering your true self. He doesn’t use those words. He talks about not being a “consumer,” about blocking out the lies of television and marketing campaigns. But what does Project Mayhem do? It takes the “strongest and smartest men who ever lived,” who were “squandering” their lives pumping gas or as white collar “slaves,” and it turns them into drones. Instead of bowing to the marketing machine and materialism, these guys bow to Tyler and anarchy. And, yes, they appear to be releasing some pent up frustrations, but I’m not sure I can get myself to believe that they’re truly happy.

Now, defenders of Fight Club say that such contradictions are at the heart of why the film is a cautionary tale. Tyler’s method doesn’t work, they note. He has to be killed in the end. Etcetera. But does the film actually condemn Tyler? I’m not so sure. Instead, Edward Norton’s character merely regains control of himself. The film ends with Norton’s line to Helena Bonham Carter’s Marla: “You met me at a very strange time in my life.” As he says the words, skyscrapers implode and tumble around him. Is this destruction all in his head, or is it real? Assuming it’s real, what’s the message? Is it that every now and then men have to rage against the machine to remember who they are?

My point is that Fight Club seems to celebrate Tyler’s influence even in the moments it condemns it. Considering myself a thoughtful and relatively intelligent moviegoer, I see Fight Club as a contradiction (those previously mentioned split-personality plot holes are actually irrelevant to this feeling). The film makes me think, in the sense that it makes me try to figure out what the fuck it’s trying to tell me. But Fight Club offered me no epiphanies and, beyond the first act, I didn’t identify with it (which isn’t to say that I don’t understand how someone could). Frankly, in each of my three viewings I’ve found it to be boring, because I think it’s empty at its core. I think Fight Club is selling an image as much as the IKEA catalogs that it condemns.

Do filmmakers have a “moral obligation to take into account a viewer’s intelligence level”? Well, we could ramble about that topic for days. In short, I don’t think filmmakers have a moral obligation to do anything. To reference another genre, I have no idea why people want to see the so-called “torture porn” flicks like Saw and Hostel, but I have no objection to the films being made. Not every movie needs to be deep. Not every movie needs to be true. Not every movie needs to uplift us and bring us together. And, this is key, not every movie needs to be overt with either its plot points or philosophies. Over the years, movies have so repeatedly dumbed down their content – beating us over the head with the obvious – that they have created dumb moviegoers, the kind of people who can’t pick up on the more-than-subtle clues to determine the fate of Carla Jean in No Country For Old Men because they don’t actually see Anton Chigurh put a shotgun to her head.

However: If Fight Club’s primary intent is to serve as a cautionary tale, then it seems to me that it needs to be consistent and clear in its messaging. Otherwise it’s like a politician showing up at a campaign rally without a public address system: you’ve got an audience, but only a small portion is likely to hear you, and the rest will come away only half-informed. That Fight Club at times seems so at odds with itself suggests to me that its primary intent isn’t to be a cautionary tale or a biting satire. So is it pure absurdist comedy? I didn’t laugh enough. Is it suspense? I didn’t feel the tension. Is it a love story? I enjoy the hell out of Helena Bonham Carter, like I always do, but Marla’s relationship with Norton’s character serves to illustrate his state of mind. It’s not the heart of the film.

So that brings me back to the “macho porn” label. I think it applies first and foremost because Fight Club is literally about rediscovering manhood. Tyler makes “hunter-gatherer” references and John Wayne Bobbitt allusions, threatens to castrate people who stand in his way and organizes a club where guys roll around shirtless (it’s even one of the rules) and beat one another up. It’s self-discovery through self-destruction rather than self-improvement, Tyler makes clear. It’s all about being a tough guy, a Man in that most primal, sexual sense. Tyler rants as if he wants to get Norton’s character to think, but in reality thought gets in the way of Tyler’s objectives. Heck, thought is what leads to Tyler’s demise. Yet it’s as if Norton’s character must fuck the world and release his pent up aggression before he can have that moment of post-orgasmic mental clarity. Fight Club, like porn, is about male domination and visceral animalism. Hence “macho porn.” If that’s reductive, so be it. Underneath the acting (Norton, Pitt and Bonham Carter are terrific) and the pop culture wittiness, I think that’s all Fight Club is.

And so here is my question for you: When the buildings fall and Norton’s character has that last moment with Marla and offers that curious closing line (“You met me at a very strange time in my life”), what did you feel when you first saw the movie, as best you can remember? And, having watched it recently, what are your feelings now? Does Fight Club still work for you as it did then? Is it more? Is it less?


Brew: I tend to lose interest when Project Mayhem is launched, but only because the focus shifts away from Tyler and more toward Norton’s character. And I do agree that it has an impact on Norton’s character’s development. But isn’t Norton’s character’s quest to track down Tyler a continuation of his self-discovery and the duality of his character? Isn’t he learning more about himself and who he really is right up until we hit the changeover, and then continuing on even after that? I also see a transition inspired by Project Mayhem away from that manliness theme that you refer to. It’s only when the project begins that the “drones,” as you call them, finally have an outlet other than brawling in a basement. They’re starting to get organized.

Tyler could be defined as a socialist in the sense that he‘s trying to redefine the class structure and unite the proletariat, but I don’t think he’s calling for total anarchy, I think he’s leading organized revolution. He’s trying to affect change with the tools at hand. Remember that Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist first and a communist second. What does this have to do with Fight Club? Who’s to say what could have happened if the film had a fourth act? If you recall the scene where Tyler holds up the convenience store, his goal is to shock and awe the guy into moving forward with his life and to accomplish his goals (albeit at gunpoint), but that shows he is a proponent of self-accomplishment and future achievement.

Tyler is killed in the end because he’s no longer needed. When those buildings blow up, the revolution has begun. That’s assuming that it’s actually taking place. Maybe Norton’s character’s transformation is complete. His Jekyll & Hyde battle has run its course. He needed Tyler to orchestrate his plan and serve as the catalyst for Project Mayhem because he wasn’t capable of getting to that point on his own. Sometimes we have to do things that are dictated by circumstance that under most conditions we normally wouldn’t be able to accomplish. Or maybe I’m just making shit up?

Funny. I simply cannot stand Marla. Every time she’s on screen, I find that I’m waiting for the next scene. But to answer your question, I don’t know what Fight Club is supposed to be. And for that matter, I don’t know what Donnie Darko is supposed to be either. I’m sure if you’re smart enough, you can argue for it to be whatever you’d like it to be. But, in my opinion, that’s what’s compelling about it. It makes you think. Is that worth it if you’re never going to be able to add it all up in the end? I’m not sure. I guess that depends on the individual.

I remember my initial reaction to the final scene very well. I asked the person next to me, “Who the fuck sings that song?” Maybe that's telling. Honestly, I didn't know what had just happened and what it all meant. I focused more on the parts that I liked and didn't try to comprehend the movie as a whole. Since then, I've seen it countless times and I've read the book. The book is more confusing to me than the movie.

I have to be honest and admit that my perception of Fight Club has changed after a recent viewing. It certainly didn't strike the same chord in me that it did nearly 10 years ago. As I've mentioned, I was drawn toward that voyage of self-discovery Norton’s character attempts to take. But, now, the reasoning to go down that path just doesn't appeal to me as much. I certainly don't feel that same need to reinvent my life. That's not to say that I've reached a complete state of contentment, but I don't admire the recklessness anymore.


JB: To answer your previous question, with all due respect, I think you’re making shit up. We agree on why Tyler is killed in the end: Norton’s character doesn’t need him anymore. Tyler dies because Norton’s character wins and takes control of himself. Thus, Tyler loses. All of that makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is what Tyler’s revolution has to do with Norton’s character’s self-discovery. That hold-up? In reality that’s Norton’s character who is holding a gun to the guy’s head. So let’s recap: Norton’s character is learning to feel, learning to embrace and then battle his alter-ego and starting a revolution in which he’s a “proponent of self-accomplishment and future achievement.” It’s a little much for me, and I’m sure I’m leaving something out.

Sure, you could read this film a number of ways. But does that make it intricate or just convoluted? Does that mean it’s about a lot of things or nothing at all? Project Mayhem isn’t a move away from macho pursuits. It’s a move away from brawling toward outright terrorism. I’d argue that Tyler may not really care about all the things he claims to. I think it’s one giant ego trip. Tyler even says it: “Self-improvement is masturbation.” And, well, by the time Norton’s character has finished pleasuring himself, he may feel fulfilled, but I sure didn’t.

I must say, however, that I found the film more interesting upon my latest viewing than on my previous ones. It’s a fascinating time capsule of pre-9/11 America, when men were indeed without a big war in which to prove themselves (if that was their calling), when presidential blow jobs could be considered the nation’s biggest problem, when, in essence, men had the room to bitch about such trivial things. Make Fight Club today and the violence that sparked controversy would be entirely overlooked. It’s the endorsement (at whatever level) of terrorism and the falling buildings that would generate outrage.

Proponents of the film like to compare Fight Club to Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. That works for me: Like Fight Club, A Clockwork Orange is a finely acted piece in which the sum is less than the value of its parts. Both films are visceral, thought-provoking and potentially dangerous to audiences who accept them at face value. I’m drawn to aspects of both films, but I can leave them as a whole. I’ve tried to “get” Fight Club, tried to feel its appeal. But I can’t. And after three viewings, maybe the most damning thing I can say about it is that I don’t care. I’m not even outraged. I’m indifferent.

Those are my final thoughts. What are yours?

Brew: You know, I've found it hard to advocate for this film with someone who dislikes it, because, as is evident from my last post, I don't always know exactly what I'm arguing for. To suggest that I did would be to imply that I fully understand it, and I don't. All I can say is that for me the film inspires with its message that there is more out there than the continuous uniformity of everyday routine. That’s what I identified with when I first saw it, and I think it still holds true. To identify with something at a certain point in your life, for whatever reason, isn't necessarily a bad thing, even if years later one’s perspectives change. In my opinion, even if I don't see Fight Club the same way I did in my early 20s, that doesn't undercut the film's worth. But having said that, I’ll now obey the first rule of Fight Club.

JB: Ah, yes. “Do not talk about Fight Club.” A fitting motto for a film that becomes less the more one looks into it. Thanks, Brew.

Cooler readers, what say you?

The Perfect Ending

Ethan Hawke is so perfect in Before Sunrise that the movie is almost unwatchable. He plays Jesse, an American college student who meets Julie Delpy’s Celine on the final day of a trip abroad and convinces her to accompany him during his last hours in Vienna. Over the course of one afternoon and night, they fall in love. A brief, tenuous, infatuation-based love, sure. But love just the same. That this will be their fate is inevitable. In Before Sunrise, Jesse and Celine are always walking and talking, unless they’re sitting and talking or lounging and talking. Their gabby meanderings take them past Vienna’s postcard sites, at which they engage in very little sightseeing. They’re too busy staring longingly into one another’s eyes.

That’s where Hawke’s performance comes in. His Jesse is a twitchy, goofy adolescent with an embarrassingly overconfident Don Juan glint in his eye. He’s a deep thinker who hasn’t been in life’s swimming pool long enough to realize he’s still standing in the shallow end. He’s a guy who knows what cool looks like but not what cool is. He’s a wannabe. Jesse, then, is like so many college guys you must have encountered in the real world – the kind of college guy you want to punch in the face. Repeatedly. In that way, Before Sunrise is as difficult to endure as it is accurate. Whether Jesse’s habit of making silly faces when caught in Celine’s intimidating gaze reflects Hawke’s precise understanding of his insecure character or the actor’s own discomfort with the improvisational long takes of director Richard Linklater, I haven’t a clue. But it works. If you can stand it.

My first encounter with Before Sunrise came on DVD only a few years ago, and by the midway point I’d lost track of the number of times I’d considered abandoning ship. I stayed onboard because I was enchanted by Delpy’s ease, because something about the insecure advances of both Jesse and Celine rings painfully true and because I cared about the characters just enough to want watch the inevitable realized. Yet I never expected to be rewarded. The night would end. They’d have their Casablanca farewell. Cinderella’s carriage would turn back into a pumpkin. And that would be that, I thought. Only, it wasn’t.

[If you haven’t seen Before Sunrise and have any intention to do so, it’s here that I beg you to stop reading. True enough, you won’t see this film mentioned alongside Planet Of The Apes, The Usual Suspects or The Sixth Sense on a list of films with Richter Scale-tripping surprise endings, yet few movies have ever concluded in such unexpected and overwhelming fashion, and I’d hate to spoil the thrill of discovery.]

After roughly 100 minutes of constant talk, Before Sunrise ends without words. In place of the dialogue, Linklater gives us anchored shots of Vienna just beginning to wake up to the early morning light. A park, an alley, a courtyard, a boat, a bridge. These images of the places where Jesse and Celine saw their love sprout, bud and blossom in one night are like photos from their scrapbook of memories – memories so fresh that they’re still malleable. Chairs where Jesse and Celine sat might still be warm to the touch, so recently were they used, and yet Vienna has already forgotten who sat there. A new day is born. As quickly as their love was realized, it has become part of history.

If I were asked to provide a cinematic definition of the word “bittersweet,” I’d offer that Vienna montage. For it to have meaning, you need to have experienced everything that precedes it, obviously. Yet those precious seconds of silence alter, for the better, the movie’s emotional core. Through the montage, which thematically mirrors the opening shots of the European countryside as seen from the train where Jesse and Celine first meet, Before Sunrise becomes not just their love story but everyone’s. In a magnificently understated manner, the film delivers a powerful message: The world waits for us to do within it what we will. The magic of life is in our hands. Our experiences define the universe around us.

Before Sunrise underscores especially that latter truth with one of its key scenes: Jesse and Celine’s first kiss comes on the same Ferris wheel made famous in The Third Man. As a result, to anyone who has seen the 1949 classic the setting is instantly evocative of a different story in a different era. Cinema buffs are likely spend the first portion of Jesse and Celine’s rotating flirtation wishing they were watching Harry Lime and Holly Martins instead. By the end of the scene, however, by the time they have embraced, Jesse and Celine have made that picturesque Vienna carnival apparatus a place of their own. They have claimed it not for the world or even for cinema but for their own narrative, and that’s territory enough. Their romance may be finite, but they’ll always have Vienna.

Which brings us back to the montage. From those picturesque shots of the city, Linklater caps Before Sunrise by letting us linger once more with Jesse (on a bus) and Celine (on a train), their romance discontinued. If the Vienna slideshow defined “bittersweet,” the expressions of the separated couple epitomize “punch-drunk.” Jesse and Celine look off into the distance trying to process feelings they haven’t had time to even identify. On their faces we see heartbreak and elation, rejuvenation and devastation. They are wonderstruck. For all of the film’s previous loquacious soul-searching, Before Sunrise is never more profound or expressive. These final moments are so powerful that they do more than just redeem the film, they redefine it.








Cooler readers: It’s easy to think of great films spoiled by lackluster endings. Please contribute other examples of instances when a film’s conclusion (be it just the final scene or the entire the final act) transformed for the better your feelings about everything that came before it.

Say It Ain’t So

A movie I won’t be seeing this weekend: Righteous Kill. I can’t bring myself to purchase a ticket for something with such a lame title, first of all. More so, I of course can’t stand to watch Al Pacino and especially Robert De Niro as they soil their legacies. I mean, really, what are these guys thinking? And, assuming they’re not, what are their agents thinking?

Pacino has been a bit of a clown for a while now. As for De Niro, I’ve heard people say he officially sold out when he appeared in the 2000 bomb that was The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle. I didn’t see the movie, but I have to disagree. Rocky & Bullwinkle was a film for kids in which De Niro played a colorful and (for many) iconic character: Fearless Leader. It didn’t work, fine, but the cartoon was beloved, so it wasn’t crazy to think that it might have. Besides: Travis Bickle and Jake La Motta don’t come around every year, and an actor’s gotta work, right?

The bigger offense is when you enter a genre for which you are known, and play the kind of tough guy character with which you are familiar, and do so opposite an actor to whom you have been compared throughout your career who is working on equally familiar turf. Under those circumstances, the product can’t just be good. It has to be fantastic, or else you disappoint your fans and taint your legacy (or what’s left of it) in the process.

Who knows, maybe Righteous Kill is terrific, but it’s painful just to watch its trailers. And De Niro and Pacino aren’t helping the film or themselves by making appearances like this on The Late Show. (Watch this Top 10 at your own risk, and marvel at Pacino, who reads the cue cards like English is a foreign language. So sad.)



What makes the Righteous Kill situation worse is that De Niro and Pacino did it right with Heat. Until then, as you most certainly know, the actors had never played opposite one another on screen. Michael Mann used that real-world anticipation to increase the fictional suspense. It was both thrilling and cathartic.



But this? This is pathetic.

Queue It Up: United 93

[In recognition of today’s anniversary, The Cooler offers the following review, written upon the film’s release in the author’s pre-blog era.]

Writer/director Paul Greengrass can talk all he wants about the importance of his latest film, and about how it comes with the support of its subjects’ families. But the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical about the first Hollywood feature based around the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the movie’s timing – hitting theaters just over four-and-a-half years after the tragic events it chronicles – is only one of them.

Given the unusually fast turnaround from suffering to screen, United 93 brings with it an odor of shameless profiteering – the sense that it’s trying to capitalize on one of the saddest days in our nation’s history. If your gut resembles mine, it’s telling you that this is too much too soon. Especially considering that we spent the first year after 9/11 inundated by its devastating imagery. Especially considering that our president still refers to the attacks on an almost weekly basis. Especially since so many wounds are still healing, even those of Americans like me who were about as removed from the tragedy as possible.

To be sure, United 93 is being released now not because audiences are clamoring for the dramatization of real-life events they haven’t had time to forget but because the filmmakers (including Universal Pictures) want to benefit from being first: either artistically or financially, or both. But if your stomach turns with cynicism, your brain should remind you that if it wasn’t United 93 in late April 2006, it would have been Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center in August, or who knows what else after that. Eventually someone would go here, and here we are.

So for a moment let’s ignore all that surrounds the film and concentrate on what’s inside it. Any movie deserves that, but this one more than most. Because while I have many objections about when United 93 was made, I have few criticisms about how it was made. Gripping, touching, honest and fair, Greengrass’ film is a triumph, almost more because of what it doesn’t do than what it does. Wearing fragile wings of wax, United 93 learns from Icarus and opts for reserve in all the places that Hollywood usually shoots for the stratosphere.

It starts with star power. In this film, there is none. Just about wherever possible, characters are played by their real-life inspirations: air-traffic controllers, military personnel, airline employees. The rest of the time United 93 looks to have been cast using castoffs from History Channel reenactments. There isn’t a single big-name actor to be found, and nothing happens in this movie that suggests that it will launch careers. That’s significant, because it’s one thing for a studio to back a picture that’s without celebrities, but it’s another thing to greenlight a script that doesn’t create any stars either.

With astounding consistency, Greengrass selects nearly-anonymous group storytelling over individual exaltation. Naturally, some characters get a little more face time than others, but Greengrass patently refuses to perpetuate the mainstream media mythmaking that made Todd “Let’s roll” Beamer posthumously famous. United 93 has no handsome superman, no wise guru, no quirky sidekick who delivers witty one-liners. There are no flashbacks or even back-stories to flash back to. Instead, Greengrass treats all the players as equals: no one any more important than the rest, which is as it should be.

That treatment is even extended to the movie’s villains, the four al Qaeda terrorists who highjack the titular flight destined for San Francisco and redirect it toward Washington, DC, with the intent to crash the Boeing 757 into the US Capitol. It might be going a bit too far to suggest that the terrorists are treated sympathetically in this picture, but they are certainly portrayed sincerely: as individuals who firmly believe they are glorifying their god, even if their bloodthirsty methods suggest a more demonic inspiration.

Judging these characters would have been easy. Greengrass resists at every opportunity. Before the terrorists take control of the plane, their leader is shown to be reluctant to begin the assault. Is he scared? Questioning his decision to take the lives of others? Doubting his decision to sacrifice himself? Or merely waiting for the opportune moment? It’s one of many mysteries that the film doesn’t attempt to answer. The in-air events of Flight 93 – which crashed short of its goal in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after a passenger uprising – were written based on in-flight phone calls and cockpit recordings, so Greengrass is forced to approximate quite a bit. But this film succeeds where other historical pictures before it have failed because Greengrass approximates as minimally as possible and as understatedly as possible.

While the media made a hero out of Beamer, Greengrass makes him just another passenger: a guy named Todd, who acts no more heroically than at least half a dozen others. Beamer’s famous “Let’s roll” urging isn’t even issued as some climactic “Remember the Alamo” war cry, just as a snippet of one rambling urging – “Come on, let’s roll, let’s go” – that’s uttered just a bit louder than a whisper to passengers already poised to strike. Whether Beamer actually delivered it that way, I haven’t a clue. Nor does Greengrass. But appreciate that United 93 doesn’t make Beamer any braver an individual – simply because he had a wife to call and a phone with which to call her – than the other 39 people who died unjustly on that flight and might have done as much or more in the fracas to assume control of the plane. (That Beamer’s name appears first among the passengers in the closing credits, I’ll attribute to a boneheaded studio blunder.)

Equally refreshing is the film’s lack of jingoism. You would have allowed a degree of flag-waving, but United 93 engages in almost none. Greengrass recognizes that even though the 9/11 strikes did indeed target Americans, the attacks were, first and foremost, crimes against humanity. That said, it was the triumph of the human spirit rather than anything American that willed passengers and crew on Flight 93 to revolt. However, my pleasure in seeing that recognized is offset by my disappointment that the one dissenting passenger urging nonviolence happens to have a European accent.

But few movies are perfect and this one certainly isn’t. Greengrass’ script is strong but his direction leaves something to be desired. Much of the film looks like it was lit with a flashlight and most of the scenes are shot from behind the heads and over the shoulders of the actors, making it appear that Greengrass is promoting dandruff shampoo when actually he’s trying to keep from glamorizing his subjects. He succeeds at the latter, perhaps all too well: the film works best in its moments of chaos, but it limps in the few occasions when the actors are required to, you know, act.

Still, the collective whole of this movie’s high-powered engine is far greater than the sum of its parts. United 93 works mostly without a score, and it doesn’t need one. The events are heart-pounding enough on their own. Just like a good reporter knows when to get out of the way and let a subject’s quotes tell the story, Greengrass steps back and plays the roll of observer. There are no surprises here. No cliffhanger scenes. No memorable lines of dialogue. No never-before-seen authentic footage. The September 11 that you see here is the one you probably remember. Yet it still feels new.

Or maybe the better word would be fresh. Perhaps it was in part due to seeing the movie on a Friday evening at the end of a long week, but United 93 took every bit of energy I had. The film isn’t bloody or especially violent. It isn’t even all that horrific, considering all the carnage that could have been put to screen and wasn’t. Yet I can’t think of any moviegoing experience that was so difficult for me. Not one. For example, when I walked out of Schindler’s List with tear-stained cheeks in 1993, I was spent. But I admired the filmmaking so much that I knew I’d want to see it again, and I have since, a handful of times. In this case, I’m not so sure. United 93 made me so nauseous that midway through, and for more than 30 minutes afterward, I was craving an air-sickness bag.

It wasn’t even the plane footage that got to me. It was the scenes set in dark rooms illuminated by green flashing lights where air-traffic controllers try desperately to determine why four flights suddenly break radio contact and divert from their original course. At first there is confusion, which is followed by dismay, then panic, then sickening realization and then overwhelming helplessness as one by one the flights just disappear from the radar. Gone. Just like that.

What comes next is shock. And if you’ve moved on with your life since 9/11, this film will make you feel like you haven’t left the events too far behind. Nor should you. Better than anything else, United 93 captures our country’s lack of preparedness for such attacks, not from a military standpoint (although, that too) but an emotional one. We just never thought such large-scale attacks could happen to us. Not here. But in just a few hours, our world image changed. United 93 records history happening.

[“Queue It Up” is a series of sporadic recommendations of often overlooked movies for your Netflix queue.]

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Addendum: I have seen United 93 again. Once. It was equally powerful. And, curiously enough, surprisingly so. I’d already written the above review, but somehow I didn’t believe it. Soured by the way 9/11 became a political tool for fear and warmongering, I felt I’d built a wall around myself that would preclude me from emotional investment in a 9/11-based film. The barrier is probably there, but United 93 overcomes it. It was and remains my pick for 2006’s best film.

Spanhattan: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen’s latest film, is a pig in lipstick. It’s still a pig, as the saying goes, which is to say it’s very much a Woody Allen movie, accented with the flourishes we have come to expect from the director through four decades of indefatigable output. The familiar font of the opening credits, the storybook narration, the use of dialogue that’s both meticulously drawn and awkwardly improvised, plus the storyline that’s full of love, self-absorption and self-doubt – it’s all here. But these aren’t the things that draw our attention, because it turns out that a pig in lipstick isn’t just a pig after all. It’s a spectacle. And so it is that Vicky Cristina Barcelona is notable for all the ways it isn’t your typical Allen fare.

The differences begin, most obviously, with the setting: Barcelona and its reds, yellows and stucco in lieu of Manhattan and its gray and more gray and steel. VCB is a travelogue disguised as a meditation on love. The cinematographer is Javier Aguirresarobe, who goes down as one of the few individuals to ever leave a deeper mark on an Allen film than Allen himself. In this movie, the subplots come and go, but what remains is our sense of place. VCB is about a pair of young American women who set out to share one of those unforgettable summers overseas, and so Aguirresarobe devours Spain as if he wants their journey to be ours. He captures art and architecture, musicians and museums. And yet the most stunning treasures to come before Aguirresarobe’s camera are Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, who flap into an Allen film like a pair of exotic parrots who don’t know that the director usually works with parakeets.

Cruz plays an erratic dabbling artist named Maria Elena, the hot-tempered ex of Javier Bardem’s Juan Antonio, a successful painter. Of all the key players, Maria Elena is the last to arrive, but she makes an instantly indelible impression. Rumored to have attempted killing Juan Antonio in a jealous rage, Maria Elena is a concept before she is a flesh-and-blood character, and Cruz makes sure she lives up to her reputation (the Harry Lime trick, on a considerably lesser scale). Maria Elena is fragile, angry, passionate, sexy and conniving, all at once, and she convincingly drifts from Spanish to English and back again, much to Juan Antonio’s frustration, as her temper infiltrates any hint of demureness like waves crawling up the shore. Allen’s screenplay never allows us to have a private moment with Maria Elena, but her sheer force demands (and receives) a share of the spotlight.

Comparatively, Bardem’s Juan Antonio is forgettable, though his introduction is anything but: At a Barcelona restaurant, Juan Antonio approaches the table of Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) and – without even sitting down – offers an invitation to join him on a trip to Oviedo for sightseeing and lovemaking. The invitation isn’t meant for one of them specifically, or for either of them. It’s for both of them. Cristina, a lamb to the bad-boy wolf if there ever was one, is intrigued. Vicky, in love with her polished, polite and wealthy husband-to-be back home in New York, is insulted. Thus, while Cristina looks on in hormonal paralysis, Vicky and Juan Antonio debate the nature of his bold invitation. And as quickly as it becomes clear that Juan Antonio doesn’t see anything bold about it, we know all about his character that we need to.

From this, a love trapezoid will spawn, leaving Juan Antonio to be a straight man overshadowed by the theatrics of the spirited women around him. That said: Vicky doesn’t acquiesce to his request for a threesome, which is a shame. Because while the only thing Juan Antonio has in common with Anton Chigurh is unflinching confidence, I was aching for a moment in which Vicky and Cristina would argue over the rights to Juan Antonio, forcing him to settle the debate by throwing a coin in the air and having them call it. No such luck, although Allen makes up for the omission with an enjoyable mutual seduction between Juan Antonio and Cristina that turns hilarious just when the characters are ready to get down to serious business.

Surprisingly, that gag is a rarity in a film that’s determined to be taken seriously. You might have noticed that Allen’s name was absent from VCB’s trailers, as if trying to avoid audience preconceptions. Equally unusual then is Allen’s decision not to act as narrator, passing on the duties to Christopher Evan Welch, even though the commentary is so intrinsically Woodman that we hear his nasally voice just the same. Welch’s pale drone is so uninspired that, given the frequency with which he states the obvious, it’s tempting to think that the film could do without him. Yet the sad truth is that minus the narrator’s omniscience, several of these characters would be empty shells. (Not to mention that the narrator keeps the train moving forward through several moments when sudden time lapses or character mood swings might otherwise derail it.)

The least developed character, save Patricia Clarkson’s Judy, who is so inconsequential she should be cut entirely, is Johansson’s Cristina. This in spite of the fact that Cristina might be the easiest character to find in real life: a young woman hung up on the idea that love is so profound that it defies description, convention and perhaps even understanding. She’s an emotional drifter, forever determined to become the kind of elusive but deep soul that she romanticizes. In Johansson’s winsome gazes, this much is obvious, and yet not obvious. In a few instances it isn’t clear if Cristina is lying to herself, or if Allen merely has the character bending to his dramatic arc’s every whim. If not for the narration instructing us on Cristina’s emotions, she’d seem schizophrenic.

In fairness to Johansson, who does little more than look the part, a mediocre Allen screenplay gives her little to work with. On the other hand, Hall’s character is equally incomplete. And yet by the end of the film Vicky’s emotions are the only ones that resonate, even though she begins the picture as nothing more than a caricature of female rigidness. Hall’s performance is the next best thing to watch in this film, behind only the spicy chemistry of Cruz and Bardem. And, well, behind the Barcelona setting, too. Underneath it all, VCB provides us with the same erotic and neurotic la-la land that Allen films have inhabited time and time again over the years. All too often in recent decades it’s made for an uninteresting stop. This time, the façade that is Barcelona makes tired-old at least feel tired-new. A little lipstick, it turns out, can go a long way.

Not-Thin To Win?

The next President of the United States is still in doubt, but thankfully there are some things we can count on. Hilary Swank’s third Oscar win for Best Actress, for example. Swank, the Academy Award winner for Boys Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby, isn’t hyped to be a contender in this year’s race, but recently she signed on to a project that’s almost certain to provide her with another golden statuette – the film adaptation of Mireille Guiliano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat. True, the movie is still in development, and thus not a single frame of footage has been shot, but at this point it looks as if the only thing standing between Swank and Katharine Hepburn’s doorstep are a few boxes of Krispy Kremes.

Confused? According to reports first generated by E! Online, Swank is planning to gain 20 to 30 pounds for her performance in French Women in an effort to look, well, more American, I suppose. Whether the added weight will simply add some curve to her “alarmingly thin frame” or actually make her appear fat remains to be seen. But what’s been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt is that every trip Swank makes to Cold Stone from now until shooting begins only enhances her chances of taking home Best Actress gold.

See, physical transformation plays big in Hollywood, especially where women are concerned. Of the past 10 Best Actress Oscars, only two have gone to actresses for roles that allowed them to look nearly as sexy onscreen as they can appear off: Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich and Reese Witherspoon in Walk The Line. The other eight have gone to actresses who muted their beauty and/or made other significant physical transformations: Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare In Love (wears a mustache); Swank in Boys Don’t Cry (morphs Teena Brandon into Brandon Teena); Halle Berry in Monster’s Ball (sheds her Revlon); Nicole Kidman in The Hours (adds Virginia Woolf’s shnozz); Charlize Theron in Monster (two words: Aileen Wuornos); Swank in Million Dollar Baby (bulked up into a boxer’s body); Helen Mirren in The Queen (two more words: Queen Elizabeth); and Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose (her aging Edith Piaf looks like the ghastly vision of Large Marge in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure).

The above list isn’t meant to outright discount or otherwise diminish any specific performances. It’s meant to point out a trend. Since 2000, the Oscar for Best Actress has gone to the performer who – in comparison to her fellow nominees – most altered her physical appearance every time but once: Witherspoon’s win against Felicity Huffman’s performance in Transamerica. (The only other year it’s debatable is when Berry’s haggard look trumped Renee Zellweger’s plump personification of Bridget Jones.)

Which brings us to today’s Question For Which There Isn’t One Correct Answer: What’s the best way to measure great acting? Transformation, no doubt, is a key component, as it’s essential that we lose sight of the actor and believe in the character in front of us. But in many of the above cases, the most remarkable transformation was a product of excellence in the makeup trailer, not in front of the camera. Then again, it would be unfair to dismiss the responsibility of the actress to fill out her appearance. Acted poorly, Kidman’s credibility in The Hours is hindered by the Virginia Woolf proboscis instead of helped, for example.

Thus we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that those aforementioned winning performances have something else in common: an unusual complexity of character (actresses so often being unfortunately reduced to scenery). Still, when an actress is awarded for a relatively unglamorous portrayal, it’s difficult to keep from wondering if it’s the performance that’s being honored or if in actuality what’s being rewarded is the daring of the actress in shedding the very thing that Hollywood most appreciates: external beauty.

That news of Swank’s forthcoming weight gain should bring this hardly-original debate to the surface right now is serendipitous, because from here it’s only a tiny hop to the biting commentary of Tropic Thunder’s controversial Simple Jack construct, which has also been on my mind. Though that film explicitly mocks actors who play handicapped characters in an effort to get some awards-season recognition, Tropic Thunder perhaps also implicitly mocks any of us who reward such overly affected performances with equally over-the-top praise.

Which brings me to these questions: Sean Penn’s performance in I Am Sam is often considered repugnant, but not Tom Hanks’ turn in Forrest Gump. Why? Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance in My Left Foot is considered one of the best of all time, yet Dustin Hoffman’s Oscar-winning turn in Rain Man is now often met with disdain. Why? If the previous statements are true, is the fault actually found in Penn or Hoffman’s performances? Or did Hanks and Day-Lewis simply have more respectable (and more respectful) material to work with?

But let’s get back to Swank. That she’s a two-time Academy Award winner (based on as many nominations) is hard to fathom, in part because – despite her hardware – she doesn’t appear to be coveted by moviegoers or moviemakers. Yet her victorious performances were hardly undeserving of acclaim: in Boys Don’t Cry she’s as emotionally convincing as physically so, and while her win for Million Dollar Baby was almost certainly boosted by a respect for the tremendous dedication required to build a boxer’s body, her acting was equally determined. You can debate her Oscar wins, but she’s a fine actress, certainly, with a long career left.

Then again, if the above prediction proves true and Swank becomes only the second three-time Best Actress winner (Hepburn won it four times), her Oscar collection will suggest a level of legendary excellence among her era that would be misleading. And that’s why I hope the only way Swank gets recognized for French Women Don’t Get Fat is if her acting carries more weight than her In-N-Out augmented hips.