Credit Where Due
Brad Pitt‘s Benjamin Button performance is passivity incarnate. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. He simply chooses (or was told) to become the watcher — a nice fellow who delights in absorption of all things, a sponge man. But his best performance of the year, hands down, was in Burn After Reading. He wasn’t Hamlet in that Coen Bros. film, but Pitt’s every line and gesture was a kick. His gym instructor was stupidly, radiantly alive, and brimming with presence.
Not exactly sure why you keep hammering on Benjamin Button – it’s very odd behavior, considering. And sorry, but you’re an island on this one. Pitt is remarkable in Benjamin Button – he isn’t overtly showy the way some actors are but it is one of the best of the year, no doubt about it. Because you didn’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. And yes, he is also good in Burn After Reading but it’s more showy, so I can see why you noticed it more.
I don’t know why people consider “passivity” a lack of acting.
For me, one of DeNiro’s best performances is in Once Upon a Time in America. He doesn’t put on 50 lbs or trade quips with Joe Pesci or do any of the other shtick people love to see and he’s content to let James Woods chew the scenery because that’s what’s right for their characters.
I haven’t seen Button yet and I loved Pitt in Burn After Reading but there is (understandably, I grant you) a tendency to think flashy performances are “better.”
That’s why people love, say, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson’s War more than The Savages or Wahlberg in The Departed – not that either is bad at all. We just love that obvious fun stuff, right?
That’s why people playing disabilities (without going full retard!) or pop culture figures are always locks for Oscar nominations….and it certainly bodes well for Heath Ledger getting a nomination this year – and maybe even winning, having been looked over for the more “passive” Brokeback performance.
Why didn’t Sellers win for Being There? Same reason.
Wells to byanyother: Who’s hammering? I don’t have a problem with Pitt’s performance, as I said. His performance, nonetheless, is precisely as I’ve described.
No, come on. There is a subtle diss in all of your postings about Benjamin Button for some unknown reason.
Does anyone else think that Pitt’s old character looks just like Producer Frank Marshall?
I don’t understand you Jeff
You read the 2005 script and have referred to it several times over the last year or so as a “thing of beauty.”
I’ve read that draft and Button is passive in it.
Why do you seem disappointed to discover that Button has no
pressing issue other than “time”
I don’t understand why you seem slighted or let down by the film, it was on the page, the themes that you dismissed yesterday as “Yeah, yeah, I agree, yes….and?” that stuff was all the script offered up, I don’t remember reading any twist endings.
Did Fincher really blow this one so bad so that whatever lead you to think highly of the script, just not translated to screen?
Or did you just not understand what you were reading?
Or did something just shift for you in between your wait for the film and seeing it??
I mean how many big lush hollywood production are there this daring to deal with time in such an unflattering way?
I am surprised at your turn around.
I have to say after reading the script I was shocked that a studio would make it with our rewriting it and making it “easier” more sentimental, more palatable for the masses.
I meant without rewriting…..
“Does anyone else think that Pitt’s old character looks just like Producer Frank Marshall?”
I thought he looked like Michael Keaton.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
When Pitt gets shot in the head in Burn After Reading, the look on his face just before he gets the bullet is so fucking funny it makes me sick. That quick little smile he flashes before getting whacked just makes me laugh for some reason. Loved that film, can’t wait for the DVD in late Dec.
It seems to me that BUTTON left you more underwhelmed than you expected it to. Certainly in the lead up to the screening you were gung-ho on it, and the fact it clearly didn’t blow you away is giving you pause. It happens — my reaction to TWBB was similar — I wanted to like it more than I eventually did.
I’d have no problem with Pitt maybe getting a little award nod attention. It was one of the best performances of the year.
Coming from a self certified Fincher and Zodiac fan the Button dissing is indeed a bit strange. Though it just might simply come down to marketing money supplied by the competion. After all in Hollywood it is all about the Oscars.
But he has a big fat BB ad on top of his page so that can’t be right.
Anyway, not to take away from Burn because he was great in that too — as was John Malkovich. I have a weird feeling Burn is going to become like The Big Lebowski – develop a following slowly but for all time.
See, I think Pitt can be very funny (TRUE ROMANCE and SNATCH come to mind), but he just was rather one-note for me in BURN AFTER READING. It’s like he was just flailing around, rather than being funny.
I don’t think Wells ever meant to diss BB, on the contrary. And Pitt has done enough splendid films recently to earn a win. Say what you want about this whole celebrity issue but he has become skilled at choosing good movies.
Aspiring crack addict, I don’t get your point. Wells described the script for BB as a “thing of beauty”. In his first post after seeing the film, he described it as beautiful, unique, bold. To quote: “a dream — rapturous, essential, eternal filmmaking”. Where’s the contradiction?
“I’ll never forget the ripe vibe this movie casts. And yet I’m not sure if I really know what it’s saying, or it’s really “saying” anything other than that life is an adventure to be savored and lived to the fullest. That’s a good thing to express in any fashion or medium, but I was saying to myself as I watched it unfold, “Yeah, yeah, I agree, yes….and?”
“Pitt’s reverse-aging is endlessly absorbing, but it loses its wow-ness after a while, and once it levels off you’re basically left with a story about a guy just living a life. And like I said earlier this morning, his journey has little in the way of story tension and the rooting interest isn’t really there because all he’s trying to do is be with the love of his life, Daisy. ”
I mean correct me if I am wrong but the review essentially says “It’s a dream — rapturous, essential, eternal filmmaking but where’s the beef, I wanted beef and there was no beef?”
So sorry for the double post
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