Great Cinema Acting

[Tarantella]

This thread has been inspired by the discussion of Richard Burton and his "Diaries", which have just been published.

I invite people to discuss their favourite performances on film. This is not just about the actors that one likes, but great performances and why you think they're great. For me the list is long, but I single out some outstanding performances on film: for some actors, like Philip Seymour Hoffman, it's hard to nominate just one role: and my list isn't necessarily in order of merit. Starting with contemporary cinema:

1. Daniel Day-Lewis - "In the Name of the Father". (Also as Christie in "My Left Foot") Day-Lewis played one of the Birmingham five who were convicted and served sentences for a London bombing. The film recounts the jail experience, the devastating effect upon Jerry and his family, and their ultimately successful bid for freedom. Day-Lewis was phenomenal in the part, particularly in the scene where his father is incarcerated with him (and he is ill with respiratory and heart ailments, subsequently dying in jail - though innocent). I made my eldest son stay home from school and go see the film the day it came our way. That scene is forever etched in my memory.

2. Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote and just about every other role: too numerous to list here! I totally believe.

3. Joaquin Phoenix - "Walk the Line". Sensitive, complex, nuanced - what more can I say?

4. Al Pacino - "Donnie Brasco". Just look at his eyes during this performance!!! Where do those gifts come from?

5. Gerard Depardieu - "Le Colonel Chabert". What other actor can command the screen, sitting in a chair and recounting what is effectively a monologue for 10 minutes and be absolutely enthralling and compelling?

6. Javier Badem - "The Sea Inside". One of the great cinema performances. Badem plays a quadraplegic and delivers a moving, sensitive and nuanced performance with his voice and eyes while confined to a bed during (almost) the entire film.

7. Geoffrey Rush - "Shine". Our Geoff plays the part of pianist David Helfgott, who has a mental breakdown and suffers from various nervous tics and disorders. The role was far more than just an assortment of these tics, but a compelling exploration of parental abuse, repression and idiosyncrasy.

[lennygoran]

I don't watch many movies anymore although over the years I enjoyed quite a few--just too busy with other hobbies--however we rented from Netflix Julie & Julia and thought Meryl Streep was just stupendous! Regards, Len

[Tarantella]

Thanks for the response! Yes, Meryl Streep is a phenomenal actress and I would put her atop my female list. Such self-assurance, range and depth and a willingness to 'take risks'. Not all her films have appealed to me, but I thought she was just marvellous in "Out of Africa", amongst many others. Another great actress is Jessica Lange and her performance in "Blue Sky" (a little-known Tony Richardson film) was as good as "Frances" and showed this woman's extensive range. Both women are classy indeed. Jody Foster is another superb actress, particularly in her earlier career, though I find her recent, more androgynous aggression rather tiresome at times. Why does she feel she has to act like a man? There have been legions of gay actresses (Myrna Loy etc.) who never made a feature of their homosexuality the way Foster does. She comes across as tough and butch and I think it shows at lack of range and depth at times. Disappointing.

Anne Heche is another fine actress and she was superb in "Donnie Brasco". It frightened me because she was so 'aware' in the role of the wife in a dysfunctional marriage. Some performances are just stand-outs and are with you forever. This is one of them.

[lennygoran]

There have been legions of gay actresses (Myrna Loy etc.) who never made a feature of their homosexuality the way Foster does. She comes across as tough and butch and I think it shows at lack of range and depth at times. Disappointing....
Anne Heche is another fine actress

Didn't know about Loy and I never heard of Anne Heche --I just don't get to the movies much anymore--I'll try to think of others I really liked but right now my mind is blank--too much opera I guess. I will say this--we think the acting from Downton Abbey is just wonderful and can't wait for the third season to begin in January--wonder if Shirley MacLaine will get it done? Regards, Len

[david johnson]

...how did she have time to be 'gay'?

from wiki-

Loy was married and divorced four times:
1936–1942 Arthur Hornblow, Jr., producer
1942–1944 John Hertz Jr. of the Hertz Rent A Car family
1946–1950 Gene Markey, producer and screenwriter
1951–1960 Howland H. Sargeant, UNESCO delegate

Loy had no children of her own, though she was very close to her first husband Arthur Hornblow's children.

There were rumors that Myrna Loy had affairs with:
Spencer Tracy during the filming of Whipsaw in 1935 and Libeled Lady in 1936.[23][24]
Leslie Howard during the filming of The Animal Kingdom in 1932.[25]
Gambler Titanic Thompson claimed he had an affair with her[26][27]

In later life, she assumed an influential role as Co-Chairman of the Advisory Council of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing. In 1948 she became a member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, the first Hollywood celebrity to do so.[28] She was also an active Democrat.[29]

Loy was a devout Methodist and during her time of residence in New York City she was a member of St. Paul's Methodist Church (which later became known as The United Methodist Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew).[30]

Her autobiography, Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming, was published in 1987. Loy had two mastectomies in 1975 and 1979 for breast cancer.[31]

On December 14, 1993, she died during surgery in New York City at the age of 88. She was cremated in New York and the ashes interred at Forestvale Cemetery, in Helena, Montana.[

[Tarantella]

I've just read a new bio of Clark Gable and Loy's name comes up a lot as part of the gay "lavender set" in Hollywood. Plenty of 'stars' were married many times, but gay. The studios forced them to conform to convey a conservative image to the public. It was big business and studios stood to lose a lot. Also, they controlled their actors very rigorously. I've read a lot of bios of directors and actors. Also, unlike the Catholic Church, devout Methodists are allowed to be married several times. Interesting.

[lennygoran]

I've just read a new bio of Clark Gable and Loy's name comes up a lot as part of the gay "lavender set" in Hollywood. Plenty of 'stars' were married many times, but gay. The studios forced them to conform to convey a conservative image to the public. It was big business and studios stood to lose a lot. Also, they controlled their actors very rigorously. I've read a lot of bios of directors and actors. Also, unlike the Catholic Church, devout Methodists are allowed to be married several times. Interesting.

I don't know if you've already talked about these somewhere but I just thought of 2:

Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy

Marlon Brando in Godfather 1

Regards, Len

[Tarantella]

Now there are 2 wonderful actors, especially Brando. Who will ever forget him in "On the Waterfront" ("I wanted to be a contender") and "Streetcar"!

[John F]

For me, cinema acting isn't real acting, and for that reason it's hard for me to call much of what I've seen "great." This is not snobbery. Of course the actor is important to a movie, but much of the characterization, the timing, etc., even the sequence in which the scenes are acted and filmed, are as much or more a product of the director, the cameraman, even the film editor. One can become a movie star without really acting at all, and quite a few have.

The real test of an actor, I say, is performing a role from beginning to end in person before an audience sitting in the same room, after the director has finished his/her work and left town, building the character from curtain rise to curtain fall, inflecting and timing the dialogue, responding to the audience's vibes and radiating vibes of her/his own to which the audience responds - and repeating this seven or eight times a week for weeks on end. The requirements of cinema acting are entirely different, as Michael Caine showed in his master class (shown on TV) and in his book. That taught me not to underestimate the screen actor's work, but also that it isn't the same kind of work as the stage actor's.

Full disclosure: I used to go to movies a lot, but after my experience of live theatre in Germany and London while in the Army, I grew disillusioned with canned "performances" and I rarely see a movie nowadays. Another reason is that I care about the writing, the words the characters speak as well as how they look, and the quality of the writing in film scripts rarely satisfies me. What I'm reading about "Lincoln," whose screenplay is by Tony Kushner, a real playwright, encourages me to see that one, and I've happily gone to movies where the credits include the likes of Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter, especially when there are real actors on the screen. That's an infrequent pleasure.

Meryl Streep is a brilliant stage actress. In "The Seagull" and "Mother Courage" here in New York, she was able to show a range and depth of talent and technique that a full-time London or Broadway actor would be proud of. There are others who have acted in film whose stage work is on the highest level, even leaving out the theatre knights and dames. But even they can't entice me into a movie theatre unless I expect they've been given words that are worth saying and hearing.

[Tarantella]

Stage and film acting are totally different. Imagine sustaining character in a protracted, out-of-sequence filming schedule where sometimes the characters don't 'meet' - except in the editing suite!!! This is a phenomenal achievement and there have been great performances, like those I've mentioned and many others. I enjoy the theatre for plays, opera etc., and I appreciate the considerable skills but I am also left with a feeling of falseness, probably as a consequence of the 'fourth wall' (though some theatres don't use 'pros arch'). I've seen plenty of over-acting too and felt embarrassed often enough by what I've seen. And the camera, right in the face and eyes of an actor, cannot lie - there is also nowhere to run, nowhere to hide in cinema (particularly in the days of instant replay and 'rewind'!). Naturally, I have not been to Broadway - but I have been to Theater an der Wien and Wiener Staatsoper and I loved these dearly. But, with respect to drama, I guess I'm a cineaste at heart!!

[jbuck919]

Forgive me, John F, if I'm not going to stop enjoying good movies because the talent required to act in them is only partially coincident with the talent needed to act in a play. It still takes talent if the movie is to be of interest to me. Nobody could have directed the horror story who played Constanza in Amadeus to any decent performance, but the other roles in that movie were well acted by cinematic standards, which has to be good enough for me.

[Tarantella]

And I'm uncertain that direction in film has really much relationship to great acting. Woody Allen lets his actors do their own thing, while a director like the great George Cukor (who began his career in theatre directing) had great trust in his actors and brought the best out in what talent was already there. Note his very long takes in his films where the actors carry the scene - "Philadelphia Story" ('there's a magnificence in your Tracy" - wonderful!!), "Adam's Rib" (the GREAT, GREAT Tracy and Hepburn) and "My Fair Lady" (particularly the scene towards the end where Prof. Higgins runs home to mummy to complain about Eliza - that whole sequence is virtually filmed in a single take). So, Cukor was a very 'theatrical' director but he also knew how to use the camera and the performing space. I agree with jbuck and the character of Boris Lermentov (from "The Red Shoes" - aka Anton Walbrook), "nobody can produce a rabbit from a hat unless there is already a rabbit in the hat". (Don't like my metaphor??!!)

[lennygoran]

the talent required to act in them is only partially coincident with the talent needed to act in a play. It still takes talent if the movie is to be of interest to me.

In a vane that may be similar I've heard that singing in a Broadway play may be different from singing in an opera--for me they both can be effective? I once listened to Placido singing some Broadway show tunes--imo Placido should stick to opera! Regards, Len

[John F]

Forgive me, John F, if I'm not going to stop enjoying good movies because the talent required to act in them is only partially coincident with the talent needed to act in a play. It still takes talent if the movie is to be of interest to me. Nobody could have directed the horror story who played Constanza in Amadeus to any decent performance, but the other roles in that movie were well acted by cinematic standards, which has to be good enough for me.

Enjoy whatever you like, however you like - I'm speaking for no one but myself.

As for "Amadeus," F. Murray Abraham does a good enough job as Salieri in the movie, but if like me you've seen Paul Scofield or Ian McKellen in the stage role, which is considerably more challenging, you might feel that the movie's central role was rather undercast. That said, the movie doesn't belong to Abraham but to director Milos Forman, for whom Abraham was a sufficiently skilled and probably more compliant tool than Scofield, who created his roles in a way that movie actors are seldom allowed to do.

What irks me when I think about it, which I don't usually, is that Abraham was undoubtedly paid much more for his efforts than the National Theatre could pay Scofield for his. That's how it is with the movies and the stage, and I know from reading actors' memoirs that it is an important factor in their choices. No problem there - much of Mozart's music was composed for the money too, which is irrelevant to its quality - but possibly worth remembering now and then.

For me, you couldn't pay Alec Guinness enough for his amazing talent and technical skills, and I'm happy for him that he was so successful in the movies, where he was as picky about his scripts and roles as anyone could wish, including me. But unless you saw Guinness on the stage, especially in tours de force like the blind title role of John Mortimer's "A Voyage Round My Father," but also in less showy roles such as the psychiatrist in T.S. Eliot's "The Cocktail Party," you had a very limited sense of what he was capable of.

[Tarantella]

Disagree entirely that the F. Murray Abraham part belongs to Milos Foreman. Abraham was stunning in the film - absolutely stunning - and the very wooden Schofield, with his RADA accent and RSC delivery, would have made it seem like a museum piece before its time. It would have given the role of Salieri a leaden seriousness which would have been pompous had the role been taken by Schofield et al., not to mention ridiculous alongside the American Hulce as Mozart. Abraham's performance was nuanced, subtle and driven by a barely-suppressed rage. One could not tolerate this part in full Shakespearean high drama, but the humanity Abraham gave the part was unique. I believed and I felt pity and compassion for his innate mediocrity and obsessional inadequacy. 10 stars out of 5 for that performance. Foreman's role was to guide, but he can hardly have imagined the scope and depth of his Salieri once F. Murray Abraham came along!! As for Gandalf, er Ian Mackellan, enough said! Reminds me of Robin Williams' hilarious parody, arms outstretched and pointing, "Oh Titus, bring your friend hither" ("Dead Poet's Society)!! I don't know who played Salieri for the National Theatre Production of "Amadeus", with Simon Callow as Mozart, but stage and cinema are very different animals.

[Tarantella]

I've just found this clip of the devastating scene from "In the Name of the Father" where Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day-Lewis) is confronted by his father's incarceration on a charge of conspiracy (he's an innocent, dying man). This is one of the GREAT scenes in all of film history, IMO. (Also Time magazine has just voted Daniel Day-Lewis the world's greatest actor, with a huge cover story.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwvjZXfH ... re=related

The astute viewer can see Day-Lewis running away with the scene to the extent that he almost invades the camera space and the camera has to quickly move away to make room for him. It seems to be a hand-held camera, which gives it immediacy and realism and it certainly 'makes room' for Day-Lewis to strut his stuff. Only to that extent is this 'directorial choreography'!! What an actor: what a performance!!

[jbuck919]

Forgive me, John F, if I'm not going to stop enjoying good movies because the talent required to act in them is only partially coincident with the talent needed to act in a play. It still takes talent if the movie is to be of interest to me. Nobody could have directed the horror story who played Constanza in Amadeus to any decent performance, but the other roles in that movie were well acted by cinematic standards, which has to be good enough for me.

Enjoy whatever you like, however you like - I'm speaking for no one but myself.

As for "Amadeus," F. Murray Abraham does a good enough job as Salieri in the movie, but if like me you've seen Paul Scofield or Ian McKellen in the stage role, which is considerably more challenging, you might feel that the movie's central role was rather undercast. That said, the movie doesn't belong to Abraham but to director Milos Forman, for whom Abraham was a sufficiently skilled and probably more compliant tool than Scofield, who created his roles in a way that movie actors are seldom allowed to do.

What irks me when I think about it, which I don't usually, is that Abraham was undoubtedly paid much more for his efforts than the National Theatre could pay Scofield for his. That's how it is with the movies and the stage, and I know from reading actors' memoirs that it is an important factor in their choices. No problem there - much of Mozart's music was composed for the money too, which is irrelevant to its quality - but possibly worth remembering now and then.

For me, you couldn't pay Alec Guinness enough for his amazing talent and technical skills, and I'm happy for him that he was so successful in the movies, where he was as picky about his scripts and roles as anyone could wish, including me. But unless you saw Guinness on the stage, especially in tours de force like the blind title role of John Mortimer's "A Voyage Round My Father," but also in less showy roles such as the psychiatrist in T.S. Eliot's "The Cocktail Party," you had a very limited sense of what he was capable of.

It goes without saying that few have access and will to the theater as you do. Most people who only get to the stage occasionally have to deal with the odds of a semi-disappointing experience, as I had the time I had dinner with you and in the same visit to NYC saw Jude Law in Hamlet. Have I ever seen a great stage performance of Shakespeare? Yes--Pat Carroll, a sometime TV actress, playing the nurse at the Folger Shakespeare Theater, her first Shakespeare. Go figure.

F. Murray Abraham is a mediocre actor who stumbled on a sweet role in Amadeus. If you saw him in Name of the Rose, he couldn't even make up his mind which accent he wanted to use (half the time he sounds like he's from--yes--Brooklyn). The fact that Milos Forman couldn't coax anything but ditz out of what's-her-name who played Constanza is both an affirmation of your notion that movies depend on direction and an affirmation of mine that it works well enough with good enough actors.

[lennygoran]

This thread has been inspired by the discussion of Richard Burton and his "Diaries", which have just been published.

I invite people to discuss their favourite performances on film.

Sue I was just watching my DVR'ed copy of the latest 60 minutes and one segment leads me to ask you about Olivia de Havilland--excuse me if you already covered her. In any event I really enjoyed the 2 segments Morley did with McCullough--he kissed her twice! !

"Morley Safer’s charming segment on author David McCullough for Sunday’s “60 Minutes” contained moments certain to thrill movie fans.

McCullough was thrilled, too, that Oscar-winner Olivia de Havilland attended a Paris party in his honor. She talked about her love for Paris, where she has lived many years.

The actress, who is 96, is the only surviving star from “Gone With the Wind.” Her good-gal character, Melanie, died at the movie’s conclusion.

De Havilland deservedly won the best-actress Oscar twice: for “To Each His Own” from 1946 and “The Heiress” from 1949. When a new production of “The Heiress” with Jessica Chastain recently opened on Broadway, critics pointed to de Havilland’s fine performance in director William Wyler’s film."

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entert ... lland.html

Regards, Len

[Ricordanza]

Having just seen "Flight," I am reminded once again that Denzel Washington is one of our great cinema actors. The best word I can use to describe his contribution as an actor is presence--that's what he brings to every role and every scene he is in. He has been in many films, but in addition to this most recent role, highlights for me include "The Hurricane," "Training Day" and "Glory."

[Tarantella]

Having just seen "Flight," I am reminded once again that Denzel Washington is one of our great cinema actors. The best word I can use to describe his contribution as an actor is presence--that's what he brings to every role and every scene he is in. He has been in many films, but in addition to this most recent role, highlights for me include "The Hurricane," "Training Day" and "Glory."

"The Hurricane"? That's a bit close to the bone isn't it??!!!

[Tarantella]

Len, I've always enjoyed the acting of Olivia de Havilland and her sister Joan Fontaine. I loved "The Heiress" and, of course, "Gone with the Wind". She is one classy lady (from the de Havilland aircraft family!). Though I have never put her at the top of my list, I think she's durable and versatile as an actress.

For my list of great actors and actresses pre (circa) 1965 these are not necessarily in order; their finest achievements I'll put alongside their names (some have more than 1, obviously):

Spencer Tracy - Inherit the Wind/ Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde
Katherine Hepburn - Philadelphia Story/Adam's Rib/African Queen
James Stewart - Vertigo/It's a Wonderful Life/Philadelphia Story/Mr. Smith Goes to Washington/Rear Window
Marlon Brando - Steetcar Named Desire
Vivian Leigh - Gone with the Wind/Streetcar Named Desire
William Holden - Bridge on the River Kwai/Picnic/Sabrina
Dorothy McGuire - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn/Friendly Persuasion/Dark at the Top of the Stairs
Rosalind Russell - Aunty Mame/Picnic
Joan Crawford - Mildred Pearce
Greta Garbo - Ninotchka/Camille
Gregory Peck - To Kill a Mockingbird/A Big Country
Humphrey Bogart - African Queen
Orson Welles - Citizen Kane
Lon Chaney (Snr) - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Judy Holliday - Born Yesterday
Audrey Hepburn - Breakfast at Tiffanys/Sabrina
Jack Lemmon - The Days of Wine and Roses/Some Like it Hot/The Apartment/
Fredric March - The Best Years of Our Lives/Inherit the Wind
Jean Gabin - Le Grand Illusion
Simone Signoret - Room at the Top
Anna Magnani - Rome, Open City
Jean Louis Barrault - Les Enfants du Paradis
Pierre Brasseur - Les Enfants du Paradis
Conrad Veigt - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Emil Jannings - The Blue Angel
Louise Brooks - Pandora's Box
Maria Falconetti - (Carl Theodor Dreyer's "Joan of Arc")
Anton Walbrook - The Red Shoes

I'll bet there are some I've left off this list!

[lennygoran]

I'll bet there are some I've left off this list!

Sue thanks for the list--there are many on it I've never seen. Regards, Len

[Tarantella]

Here's a brief clip from "Les Enfants du Paradis" (The Children of Paradise) and the incredible Jean Louis Barrault. At about 2'15" the segment starts and you'll see wonderful miming from this actor. What a face too!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FA_Pv0ylIY

This film was made in 1943 during the occupation of France by the Nazis, under strict censorship conditions and the film had to be made in 2 separate parts (two reels) because only a certain number of feet of film was allowed to be used!! It's a minor miracle the film was ever made and it remains, IMO, the greatest French film.

And here's a brief excerpt from Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc". The young Falconetti had never acted before and one can see that silent cinema made extra demands on actors and this remarkable performance has gone down in film history as one of the greatest. Actually, they're all pretty remarkable and the canted framing and use of close-ups (a la Eisenstein) leaves the actors no room for mediocrity. IMO this kind of film is the equivalent of the musical string quartet - nowhere to run, nowhere to hide!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAqnUPqj3JY

BTW, I was watching a documentary last night called "America in Prime Time" - all about representations of family in television since the time TV started. Ron Howard said, "film and television is all about writing and acting: though the director does play some part it is mostly those two elements". And this comes out of the mouth of a director.

[Ricordanza]

Having just seen "Flight," I am reminded once again that Denzel Washington is one of our great cinema actors. The best word I can use to describe his contribution as an actor is presence--that's what he brings to every role and every scene he is in. He has been in many films, but in addition to this most recent role, highlights for me include "The Hurricane," "Training Day" and "Glory."

"The Hurricane"? That's a bit close to the bone isn't it??!!!

Well, yes, especially for a New Jersey resident like me. But the title of the film actually refers to Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer who was wrongly imprisoned (in New Jersey, coincidentally) for murder.

[Tarantella]

I was trying to be topical!! Yes, I taught "The Hurricane" (Bob Dylan) to a class of aggressive, low-achieving 14 year olds (Year 9) and they really loved it. That was an easy entree to "poetry" for them. (Sadly, one of the boys in that class was murdered 3 years ago when a thug king-hit him at a local fair. I taught the boy for 2 years and felt that the odds were stacked against him because he was very aggressive - but not to me!! I never felt threatened by him for an instant.)

[Bro]

Yeah, I saw Alec Guinness in "The Lavender Hill Mob" and it didn't seem like anything great. So, maybe John is right, you had to see him on the stage. Certainly I'm miffed when I hear the reverence with which he is held by many contemporaries.

Sometimes I like really bad, "hammy" type actorly performances like Jack Lemmon in "The Out of Towners" or Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" or Faye Dunaway in "Mommie Dearest". They were just bored with the script so they threw caution to the winds. Why not ?

We always have this irrational fear in the Theatre that the actors will leave the stage and harass audience members. In the old days of The New Yorker, it was considered bad form for gentlemen to take anything they saw in the movies as more than "light entertainment".

Truth is best. I like documentaries..


Bro

[Tarantella]

Yeah, I saw Alec Guinness in "The Lavender Hill Mob" and it didn't seem like anything great. So, maybe John is right, you had to see him on the stage. Certainly I'm miffed when I hear the reverence with which he is held by many contemporaries.

Truth is best. I like documentaries..


Bro

My husband is like you - he prefers documentaries. I like them too, but there have been just so many outstanding films - not to mention plays and novels - that I cannot help falling in love with them!!

Alec Guinness: I read about him in a biography of David Lean (Kevin Brownlow). A magnificent tome, but it painted an unflattering picture of Alec Guinness, known for his aloofness and coldness and real-life chameleon qualities. Lean wasn't terribly easy to get along with, but Guinness made comments in the newspapers during the making of "Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Passage to India" which put Lean in a very bad light and soured relationships during the shooting of these films.

Also, in a biography about John Ford (Joseph McBride - the most outstanding biography I've ever read. Like all great biographers, McBride has searched for the 'truth' behind the man and his considerable powers of perception are very revealing and readable). McBride tells about another cold and remote actor, Henry Fonda (didn't daughter, Jane, complain about this too?). It was suggested that this coldness and rigidity had been picked up by Ford and found useful in some of Fonda's roles - and this personality trait, ironically enough, helped him to convey characters of humanity, stoicism, honour but inflexibility. (Gary Cooper, without the warmth and sex appeal!) Yes, you get a real sense of that when you watch his films. Well done Joseph McBride. And well done John Ford for being perceptive enough to understand and exploit these characteristics in Fonda.

I've read other very good biographies of directors: Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Vincente Minnelli, Howard Hawks, George Cukor , Elia Kazan and producer Sam Goldwyn. None of these were either hagiographic or gossipy.