annoyed

[lobelia321]

I'm tired and I'm angry and I feel importuned upon.

I also just saw Closer which has Julia Roberts,Jude Law, Natalie Portman (Queen Amidala) and Clive Owen (The Croupier) in it. It is an actors' play. It is very play-like and the end credits did, indeed, reveal that it is based on a play (which I hadn't known) by someone called Patrick Marber (English? AMerican?). I liked it a lot. It has the sort of stilted, artificial dialogue that I love and that you do get more often in plays than you do in films.

But when was the last time you saw a film in which Jude Law did not get punished for being so beautiful? In which Jude Law, at the end of the film, is beautiful, rich, happy and gets the girl? Except for Bosie (which was when he was baby!Jude), I can only remember him getting killed, tormented, losing out on love, being handicapped, being artificial -- you name it. It's as if he has to be punished for being so beautiful. It's always the other, less beautiful, guy who gets the girl.

I finished Tanizaki's Makioka Sisters. I loved it. It reminded me of A Suitable Boy and I'm sure that Vikram Seth must have read that novel. The ending of Makioka Sisters ranks for me among the top five best last lines in a novel I have read. Very similar in kind to Suitable Boy actually. It is much, much harder to do a good ending than it is to do a good beginning. It is a novel of manners, a novel where the dramatic action tends to happen off-screen, a novel where little is said and much inferred, with moving bits that made me cry and a very tough core. Also I learned a lot about Japan, and discovered the close relationship of Japanese to German culture, a new thing for me. So it did just what I like world literature to do for me!

T'h said, 'but is it true?' I said, 'of course it is true. All great literature is true, this is why I love it so much. If it weren't true, it would not be great literature, it would be bad (or good enough) literature.'

Comments

[gabbyhope.livejournal.com]

Re: the Jude issue
Okay, while originally reading this I was thinking to myself, hey, that's not true! Jude does play characters that get the right end of the stick! Like in. Uh. That one movie. With, um. The dude. Who did that thing. Yeeeah.

So I cheated and ran like a little bitch to his page on IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000179/) to ponder over the films of his that I've seen (of which there are many, I've discovered) to see if he isn't "punished for being so beautiful" as you put it. This is what I've come up with - not including movies in which he plays bit roles/the narrator, as those don't truly count, and, again, these are the films I'VE seen:

Cold Mountain - yeah, okay, that sucked what happened to Inman. but even though he was very good in it, i didn't think he fit the part that i imagined while reading the book. neither did renee, but oh well.

Road to Perdition - TOTALLY playing against his pretty-boy type, in this one. he's the super bad guy. bad guys never win. what do you expect?

A.I. - uh. whoops?

Enemy at the Gates - HE GETS THE GIRL! HE GETS THE GIRL! BOOYA!

The Talented Mr. Ripley - *sigh*

eXinstenZ - what a crap movie. uh, nope.

The Wisdom of Crocodiles - what a freaky ass movie. double nope.

Gattaca - definitely nope.

Wilde - you already pointed this one out, so, yeah, i'll just say... ASS.

I Love You, I Love You Not - teenager!Jude is a dick, he strings a girl along, and then regrets being a dick in the end. well. at least he doesn't die, right?

So you've got a point that there seems to be a trend, but, to be honest, I don't think it's by design. The characters he has played have depth and purpose. He isn't being chosen for these parts because he's gorgeous - it's because he's damn talented and he makes an impression. Each one is different than the last, and I like that. Plus, did you know that he apparently keeps the shirts in which his characters die or are killed in? o.O

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, you've seen so many more Judes than I have! I am definitely behind on my Jude-viewing.

*mumbles to self: 'must catch up, must catch up'*

There is, however, one film I've seen that's not in your list which is I Heart Huckabees. I can't divulge the plot, obviously, because you haven't seen it but suffice to say that I LOVE this film. He is so beautiful in it, btw, that I had to look sideways at the other actors on screen; he was too dazzling. But he's not the only point: the entire film is simply wonderful. A quirky intelligent light-hearted movie about philosophy!

I don't think he's being chosen *because* he's beautiful but it makes an impact, it can't help but do in the business that trades on stardom and beauty that is the movies. Also, in some of the films he's groomed and dressed and lit to look beautiful. And he does... *sighs*

I didn't think he was being cast by design, more that it was a subliminal process.

[fearlessdiva.livejournal.com]

Well he's the one choosing which roles he'll take; I think it's more evidence of his own uneasiness with his looks than any subliminal issues on the part of the casting directors. Law's talked about his relationship to his looks some in interviews - one he did with Charlie Rose and the Actor's Studio one come to mind immediately, as well as his interview with Jon Stewart where they talked about his being chosen Sexiest Man by People Magazine, and I've read statements attributed to him several times to the effect that he tries to take roles that are at oblique angles to his physical appearance. If not quite going against type the way that Depp typically has in his career (another stunningly gorgeous actor who wishes he wasn't), I think he takes roles that complicate the issue of beauty. Bosie, who was beautiful but a jerk; Road to Perdition, where his looks were obscured with prosthetics; AI, where he was beautiful because he was designed to be a sentient vibrator - not too different from being a pin-up actor in certain ways, the blank object of the fantasies of others; Enemy at the Gates (which I just saw last night and really liked), which has a major theme of the press putting people on a pedestal for their perceived traits (not beauty in this case, but it could easily apply - I could see him saying some of the same things about being Sexiest Man that Vassily says about being a Hero of the Motherland); Ripley, where his beauty is dangerous and eventually gets him killed (which he wasn't super excited about doing at first because of the Beautiful Young Man aspects of it, but which he took because he wanted to shoot in Italy, he said on Actor's Studio); Gattaca, where his beauty is a genetic perfection covering a flawed human being; Alfie, where his beauty makes it easy for him to fall into a shallow and meaningless life. The only films of his that I've seen which don't have some aspect of complicating the issue of beauty in some way or another are Sky Captain and Love Honour and Obey.

So I think rather than casting directors/director/writers punishing him for being beautiful, I suspect he's either punishing himself for it or working out his psychological issues with it. Which I think is really interesting to watch, myself. I didn't think he was nearly as compelling in SC or LH&O as he has been in some of his other movies.

Just my two cents, fwiw.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Well he's the one choosing which roles he'll take; I think it's more evidence of his own uneasiness with his looks
Interesting point. I'm sure there's something in what you say (or is it more a case of wanting there to be something in what you say as an insecure Jude is just so alluring...!). But I also think it's a combination; an actor doesn't just apply for any old job; I'm sure that it was also (more?) up to the producers to choose whether they wanted a Jude-type or a Clive-Owen-type for either of their two roles. Then they could choose among various Jude-types.
beauty in some way or another are Sky Captain and Love Honour and Obey.

I've totally forgotten about Alfie! I haven't seen it for one. Everyone else seems to be much more au fait with Mr Law's career than myself... I like the idea that his roles have complicated beauty. I've seen Enemy at Gate, though, and hated it. He was dreadful in it. He was also only pedestrian in Cold Mountain -- which shows how dependent some actors (all?) are on good direction.

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

Did we get the same version of "Closer", because his character totally doesn't get the girl or wind up happy or rich. Natalie's character dumps him cold & he's all alone at the end.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Precisely. That's what I mean. Jude Law is always left standing out in the cold at the end of a film.

Or dead.

Patrick Marber

[the-oscar-cat.livejournal.com]

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0544999/

contempory of Stewart Lee (Jerry Springer the Opera), and Steve Coogan.

Re: Patrick Marber

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Contemporary of Steve Coogan!

*cackles*