Hands down, bar none, no question about it, Bruce Willis is the greatest movie star we have. A movie star is different from an actor, not lesser, but in some ways, bigger. A movie star is an actor who can only exist on the big screen, people like Clint Eastwood, Humphrey Bogart, and Robert Mitchum. We don't pay to see them play characters, we pay to see them. Put movie stars on the stage, and they'll stink up the joint, but put those mugs in front of a camera and they'll mop the floor with even the most veteran of stage actors. If you're a movie star, you don't need dialogue, you don't need movement -- all you need is your face.
Bruce Willis is this kind of movie star. He is impossible to ignore when he's onscreen, and it's all because of his face, which seems to age even better than a French wine. Every new crease and wrinkle -- even hair loss -- has worked to make Willis a better movie star. Like Steve McQueen, Bogey, or Mitchum, Willis has that haggard look, that face that tells us more about his character than any screenwriter could ever hope to. Any writer or director worth his salt should cut pages out of a script the minute Willis signs on. Because all those words don't mean squat up against the face of a movie star in close-up.
Bruce has always had this, but it really clicks for him in Pulp Fiction. The first thing we see of him in that film is his face, and we see it for several minutes. Up against that, what else is there to see? It's the face of a man who's seen it all, a man who's above it all. The pronounced lines flanking his mouth act like curtains, throwing the spotlight on our hero's tight-lipped superiority to whoever is speaking to him. Our man listens carefully, but he knows the answer already: you're wrong ... and stupid. He'd tell you, but what's the point? You'll only understand what a jackass you are after he breaks your nose.
You may say that George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, or Tom Cruise have one over on Bruce as the greatest movie star of our time. Johnny Depp is an actor who's gotten as big as a movie star, Pitt's somewhere between actor and movie star (depending on the film), and Tom Cruise? Please. Bruno might sing blues of dubious distinction, but movie stars are allowed embarrassing side projects once in a while (see: Clint and a monkey). What movie stars are not allowed to do, however, is to jump on couches on daytime TV. Daytime TV couch-jumpers are the kind of people movie stars smack with baseball bats.
Clooney is a close call, but his charm is one-note: he's suave. That's the beginning and end of his range. It's a delightful one-note act, but it's one-note all the same. Bruce can do Clooney, Clint, and throw in some John Wayne swagger for good measure. Besides, the decision to put Bruce in Ocean's Twelve is really just George's admission that the grins upon which the Ocean'sMoonlighting or Die Hard? Designer clothes -- that's it. franchise is built were stolen from Bruce. And they are stolen from Bruce -- what's in Danny Ocean that isn't in
Like any classic movie star, Bruno is dangerous. He can crack a joke one minute, then kick the everloving crap out of you the next. Every movie star has to have this, which is why Tom Cruise is out: no matter how many times he tells Iceman that he really is dangerous before he kisses him, he's about as dangerous as Shirley Temple (he does kiss Kilmer, right?). As dangerous as Bruce is, though, he also has the class to star in a movie with Damon Wayans without killing him.
The real important thing Bruce has on past tough guy stars like Bogey and Mitchum is joy. Bruce has just enough Cary Grant in him to let us in on the fun. No, he'll never do something like Bringing Up Baby (though Hudson Hawk is an honest attempt at the Marx Brothers), but this sense of glee helps to make his aura infectious.
Bottom line: take any crappy movie, put Bruce Willis in it, and it immediately becomes 10 times more interesting (see: The Last Boy Scout, Oceans' Twelve, Look Who's Talking). That's the mark of a movie star. Sure, he's done plenty of crappy movies, but he's seldom crappy in them, because it's hard to suck when you're having a blast. And that's what endears Bruno to us: the guy just gets out there and has a good time; nothing seems precious to him. In an age of actors whose career choices are so calculated and deliberate, this kind of behavior is refreshing. Finally, a star who just goes out and does his thing. What's not to love about that?
Posts
Down with your thesis for sure. Movie Star's are quite apart from all other categories of um. let's say, "on camera talent." And I think we're seeing a dearth because the medium has changed (the big screen no longer being the holy mother church and sanctuary of entertainment, hence, less appreciation and room for birthing and nourishing the iconic film star) the movie star, as you allude, is the guy who when you are in the theater looking up at the big screen IS you even though he is so obviously not you. He is the heroic essence that lurks inside but whom we can never fully be. We live through the movie star's manifestation of the hero rather than be entertained alone by it (though we are of course entertained as well). Gary Cooper in High Noon, John Wayne in The Searchers, Bogart, as you say, in Casablance. (I think Woody Allen's meditation on Bogart in Play it Again Sam is an effort to understand the movie star -- he actually describes Bogie in the film as not being physically much different than him yet with an ineffable cool.)
ReplyDeleteNow Tom Cruise's distinction is and always has been, Matinee Idol. Hoffman says that when they did Rainman together, he'd never in his life had seen set lurkers go as wild as they did when Cruise was nearby. Thinkin', ya, know, Troy Donahue category -- or whomever it was used to get mobbed in those 1950s movies. But... he is capable of acting, though you can see the seams between his character, his image and reality, kinda like that drop of sweat running down the bad guy's cheek in the "dream" sequence of "Total Recall." Willis vs Eastwood or John Wayne -- IMO, not even the same breath. He does have an interesting face. And I'm a Willis fan and I think he did his best work in Pulp Fiction and more recently in 16 Blocks. (Tremendous script, BTW.) But I disagree that the camera gravitates toward his face with the same hunger it does for Eastwood, or Wayne or McQueen or, as you say, Mitchum. Not even close. (BTW, anyone has any doubts about what a movie star is ought to head over to any big screen showing a Jimmy Stewart or John Wayne movie.) I saw a movie star recently, and had totally forgotten he was a movie star cuz it had been so long since I'd seen him on the big screen at all. Bill Murray. Saw "Ghostbusters" in a theater recently, and it kinda takes your breath away just watching that lens get tugged into the vortex of his face. And I do think that movies just don't get the star thing anymore anyway. You gotta see how the camera used to just stay on a face -- like Redford in Butch Cassidy, Newman in The Verdict (and just about everything else). There was a contract between good directors and the audience that existed at a time when the medium was meant to be forever 40 feet wide and 20 feet high. The contract no longer exists.
This article gives the light in which we can observe the reality. this is very nice one and gives in depth information. thanks for this nice article
ReplyDelete