HISTORY LESSON: Man Enough? Part 3 - Method to Modern Times

Continued from Part One - The Silents and Part Two - The Studio Era: 

The Wild One was not a fantastic film all considered, but it remains interesting
for its incite into the angst of the youth culture in the 1950s. Brando's line in this
scene summed it all up. As he beats on the juke box, with a contemptuous
eye fixed on his surroundings, he's asked, "Hey, Johnny... What are you
rebelling against?" He replies: "Whaddya got?" Gold.

Guttural actors of passion, guts, and loins have been acting their hearts out in cinema since from its very advent. However, something different started happening as the 1940s transitioned to the 1950s. With World War II over, another battle was inevitable. Mercifully and mercilessly, this one would be “Cold.” Broken by the horrifying glimpse into man’s darkest chasms—the Holocaust, the Devil and/is Adolf Hitler, the American boys coming home in coffins—the United States lost its trust, and the word “united” stopped being aptly descriptive of the nation. The country would be divided, not between North and South, Republican from Democrat, or Caucasian from all others, but instead everyone from everything. This new paranoia naturally led to the red scare—the obsession regarding an impending war that was only theoretical. We sought to identify villains, weed them out, and destroy them before they could strike. Less focus was given to the “Commie Bastards” building missiles on the other side of the globe than to the silent threat hiding among us: the radicals, the divergents, and those threatening the sanctity of our fictional impenetrability. A skeptical eye was turned on every neighbor, and the witch hunts began.

The movies followed, both before and behind the scenes. As the Hollywood Ten were called before the bench of public opinion and hypocrisy, celebrities of the past were forced to confront the HUAC tribunal—The Father (Joseph McCarthy), The Son (Paranoia), and the Scapegoat. Those too proud to beg (Dalton Trumbo, Lester Cole) or those too petrified to argue (Elia Kazan, Robert Taylor), became the sacrificial lambs in the nation’s shamefully unfolding history. Most kept their heads down and stayed "polite" and non-political (Gary Cooper), some were scolded for their resistance and then silenced (Humphrey Bogart), but others flew into a rage of protest (John Huston, Gene Kelly), the same vigor within them that had drawn them to art hastening them to protect humanity. This created conflict on the screen; film noir grew even darker and the heightened paranoia punched up storylines. In the meantime, while Hollywood would continue to produce films starring the greats of the past, these men were aging. Audiences held onto them as necessities, guys indivisible from the very name America, but our hold on them was loosening. 

John Garfield, the wronged man in They
Made Me a Criminal.

New actors with fresh perspectives started to emerge. These guys came with a contrasting conscience to their macho forbears. John Garfield is often credited with paving the way for the method actors to come, his art being his lack of art. He was not a superhero, a cowboy, a villain, or a martyr. He was just a man, and he presented himself as such. He mumbled with streetwise, apathetic articulation, and his movements were natural and un-mannered. His prototype of masculine authenticity became a game-changer: each man is his own sinner and saint. Your worst enemy is not he at whom you point your judgmental finger, but the voice you hear in your head-- the one you are often too weak to combat. So, Garfield fell prey to both greed and his desire for Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, played the underdog as the desperate boxer turned puppet in Body and Soul, and represented the wronged minority as the Jewish Dave Goldman in Gentleman’s Agreement.

Kirk Douglas as the unconscionable reporter in Billy Wilder's 
Ace in the Hole, one of his many shades of gray
morality pieces.

Film had always asked moral questions, but it had never penetrated the gauze of hypocrisy that simplified black and white philosophy to ask truly social questions. The distinction was no longer that of "Is this right or is this wrong," but "What does this say about us? What if there is no hero? What if there is no solution?" Hollywood doesn’t like open endings, sad endings, nor any package that is not cleanly wrapped. So, while the monarchs of the past—Gable, Wayne, Cooper—carried the torch of vintage Americana, actors like Garfield, Burt Lancaster, and Kirk Douglas acted as progressive, envelope-pushing phenoms of male complexity and rebellion, slowly paving the way for those others reacting to a changing world. Confinement is not acceptable to the male animal, and while some stayed behind, others would mature with their world, working to untie the knots that they had seen formed even in their own lifetime. Yet, the tug-of-war between the past (a lost era that can never be revisited) and the future (a horrifying but necessary prospect) would begin and end in one word: “Stella!”

Brando's Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named
Desire. His macrocosm of machismo would
knock the socks off Hollywood.

Marlon Brando killed Tinsel Town. After he ripped off her crown, it was no longer possible for the public to ignore her lies. Every new generation of man has a need to discover the world for himself, and such evolution necessitates demolishing the old images we had once so relied upon. The New Kids, those of the Stanislavsky or the Strasberg or whatever school, lashed out at their parents as all children do. They translated the world as they saw it, maturing into ungovernable, multifaceted anti-heroes performing only accidental heroics. Brando’s appearance as the cave man of humanity’s past in A Streetcar Named Desire unleashed a horridly brutal portrait of those theories of manhood that we had once held sacrosanct. He was a man unmannerly, primitively sexual, alcoholic, abusive, and even sadistic, all of these qualities simultaneously enclosing a scared boy desperately clinging to/rejecting his mother’s breast-- exemplified in the mother of his own child, Stella (Kim Stanley). He desires and is addicted to her earthy appeal, even supplicating himself before it, while shunning the pretense of the past, mercilessly raping false Hollywood’s personification in Blanche Dubois (Vivien Leigh). He makes her antiquity a joke. It was a savage way to bring us into a new era, but it worked.

Working alongside him were Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Ben Gazzara, James Dean, and Dennis Hopper. These artists in the early method days were like a jolt of adrenaline in the arm of America. While Hollywood tried to package them, they rebuffed the shackles of the star system by doing something different with their performances. They weren't playing to their audiences; they were playing their audiences. Neither enunciation nor dialogue were as important as internal and thus physical authenticity. Brando mumbled and tossed lines away. Clift spoke with his eyes and his body. Dean went to another planet, playing hide and seek with the camera, giving it the proverbial finger while making his audiences search for him and the truth. Newman defied his good looks by wearing a chip on his shoulder and letting his guts hang inside out-- the only man in known history to eat "fifty eggs" to prove a point. Actors suddenly weren't actors, they were people. In a return to the "every man" appeal of the silent days, stars were replaced with standard, every day guys, albeit with a little artistic elevation. 

Monty Clift, post-crash.

With an enthusiasm for the art that eclipsed the drive for celebrity, these actors seemed to resent themselves. Most openly admitted to an embarrassment over their chosen profession. A real man would be the men they pretended to be instead of being imitations. Their ego was hurt by society's definition of them as "pansies." Perhaps their reaction to this was a result of the fact that they were being more emotionally open than actors of the past. Yet, in their unapologetic tears and vulnerability, there was an aggression, a naked abandon, a sense of dissatisfaction and fear, which often revealed itself in moments of poetry. They were flawed men, and as such, they were relatable men. But, they were still men for other men to look up to. They took movie star status and brought it back down to earth. The polish was gone; the anger was still there. Clift perhaps embodied this best, as his great beauty and "movie star looks" were corrupted by his fatal crash. His life as his art, most specifically in A Place in the Sun, thus visually revealed what many instinctively felt-- that the American Dream was broken, and they were left the sons of its still perjuring manipulations. 




McQueen on the move in Bullitt.

Men were not portrayed as valiant fighters of the Flynn or Wayne variety. They were only accidental heroes. Brando's conflicted and bitter character in On the Waterfront had no desire for social glory. His own feelings of social rejection-- the boxer who didn't make it-- have made him disinterested in its salvation, until he finally stands up to the "the Man," Lee J. Cobb, to reclaim his integrity-- the only real thing a man has to hold onto. In keeping, Dean's Jett Rink in Giant starts out a buffoon chasing "the dream" and ends a ruined, despicable tycoon. An audience that understood his desperate rise and fall never withdrew its sympathy. McQueen did everything fast and hard, barely stopping for breath, sleeping his way through every beautiful woman's bed in every movie, rejecting his responsibility to them all in the desperate attempt to make The Great Escape from America's uncertain cobweb. No matter the struggle or his characters' flaws, the existential discontentment that followed him from film to film always made him a victim of circumstance. As in Papillon, he never stops trying to break from imprisonment. 

People needed this carnality. Men particularly were desperate to make such carnal howls. As young men were called to serve in the Vietnam War, their drafts arriving like preordered toe tags, there was plenty to scream about. As women grew more independent and feminism started taking a more assertive stand, the male position in the generally accepted patriarchy started to crumble. As society endured race riots, police brutality, the push toward desegregation, the arrival of the hippie, the metamorphosis of sock-hop rock 'n' roll to the Kinks early premonitions of Heavy Metal, the world seemed to be moving faster than it had since the 1920s without the nonchalance. Men onscreen began to inhabit all facets of the male human conundrum. His desire for love, and his desire to dominate; his quest for order and peace of mind, and his desire to escape the roots of his father. His brute force was supercharged but tempered with an increasing attraction to knowledge. A child of communal hysteria, he questioned the world around him. He defied it, and fell prey to it. The jig was up, and a new game was set: there is no peace on earth. Life is War is Hell, From Here to Eternity.

While Poitier's character in The Defiant Ones
still had to inevitably take a fall for "the
white man," Curtis, he also presented a
man morally superior and more
sympathetic than his partner
in crime.

Along with the surprising sensitivity these guys allowed to manifest in their performances-- Clift's jaw dropping and soulful performance in Lonelyhearts, Wallach's vengeful complexity in Baby Doll-- bigger issues were taking place than man's internal conflict. The camera turned outward as the actors turned inward. The world became the stage and its changing geography was mirrored on the screen. There suddenly emerged the minority voice in the person of Sidney Poitier. With the black man’s definition of masculinity on film as yet undefined-- previously only viewed as the segregated, submissive dog to the true, Caucasian male authority figure-- his windy path to absolution on film was yet to come. Sidney’s intelligence, poise, and natural command made him a worthy and acceptable vessel for all audience members to follow, and this initiated their Voyage Out of the deep dark forest of bigotry.  His instant charisma made him likable; the fact that he had the air of a gentleman and spoke in sophisticated "white man's speak" made him nonthreatening. His work-- The Defiant Ones, Porgy and Bess, Raisin in the Sun, Lilies of the Field, Patch of Blue, In the Heat of the Night-- presented him not as a cliche but as a man. While his skin color played a significant part in each role, it was not viewed as an unfortunate handicap that was to be pitied nor one that deserved condescension. He was an American trying to "make it" like any other citizen-- his biology so inconsequential that it made those who tried to use it against him the sorriest of villains. 

Spencer Tracy defends Darwin in
Inherit the Wind.

As this progress was made, the old school veterans tried to keep up. Spencer Tracy, always an actor with conscience-- a quality that haunted him in his private life-- approached groundbreaking material with his token respectful humility and uncanny intuition into the altercation of man's eternal maturation. In his films, he not only kept up with but outdid the rebel boys riding his coattails in Judgment at Nuremberg, Inherit the Wind, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, the first of which he acted opposite Clift, the last Poitier. Meanwhile, John Wayne entered darker territory, and as his conservative politics found resistance with the changing world, his characterizations became even more multifaceted than before. He went from tough on the outside, to tough through and through. His work in True Grit and The Shootist did two things. One was to reveal his depths as an actor, which echoed the secret personal frustrations and bitterness as insecurity followed him into old age. The second was to reveal the lingering public need for icons-- the ones who had never let the world down during their Hollywood reign. Society sought that certainty, particularly the older generations, as the world around them became a thing they didn't recognize. Never was there such a clean split between age and beauty on the screen.  

Peck and Mitchum represent exaggerations of
two versions of the battling American male:
the Apple Pie man of morality vs. the
inner, untamed beast. 

As such, Clark Gable continued drawing fans to theaters to see his work in Mogambo and his wizened, vulnerable, and raw performance in The Misfits. Gary Cooper brought his usual understated pathos to High Noon, then shied away from provocative material to uphold his Mr. Deeds image. Mitchum always worked-- when he wasn't fishing, that is-- all the way into the '90s, performing in everything from The Night of the Hunter (1955) to Dead Man (1995). Gregory Peck held the badge of the eternal man of conscience, representing the soul of what America at least stood for-- or hoped to-- as Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird, and wrote his own cinematic doctrine by performing in topical or controversial pieces like On the Beach and The Boys from Brazil. He then proved his merit by pulling off a transition to horror in The Omen-- only a solid man of common sense as trusted as he could pull off the conflict of a reasonable man who comes to fear God through the acceptance of the Devil.

As these heroes died, retired, or were forgotten, the turmoil didn't cease. Men were left without giants and forced to reckon with themselves as cinema delved even deeper into the disturbances of the human psyche, his condition, and the complications of the world around him. The Kent State shootings, Patty Hearst and the SLA, Watergate, the Munich Massacre, Korea, Ted Bundy, the death of Morrison, the death of Hendrix, the death of Joplin, the death of Elvis... All these monumental crises chewed up the "glory, Hallelujah" of life and left man to reinterpret it's National Anthem as one big con. 

The Godfather opens with Vito Corleone almost immediately asking
for his son Michael. "Where's Michael?" He doesn't even share words 
with his son at his his daughter's wedding. Mistrustful of his eldest son 
Sonny,  he seeks the true family anchor to carry on his heavy burdens. 
These actors do not  have a genuine scene together until Pacino comes 
to Brando in the hospital and names him as his father,  stating, 
"I'm with you now."  Inheritance accepted. POETRY.

With the now absolutely dominant presence of television and the quickening informational capacity of the media, America was shrouded in mistrust and was Hell-bent on dismantling any still perpetuated delusions of grandeur. We are men; we are monsters. The method trend continued in two strains-- still real guys-- as activists or anarchists. Thus we witnessed the emergence of Dustin Hoffman's feminism in Tootsie and Kramer vs. Kramer and Robert De Niro's anti-christ in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Heroes were villains as they hadn't been since the '30s, and all were political. Who better to usher in these angst-ridden young men, seeking in vain to establish their misshapen identity than the Don himself-- he who had paved their way? Brando passed the torch to Al Pacino in The Godfather, and what followed on film was a new breed of man, violently tearing himself and his society down so he can build himself, and it, up again.

This anger began to dissipate in the hands of Ronald Reagan's 1980s optimism. America, in between battles for a time,  was determined to enjoy the economic boom and continue the progress of the '60s and '70s by turning itself into a big enough threat to keep all further mutinies, attacks, and depressions at bay. From the spring-board of the Jewish and Italian actors who populated the masculine screen in the last decade, Captain America was due to return-- our arrogance transforming itself into the muscular, one man heroes that only needed a gun to save the world (a trend started by Charles Bronson in Death Wish, and Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, the bridge films to a new era). 

Arnold goes Commando; America is secure.

Regular guys with chips on their shoulders disappeared behind muscular Gods from Mt. Olympus. Stallone: the broken, underdog poet on a mission. Willis: the clown having "a very bad day." Gibson: the loose cannon, crazy enough to do anything. Cruise: the miniature but cocky pretty-boy whose belief in his own invincibility worked better than any firearm. And Schwarzenegger... Where did this human treasure come from? His Austrian accent only enhanced his status as a mythological creature: Conan the American. His unprecedented reign in everything from action to science fiction to comedy made him an unparalleled force in the industry. People loved him. Utterly. His gravity as a performer was never exactly earth-shattering, but his unabashed commitment to whatever battle he was fighting was. Say what you will about the guy-- he always went for it. America was safe under Arnold's watch. He had our back, and we knew we could trust him every time he uttered those eternal words, "I'll be back," and he always did come back again... Up until the new millennium we he found politics and we found iPhones.

Our heroes aged, only reappearing to mock their image or play on their past mammoth status-- mostly thanks to Stallone's still active imagination and business savvy, as evidenced in The Expendables. At the same time, the world was intruded by the world wide web. As the increasing technological forces at our fingertips became our new heroes, our fascination with human representatives diminished. Our art, our introspection, slowly lost its way while we personally downsized to smaller screens in separate universes, wherein we became our own idols. (For more on that subject, visit my past article YouTube Killed the Movie Star). 

Now we find ourselves in search of "men." As a reflection of society at large, where gender equality between men and women has become (arguably) more balanced, more negative/competitive attention is given to the "other-genders": the homosexuals, the transvestites, the transsexuals, and even living dolls. The emergence of these different strains of manhood and the slow acceptance of them has split the previously more "predictable sex" completely asunder. A Man is a Man isn't a Man anymore. Men are expected to be more emotionally mature, to be more participatory and open in relationships, and to make room for women, who have invaded and irreparably altered the work place, changing all pre-programmed existential strategy. Wife, baby, house: they no longer apply. Your girlfriend is working, she's not ready to have kids, and who the Hell can afford a house in this economy?!?!

This economic slight is perhaps the worst. The depression has made our men depressed. The inability of a man to be a provider is the greatest wound to his ego. A provider is the one thing that he historically must be and which has been consistently represented throughout his path on film. A man must earn-- legally or illegally. Now, men are either out of work or working at jobs that torture them at breakneck speeds for far too little compensation. This, in conjunction with media saturation and our current obsession with surface over substance, pressures him to be a body-conscious metro-sexual with a sweet car, (that he can't afford). 

Man is showcased as presentation-- hiding behind cool specs and wearing skinny jeans, because he doesn't know what else to do. At least, that is the way he is portrayed in advertisements or by the baby-faced, interchangeable pseudo-stars of today. "Men" are Zac Efron, Channing Tatum, singer turned "actor" Justin Timberlake, or that other guy from the inexplicable tragedy of Magic Mike... hold on, I have to look up his name... Alex Pettyfer? Whatever. He's so boring that I would rather watch two retarded hippos have sex than see anything he's in. Pretty, pretty presentations... Some of them try so hard to act, to come across with actual guts, but most of them are just nice guys who are nice looking and that's it. When they imitate the strong men they grew up with, it comes across as insincere and a little pathetic. We're far too cynical to take any of them seriously. As such, they have replaced 1940s wartime pin-ups to become our modern bimbos, a total sexism boomerang effect.

Instinctively, contemporary men reject their actors as physical embodiments of their threatened emasculation, and are consequently left without what they deem to be true representatives, which is why they reject the options placed before them. There are some standouts. Ryan Gosling gets away with what he does due to his taste for intriguing material and his tendency to keep quiet and underplay. (Is it minimalism, or is it just not acting? At least he keeps things interesting). Ryan Reynolds and Bradley Cooper have genuine chops, but they aren't taken seriously enough to be idols. DiCaprio keeps killing it due to his genuine talent and eagerness to take risks. Still, while men respect him, no one man-crushes on him like they once did Cruise. Mark Wahlberg will always be Marky Mark, with or without his funky bunch. Even Brad Pitt's Fight Club sheen has tarnished behind the public campaign he always seems to be waging to be "Look, I'm the Nicest Guy EVER!"

No.

The amped up versions of masculinity presented in the sorry excuses for action films over the last decade-- which are so nondescript and cliched that I can't really think of one right now-- aren't authentic. We rely on Willis to reappear with Die Hard sequels, or Stallone to pull another Rambo or Rocky out of his back pocket. Yet, today's men aren't bodybuilders, because they are expected to be lean-- and not fighting machines, but sex objects. They also can't relate to Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson or Vin Diesel because they are beefy doofuses. In truth, audiences can only tolerate an action hero when he's a superhero, because these are mutants and real men don't feel that they are capable of superhero-dom right now-- not after what happened to us on 9/11. Real guys walking through fire or being shot to Hell and surviving don't make sense after witnessing bodies dropping from the Twin Towers and subsequently watching the economy bleed. Such fictions insult our intelligence. As such, when good looking guys with empty heads put on the cape (Superman Returns, 2006) we don't care. When an actor with actual ability does and the material is darker, we are more apt to get on board (Man of Steel, 2013). 

In contrast to Bruce Wayne, the Joker dives into
the chaos, as this is what has made him what
he is. His indulgence in it is his antipathy for it,
a fact many could certainly relate to.

In truth, the superhero marathon we're still lazily championing has another effect. Thanks mostly to Christopher Nolan's work in the latest Batman franchise, the fantasy world of these masked crusaders has become more interesting. Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne is kind of an asshole in reality. He's self-obsessed. He loses the girl. His life is a self-inflicted curse... He has money, but what good does it do him? He consistently has to get out there and fight to defend his honor and save Gotham City, just as men put on their suits or khakis everyday and get out there and try to make a living and save the country from itself. Life sucks. Perhaps that is why people responded to Heath Ledger's joker with such passion... Being a hero isn't glamorous. It stinks. Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man could die at any moment, because of his defunct heart. The Hulk is the biggest loser ever and a bona fide freak. Thor lives on a boring planet that I wouldn't visit on my worst day. 

What is interesting about these films, aside from Captain America-- which didn't catch on because of the pretty boy problem-- is that the commendable acting when mixed with the machismo is what made all of its stars acceptable. Bale was an actor's actor before. People knew him as the guy from American Psycho. He puts on a cape, and suddenly he's the man. Downey became the comeback kid when he got clean and became Iron Man, going from public enemy number one to everyone's favorite movie star. If it weren't for Thor, there would be no Chris Hemsworth. He would have been one of the vanilla, interchangeable, revolving-door-duds on the cover of whatever constitutes today's internet "Tiger Beat." Similarly, everyone thought Matt Damon was a "pussy" until he became Jason Bourne. Men need the personifications of their complexities with a little flexing of muscle. They may not be he-men, but they're still men after all. Whatever "men" means these days...

Zach Galifianakis: modern hero lampooning
the superficiality of an industry that normally
wouldn't have him. Thank God for tough
times...

In truth, the biggest and most celebrated stars of today are the comedians-- coming full circle back to the silent comic days. Their modus operandi is different-- more vulgar and uncouth-- but losers who make us laugh are definitely on top in the industry game. Their masculine ineptitude gives men a cathartic sigh of relief from the pressures of contemporary narcissism and equally gives them permission to be a little screwed up right now. It's nice for them to see dudes just being "dudes." The appeal of the "Frat Pack" of Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and the Wilson brothers may have died down, but one of the most iconic, oft-quoted, and beloved characters of the current generation is Will Ferrell's Anchorman, Ron Burgandy. Zac Galifianakis is cleaning up with his pot-bellied, pot-smoking, supporting characters-- who coincidentally look like they rarely bathe and sound like they didn't pass the second grade. The new bro-from-another-ho-team of Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, and James Franco scored box office gold last year with This is the End. 

This does feel like the end, doesn't it? Everyone feels totally screwed, and seeing actors playing losers, degenerates, selfish bastards, and social retards reflects the feelings of total disorder that mankind experiences on a daily basis. Every day is like The Hangover. "What happened last night? What happened yesterday morning? The day before? What's happening now?! Where did my life go?!?!" The picket fence, the pie in the sky, the childhood home you grew up in, are all relics of a nonexistent society. The most we can do... is laugh. 

With the return of our modernized Tramps to the forefront, the masculine onscreen presence is as cryptic as it has ever been. The absence of movie stars with the instant accessibility of Netflix streaming has also done some damage, as there is no hugely adored prototype of Americana to latch onto and label as the new "He." We have gifted actors like Daniel Day-Lewis and Joaquin Phoenix who do compelling work every once in awhile; we have Hugh Jackman trying to be Wolverine and Russell Crowe trying to hang tough, but neither pull it off, because we heard them both sing. And "sing."

Jon Hamm has won an equally adoring male and female audience through his
performance as the mysterious and conflicted Don Draper on the "Mad Men" 
television series-- TV being much more influential than cinema these days. 
Of course, his character exists in another time, which brings the fascination 
into question. What does the "business man" really look like today? 
Are our working men no better than those portrayed in 
The Wolf of Wall Street?

As man searches for his masculinity in modernity, trying to find that balance between personal, emotional security, intellectual stimulation, and faith in his government, we may be at a point where we have outgrown such distinctive representations of Manliness. We live in a world of big box-office flops and unique, unpopular independent films, which present many interesting stories about the struggle to just hang on. With so many voices trying to be heard, there may be no need for fictional, pinnacle male models to do the heavy lifting for their living brothers. As our world opens up, it too disconnects us. We are all introverts living on Instagram. Our films, therefore, present a myriad of faces and slices of life: individuals not communities. It's a strange sort of limbo. Where it will lead artistically, I don't know. But wherever humanity goes, the cinematic male archetype is certain to follow.

NOW, THAT'S FUNNY: Part XII

Plenty of Chaps' to go around...

By 1917, five years after Charlie Chaplin had come to Los Angeles, not only had he become a full-on movie star, but he was a bona fide phenomenon. His movies were consistently successful and eagerly awaited by his incalculable number of fans. His face was quickly becoming the most recognizable one in America. It wasn't long before his image was finding its way into people's homes, as children bought dolls in his likeness and adults began dressing as him for Halloween parties (or just for fun). To Charlie, his fame was always a bit bewildering. He had gone from being a nobody to being the guy with the most familiar face in the world... Or so he thought. With all of the adulation out there, there was bound to be a community of Charlie wannabes. A series of comedians began appearing on the screen in very similar if not completely copied costumes, and hack Charlie Chaplin impersonators started coming out of the woodwork. Charlie didn't seem to mind too much. After all, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. However, he realized that life had truly become bizarre when he read that a man in Cincinnati had performed a hold-up using a Chaplin costume as a disguise! The final insult came when Charlie decided to enter one of the many Chaplin look-alike contests himself, just for a laugh. Competing against boys of all shapes and sizes (with far fewer years of performance experience), one would think Charlie was a shoe-in for victory. Hilariously enough, he didn't win. He loved telling that story!

Boris Karloff portrayed another cinematic character nearly as historically relevant as Chaplin's "Little Tramp": Frankenstein's Monster. It is strange to think that by artistically bringing to life a creature that was scientifically brought back to life, Boris obtained his own immortality. His depiction of the awkward mash of arms and limbs was haunting, disturbing, frightening, and a little bit sad. Perhaps that is why the Monster remains in the American heart, despite his murderous penchants. But this was but one of many characters that Boris portrayed, which were generally villains, creatures, or good men gone bad in Universal's long line of B-horror films. In his personal life, Boris was far from his movie archetype, being generous, gentlemanly, and most importantly, harmless. He also had a great sense of humor, which some of his co-workers took advantage of. In The Invisible Ray, Boris's character "Dr. Rakh" and Bela Lugosi (left) come to blows over Rakh's latest discovery: Radium X. While filming one particular scene,  Boris was wearing an incredibly hot "radiation" suit as his character is lowered into a smoking pit to hopefully gather some of this strange radium specimen. The crew decided to play a prank. They lowered the sweating Boris down, then when the clock struck noon, they broke for lunch. Boris was literally left hanging! Luckily, his temper was not as easily provoked as his character's. He just started chuckling. Luckily, his co-workers came to retrieve him so he could grab some grub as well.

John Carradine (right) also took part in a few Universal monster flicks, including The Mummy's Ghost and House of Frankenstein. With his thin frame, sunken cheeks, and natural intensity, he could easily step into villainous roles. His acclaimed acting chops had earned him quite the rep on the stage, but his talents on the screen are best remembered in supporting roles, such as the conniving "Hatfield" in Stagecoach or the loyal "Rizzio" in Mary of Scotland. He remains one of many unsung and intriguing fellows in artistic history whose genius to his craft was just as maniacal as his personal demons. He notoriously caused more than one stir with drinking buddies like John Barrymore and W.C. Fields, a group of pals infamous for imbibing their talents and eventually their lives away. The facts are sad in retrospect, yet the brotherhood and prankster shenanigans somehow still make one smile even while shaking the head in "for shame" fashion when pondering the lives of these hard-living fellows. For example, John was particularly lubricated one evening and after giving a cab-driver the wrong address, he wound up spouting orations of Shakespearean verse at Steve Hayes's doorstep. For the record, the two didn't know each other, and John literally had no idea where he was. Steve's pals weren't as accustomed as he (the owner of the popular eatery Googies) to the sudden appearance of a movie star, so they gushingly asked the sloshed actor to join them inside, which he did... after telling them that he was "King Lear." He kept asking for liquor, but after being handed tea instead, decided to show his disdain by urinating off the balcony. John, one doubts, remembered this visit the next day, but his surprised hosts never forgot it.

Marlon Brando (left) is one of those singular guys that is just awesome. He could behave like a punk, skunk, or scalawag, he could be as eccentric as the day was long, but his confidence and diabolical mystery still rendered even his most sinister on and off-screen moments just plain cool. This naturally translated to his sex life, where he pretty much had whomever he wanted. A pop cultural icon who defied pop culture, his dangerous nature worked like a tonic on the ladies. However, he didn't always get his way, despite his strong personality and masterful methods of coercion, charm, and perhaps even hypnosis. Tony Curtis would recall a time when he was roommates with Marlon on Barham Boulevard. The two buddied up while trying to build their acting careers, and naturally, as members of young Hollywood, ran in the same circles. One night, the duo were out at a bar in Palm Springs, when they both took notice of a very attractive girl. As neither fellow had hit it big yet, it is doubtful that she had any idea who they were, but she was definitely attracted to the handsome pair. However, after she boldly approached, she made her choice known. Marlon tried to put the moves on the girl, but she clearly only had eyes for Tony-- who possessed in prettiness what Marlon had in 'tude. Tony didn't know it, but this was a monumental moment in Marlon history. Some time later, Tony went to a party at which Marlon was also in attendance. When Tony walked in, Marlon held up his hand to silence the room and jokingly declared:"There's the only guy who ever took a girl away from me." Clearly, sexual refusal was something Marlon did not encounter often, but at least he took the punch standing up.

Robert Altman, in his 45 years in cinema, carved out quite a niche for himself. He only really produced one major box-office hit, but his work remains intriguing and critically acclaimed for his unique multi-layered style, overlapping storylines, and birds eye view of humanity. If the average director allows you to follow characters through a story, Altman challenges audiences to follow a story through its characters. The effect is disconcerting, yet somehow more real than the more streamlined, conveyor-belt fashion of the majority of products out there. He doesn't extol star power; he translates human beings. The verdict with the public is very divided. You can either take him or leave him. What makes his place in film even more fascinating than his controversial body of work is his graduation into the position of filmmaker. There very nearly wasn't a place for this quirky, definitive character. According to former publicity guru Michael Selsman, Robert Altman got his breakthrough gig directing MASH (cast right) by accident. Michael was in discussions with Darryl F. Zanuck when the mogul was on the hunt for a director to take the helm of this new wartime vehicle. Michael, of course, suggested some of his clients, but Zanuck seemed stuck on The Dirty Dozen's Robert Aldrich. Unfortunately for Aldrich, Zanuck's casting director, Owen McLean, was a heavy drinker and drunkenly transmogrified "Aldrich" into "Altman" when taking the note to make the offer. Thus, the pitch was made to the wrong guy, and unknown TV director Robert Altman got the chance of a lifetime! Everyone may not be a fan, but clearly the Gods of celluloid wanted this guy cemented in artistic history. Crazy, huh?
 

Speaking of controversy, Kirk Douglas's latest literary contribution I Am Spartacus: Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist is all about it. A fascinating depiction, not only of how difficult it is to make a movie-- let alone an iconic one-- but of mankind's slow undoing of a period of political prejudice in Hollywood, Kirk tells all about his voyage in bringing to film the story of the notorious Thracian slave who tried to take down Rome. The film in many ways is spectacular and holds up incredibly well over time. Somehow, God willing, all the pieces of the puzzle came together-- from the casting, to landing Stanley Kurbick as director, to the financing-- and the masterpiece was made. However, upon its original release, not all of the footage was there that is available today. One very contentious scene between Laurence Olivier's "Cassius" and Tony Curtis's "Antoninus" was originally eliminated for its overt homo-erotic themes. You know the one: Antoninus is bathing Cassius in the giant tub and is asked by his master whether he likes "snails" or "oysters" (left). The snails insinuate a sexual taste for men, and oysters for women. Unfortunately for the bi-sexual Cassius, Antoninus only swings one way. The censors were obviously not having it at the time, and initially asked that Kirk and his team tone down the innuendo making "snails and oysters" "artichokes and truffles" instead. Say again? Kirk refused, after he stopped laughing of course, but this left the scene on the cutting room floor. Later, when the film was re-cut for re-release with the missing footage, the dialogue for the scene had been lost. Thus, Tony had to perform his voiceover once again, which he gladly did, but Larry was unfortuantely already deceased. His wife, Joan Plowright, suggested that Anthony Hopkins step in and perform the dialogue for him, which he admirably did. Watching today, you would never know!

HIGH CONTRAST: The New Kids

Hot new kids on the lot-- Monty Clift and Marlon Brando-- rub 

elbows while locking horns in a secret, friendly rivalry.

Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift remain steadfast representatives of the bygone era of the "Method" revolution. This cataclysmic moment of artistic realism hit the homogenized world of Hollywood-ized acting with a disruptive, destructive, and seductive violence that was perhaps the most important milestone in cinema since the advent of sound. Ironically, it would be unfair to label either Brando or Clift as a "Method actor." Clift never studied the technique and only attended a few, early classes by invitation after he'd already had success in The Search. Brando did study the method thoroughly, but-- ever the humble fellow-- claimed to have invented his style himself and too asserted that instructor Lee Strasberg had merely taken the credit. Both men thought that Strasberg, the originator of this new school, was a bit of a quack, and both possessed enough natural talent, bravado, and (arguably) healthy narcissism to crawl from under the stigma of being one of Lee's proteges to become their own, unique Masters of the Craft.

Whatever teacher, technique, or lack thereof that either actor claimed to have, mattered not in the end. What they delivered was an almost unnatural brand of naturalism. One sect of the population would claim that the super-reality of their performances was the beginning of cinema's ruination, for it defiled the "art" of it-- the structure of illusion or the creation of the cinematic dreamworld was to be protected at all costs! (Strangely enough, this was the same issue that many took with the innovation of the 'talkies'). This theory would assert that there must be a thick, hard line between the real and the fake, between the viewers and the product. Film was supposed to effect an audience in a painless, subconscious fashion; this overt, emotional thrust was far too dangerous. Still, the other half of the population, not surprisingly the younger half, went ga-ga over their new Demigods. The fact that the movies had become real seemed like the final consummation of the initial promise of the movies themselves: art imitating life without appearing as imitation. The lie became true, and the male engines that could and did deliver this devout honesty would find themselves in a life-long battle of respect and rivalry-- envy and one-up-manship. The audience was just glad to sit back and watch.

Monty interprets the internalized, tormented American rebel in 

A Place in the Sun.

Bonus points, of course, are awarded to Clift for getting there first, yet the brash vitality of Brando has made his impression much more memorably poignant. Even today, when men come to Hollywood in search of their own artistic yearnings, it is the name of "Brando" that they speak. Clift is more of an afterthought or a later found gem. The reasons for this distinction are multifarious, but the most obvious place to start is in the men themselves. To borrow an analogy, Marlon was the "bull," and Monty was the "China shop." On the surface, these men couldn't have been more different, despite the fact that both were born in Omaha, NE. Clift was slightly senior, raised by a banker turned insurance salesman and an ambitious mother who had her eyes fixed on penetrating the social set. Monty was raised to believe that he was a first-class aristocrat, despite the family's occasional financial downfalls. He was nourished both artistically and intellectually, and behaved always with impeccable manners and the regal poise of a prince. Brando, on the other hand, while equally the son of a less polished businessman, was under-educated in the art of decorum. His family didn't wear a cloak of facade. A born rebel who was expelled from school, he preferred being an outcast to being, what he would consider, a pretentious monarch. He wore torn shirts, mussed hair, and seemed Hell-bent on disturbing the Hell out of people for the mere Hell of it. Though sprouted from essentially the same seed,  both Clift and Brando grew in vastly different directions and presented themselves with marked distinction. On the outside, one could easily say that Monty at least appeared to be the boy every mother hoped her daughter would marry, and Marlon was the boy all fathers feared. Monty would be invited in for tea; Marlon would be chased off the lawn with a shot gun.

Their manner, which invested itself particularly in their work, is definitely worth discussing. Both were instinctual men, prone to uncanny mimicry, and masters of observation. The way their talents manifested themselves was a product of their naturally different personalities. Clift was the intellectual, tearing everything apart in his mind and painstakingly putting it back together again to create a fully formed, perfectly natural character. He led with his mind. Brando led with his guts. He would simply step inside the character and wear him out. His being is much more physically dominant than Clift's. His characterizations, therefore, appear almost haphazard, as if he is figuring them out on the spot. He is always infinitely more interesting than the person he is creating, even in his most iconic performances. His raw, unapologetic interpretations were more intriguing to audiences, and even Clift saw this, admitting that Brando "connects better with his audiences." In this respect, Clift's calculation and perfectionism worked against him; he put the work before himself. Brando, no matter how great his performance, seemed to carry a sense of resentment for the work-- he didn't need it. He was just doing it because, whatever...

Marlon represents the animalistic, unapologetic American rebel

in On the Waterfront.

This made Brando fascinating, but it offered him fewer acting opportunities. Roles had to be tailored to his specific, male-animal type, whereas Clift could more easily conform to any role that tempted him. The most specific distinction could be that Clift cared, and Brando at least acted like he didn't. Monty sold his soul to his craft, and his determination and focus constantly stressed and tormented him. His resulting performances always came off flawlessly due to this diligence, but his acting seemed to alluringly creep up on his audiences because of his understated specificity. The camera had to search for him, and only after he was found did it realize how much it had wanted him in the first place. Thus, he let the audience find the story and him within it. Not so with Brando. His craft remained a sacrosanct secret. He didn't think too hard, or try too hard-- or so he claimed. He just did. As such, the camera grips him from the moment he hits the screen and never lets go. Of course, both men possessed pieces of each other, though in different proportions. The acting yin and yang, they served as perfect compliments to each other in their field, and offered audiences their personal preference of the modern man: class or crass. One could use an analogy of the men's acting by viewing them as lovers, which is fitting, since acting was probably their number one love in life anyway. Monty would woo the role, fall in love with it, endure all the fascinations and pangs of it, and wring himself dry on it, before leaving brokenhearted and altered after every performance. Marlon would have his way with a role, enjoy the stimulation of the carnal act, then kick it out of bed and move on to the next conquest, hungrily but dispassionately. Marlon had a better separation of himself from the role, (which is perhaps why he lived longer than the ever-conflicted Monty).

While both had their ups and downs in their careers in terms of critical approval and box-office, Clift would arguably appear to be the victor. He was so careful about the roles he chose and such a hard worker in each performance he made that, more often than not, even if the picture was a dud, he was still raved over. His career took a certain dive after his car accident, for his lack of a handsome face in a very superficial industry certainly crippled his early advantage, but there was never a doubt about his talent. That was always present, even if at moments it flagged under exhaustion, pain, or the dilution of drugs or alcohol. Brando didn't suffer from the same chemical dependencies that dismantled Clift's early promise, yet he too had a demon that worked against him: himself. Marlon couldn't seem to take the whole acting business seriously. Perhaps a part of him felt the need to keep himself at a distance from an occupation that was never accepted as "masculine." His much more macho presentation on film would also bolster this theory, for it was the necessary machismo that he injected into his performances that made him such an exciting presence on the screen. He needed to label himself as divergent-- other. He was not a pretty boy or an aesthete. He was no "sissy." He was changing the game. Thus, when he embodied his roles, he seemed to simultaneously thumb his nose at his own audience. As such, as his career progressed, he became lazy, disinterested, or perhaps even overly narcissistic, and stopped giving as much as he had early in his career. 

Monty's sex appeal at first appears uncomplicated. With the "face of an angel,"
seduction was simple. Yet he too had a sinister inner danger that gave him an
edge and elevated his appeal. (With Donna Reed in From Here to Eternity). 

One could also state that, since Brando was an unabated personality early in his career, he failed to become a great character actor until later in his reign. Early attempts, such as in Mutiny on the Bounty, fell flat. He wouldn't obtain the same critical reception as a character actor as Clift had until he pulled off his earth-shattering performance as "Don Vito Corleone" in The Godfather. In this respect, Monty seems to be the older brother passing on life lessons to a younger brother. Brando had to mature as an artist before he was able to distinguish himself as a character actor. When he was able to marry this talent to his innate charisma and power, he pulled off his second Academy Award for The Godfather (his first being for a more Marlon-like role in On the Waterfront). This contrast makes the two actors read like Fire (Brando) and Water (Clift). Brando reacts with instantaneous physicality, which gives way to his emotion. Clift reacts with immediate intellect, which then gives way to emotion. In this respect, it was Brando who was left at a disadvantage. A humorous example can be seen in their personal lives. At one point, Brando was dating Ellen Adler and took her to a party at which Clift was also in attendance. Brando wandered off into the mix, and Ellen found herself talking to Clift, who was, of course, all charm and manner. He asked inquisitive questions, he was attentive, and he began almost accidentally seducing her out from under Brando, who, by the way, stood frothing from across the room. Finally, seeing how Monty was seamlessly putting the moves on his girl, Brando came bursting through the crowd like an angry school child whose toy had been stolen: "She's my Jew, Monty!" Whoa. With that, he grabbed Ellen's hand and stormed off. Clift just stood in his place, smiling to himself at the pushy, uncouth amateur who had made a foolish scene. Marlon still behaved sort of like a cave man, clubbing his current choice over the head and pulling her into his cave. Clift didn't even have to bend a finger; he would hypnotize and bring the women to him like moths to a flame-- though his actual preferences lay elsewhere.

Of course, Monty enjoyed indulging in this prowess, and he certainly began the aforementioned "innocent" chat with Ellen to bait his arch nemesis. The rivalry between himself and Brando is legendary if not altogether scandalous. Aside from the Ellen exchange, both men truly respected each other too much to ever let things come to blows or immature arguments. Their careers and lives too had a strange way of running parallel to each other, if not completely overlapping. Clift met Brando for the first time when he went to see the latter perform in "I Remember Mama." Later, Clift was offered the role in "The Eagle Has Two Heads," from which Brando had just been fired. After seeing the play, Clift refused the role, and actually wound up riding back to New York on the same train as Brando. The two men shared a friendly but awkward exchange on board as a result. Initially, the hot, young Brando must have seemed like a thorn in Clift's side. After Monty extricated himself from a passionate but troubled relationship with Ann Lincoln, she turned to Brando and had an affair with him as well. When Clift ended another relationship with Judy Balaban, Marlon served as the best man at her wedding to Jay Kantor. Clift too had to host a party specifically so his enamoured acting coach, Mira Rostova, could meet Brando-- though she was too shy to ever introduce herself.

Brando's sexuality was more immediately violent. He was the "bad boy"

women fantasized about being dominated by, yet he too had

enough of the hidden vulnerability women wanted to

discover, as seen in his desperate cry for Stella!!!

Although both men could at times offer up an immature aside or two regarding their rival-- Monty making fun of Marlon's singing in Guys and Dolls, Brando saying that Clift looked like he had a "mixmaster" stuck up his ass-- they enjoyed a unique and somewhat competitive friendship. When both were up for the Oscar in 1952, they went to see the other man in his competing film. Both later admitted to each other that they believed the other man deserved the award more. Despite the classic performances of both-- in A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the Sun-- it was Bogie who would win for his performance in The African Queen, which left their battle a fortunate stalemate. With no way of choosing between these two new, compelling actors, who were simultaneously reinventing the medium, why not just give it to the old guy? Perhaps more interestingly, the two were in talks to work together in East of Eden, with Monty as "Aron" and Marlon as "Cal." The role of Cal instead went to the boy who could have been birthed from the consummation of their artistic selves: James Dean. The only time M&M would share the marquee would be in The Young Lions. As if intimidated by Monty, Marlon's performance suffered in the film, and it gave Clift a great deal of pleasure when he witnessed Brando creeping around the set, trying to secretly watch him work. Yet, Monty had confidence in his rival. When Brando's career began to stall, Monty was vocal in his support: "Marlon isn't finished yet. He's just resting up. He'll be back-- bigger than ever." Brando's great return was indeed a triumph in both The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris. Brando too revealed a rare kindness when he came to Monty prior to Lions and begged him to get himself cleaned up off drugs and booze, because he needed Monty around to keep "challenging" him: "I've hated you because I want to be better than you-- but I'm not." Sadly, that battle would be lost. It is believed that Marlon took the role of "Maj. Weldon Penderton" in Reflections in a Golden Eye in honor of Monty, who was to have starred in the film opposite Elizabeth Taylor had he not passed away so suddenly.

Pick a side

It is hard for me to even conceive of Clift and Brando as separate entities anymore, knowing the way that they both secretly worked off each other and how they separately but equally influenced the very art of film acting. Their success is a product of multiple factors, but what made them stand out and stand the test of time so well was their unique appeal and modernity-- which, in turn, is eternal. Perhaps Monty said it best:  

"I don't think either Marlon or I are imitators, which is why I guess we both respect each other."

Eccentric, they may have been. Brash, cocky, and occasionally full of sh*t, you betcha. But phonies? Never. As such, we continue to trust them in every role that they played and allow them to lead us again and again through the maze-like plots of their competing films, wherein looking for them, we continue to find ourselves. They weren't a breath of fresh air in Hollywood; they were two cataclysmic tornadoes. We haven't been so enthusiastically nor thankfully shaken up since. One doubts we will ever be fortunate enough to encounter another such storm.