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· January 11, 2008 1:15 PM by
Colleen Shirazi
· January 11, 2008 1:30 PM by
Dain
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Posted by Dain, Friday, January 11, 2008 8:28 AM (Eastern)
I've watched a good handful of classic films now, thanks to the ministrations of leslie04film on Youtube. Just to name a handful, I've discovered the masterly eye-candy of Spellbound, the sheer fun of romantic comedy in The More the Merrier, the terrifying but brilliantly acted The Snake Pit, and Cary Grant, whose versatility is downright shocking. I'll admit I don't really like to watch movies; they demand your entire attention in a way I find very exhausting. But the classics have a charm of their own, and the actors really have presence, both of which are so lacking in Hollywood today. Celebrity has such an invasive, cynical quality today, and the stars just get younger and younger (and thinner, for that matter). Perhaps the maturity of the Golden-Age goddesses made all the difference, or perhaps it was the willingness of the audience not to question the fantasies Hollywood built for us overmuch.
They too had their racy private lives, and honestly, they were as drug-riddled (innocent gamine Judy Garland!) and adulterous (the cold and pristine Ingrid Bergman!) then as they are now. As for their public images, they were carefully constructed and meticulously maintained—in short, artificial. And as usual, there was more ready beauty than real talent, perhaps even more, in some sense. Directors made a feast out of their leading ladies (closeups on the classical beauties, full figure treatment on the bombshells), or to use an ugly and aggressive term, objectified. And yet, this made them so much larger than life, and in some sense that is the true purpose of Hollywood, and it is comparatively depressing to consider that the closest we have to that is Lindsay Lohan, who is insanely pretty and plain crazy, but it is not the same: no one would ever accuse Lindsay Lohan of having class.
Consider Marilyn Monroe, the greatest of all American icons, period. Terrible actress, and that is my very own humble honest opinion. Bette Davis, who was a merciless harridan and perhaps a little too talented, once snidely remarked of Monroe on the set of All About Eve, Davis' pièce de résistance, "She couldn't act her way out of a paper bag." And yet, Monroe consumes the screen in an utterly unforgettable and inimitable way: she has singular presence, that contradictory mixture of innocence and sensuality that no one captures quite as well. It is no wonder that Hollywood pounced on her with a series of films where men-go-crazy. Sure, it's larger than life, but that is what makes her so watchable.
For example, no one but Monroe could have played The Seven Year Itch (anyone else would have made it psychological), a fact so obvious that the movie makes a (perhaps easy) self-referential joke. In a sense, the movie is really about the irresistibility of Marilyn Monroe. She has very short scenes, barely full sentences, but she was so bad at remembering her lines it would often take forty takes before they could deem it satisfactory. Were it not for the precise neurotics of Tom Ewell, I am not entirely certain this movie would be half so effective, and that is typical of Monroe's movies: she carries the show, but the frenzied man does most of the work. Mind, I'm not trying to deprecate Monroe's work as a comedienne; the differences between the human being and the celebrity is a bit like separating Jesus Christ from Jesus of Nazareth, somehow two entirely separate people. It is simply a good example of how the cult of celebrity works.
It is silly to think that celebrities were "better" people in the past; they're contemporary gods and goddesses, the idols of myth, only it's a business and not religion. They are just people, after all.
What is really different, it seems to me, is that they were less inclined to abuse their cultural capital, out of what can only be called an addiction to their own self-importance. As Grace Kelly once put it, "A person has to keep something to herself or your life is just a layout in a magazine." I wouldn't rate Grace Kelly as a fantastic talent either, but again, the sort of beauty and presence that takes complete possession of an audience is not a quality to be lightly disregarded. When Judy Garland, who was very talented indeed, lost her Oscar to Kelly, she was heard to remark, "taking off her fucking makeup and grabbing MY Oscar." But that presence, it is very real: a cool patrician blonde who became a princess and gave her name to a Hermès bag. She wears evening gowns the way most women wear jeans (she was Edith Head's favorite actress to dress), and if that isn't larger than life, if that isn't presence, I don't know what is.
Here is Grace Kelly, and here is Britney Spears, who is carrying a more posh version in crocodile. The legendary Britney Spears! Ah, yes. Quod erat demonstratum.
Labels: celebrity, culture notes, film
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January 11, 2008 1:15 PM,
I think it's well to put that time into context. The idea of being a "movie star," rather than an actor, was relatively new. From what I've read, it was still the consensus "real actors" acted on stages, not in films. That is why there was a long period in movies where the acting was somewhat over the top. The people were used to stage acting, where they had to reach the people in the back seats.
Monroe started out as a film star, then tried to become an actor. That is why her movie presence is so strong. She never attained the respectability of being An Actor...even though she did the smart thing, which was get into producing. It is questionable whether she would have made the jump from sex symbol to real actress. Although I'd like to think she had it in her, that she had the monumental strength to keep on going, no matter what people thought.
January 11, 2008 1:30 PM,
Yes, that puts it in a nutshell: Marilyn Monroe is probably the greatest star of all time, and not really an actress. But that was widely acknowledged at the time, I dare say. She tried very hard to learn.
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