When Low Brow goes High Art: movie stars striving for aesthetic credibility

The unlikely arthouse projects of Hollywood A-listers

Movie stars tend to be a peculiar breed.

Whilst content to milk the cash cows of endless franchises, high concept comedies and the occasional rom-com, there often comes a time when they feel the need to extend their range and prove hereto unrevealed serious acting chops.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the desire of a star to show another side of their onscreen personas and demonstrate a mastery of the ‘craft’, but sometimes the results are well…not so good.

For me, the ultimate example of a mainstream actor bidding for artistic credibility was when Steve McQueen piled on the pounds, grew a Grizzly Adams-style beard and tried his hand playing Dr Thomas Stockmann in Ibsen’s polemical An Enemy of the People (1978).

Although the play partly inspired Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), the picture was anything other than a blockbuster – unsurprisingly audiences weren’t going to shell out $5 to see the usually monosyllabic Bullitt star as a perma-angry doctor haranguing townsfolk about polluted water.?

Perhaps if the director (George Schaefer) had included a scene where McQueen sped round the nearest fjord on a motorbike, pursued by irate locals whilst popping a few wheelies, fans may have left the cinema satisfied.

Just as well Burt ‘The Bandit’ Reynolds wasn’t inspired by McQueen’s efforts to have a bash at a big screen version of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape.

A close second to McQueen is Bill Murray, who admittedly nowadays happily crosses over from Hollywood to indie movies, but in 1984 was known primarily as the star of broad comedies such as Caddyshack (1980) and Stripes (1981).

As part of Murray’s deal to star in the blockbuster hit comedy Ghostbusters (1984), the SNL star successfully convinced Columbia Pictures to bankroll and let him co-write and star in an adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s rambling philosophical travelogue The Razor’s Edge (1984, previously made in 1946 with Tyrone Power).

Judging by the box office and reviews, the world wasn’t ready then for Bill Murray – Serious Thespian.

Fellow SNL alum John Belushi aimed at more sophisticated Hepburn/Tracy style comedy in 1981’s Continental Divide. Turns out audiences preferred Belushi pretending to be a zit (Animal House, 1978) rather than a leading man, although the film recovered its costs and was reasonably well reviewed.

Meg Ryan, who was usually associated as the perky star of rom-coms such as You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle, plunged into the deep end with Jane Campion’s dark psychological thriller In the Cut (2003). Graphic depictions of sex and violence punctuate the picture, with a brunette Ryan dressing down as introverted English teacher Frannie Avery, thrown into the path of a vicious serial killer. Reviews were mixed, with Ryan trying a bit too hard, at least in my opinion.

As far back as the early days of motion pictures, Hollywood actors have sought to escape the straitjacket of movie stardom.

When Charlie Chaplin strayed from his ‘Little Tramp’ character to direct the drama A Woman of Paris (1923) the picture famously died the death at the box office.

Back in the early 1960s, Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable gave their last film performances in John Huston’s bleak contemporary western The Misfits (1961). Arthur Miller’s (them married to Monroe) script depicted the rounding up of wild horses to be sold and slaughtered for dog food.

Not quite Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966), but edging into similar territory.

The Misfits flopped on release, but has since garnered a reputation as a minor classic, with Monroe and Gable successfully breaking out of their usual screen personas.

Hitchcock icon Kim Novak came out of retirement in 1991 for Mike Figgis’ downbeat drama Liebestraum, possibly driven by the desire to erase the memory for cinema-goers of the Weimar-era stinker Just a Gigolo (1978), which her co-star David Bowie described as

“my 32 Elvis Presley movies rolled into one”

Nutty Professor star Jerry Lewis was up for a challenge when he essayed the role of talk show host Jerry Langford in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy (1982). Lewis essentially played a sour, cynical version of himself, a performance that became increasingly true to life as the comedian aged.

Lewis gained critical acclaim, but the pitch-black comedy was a box office bomb.?

The picture was pretty much ripped off wholesale in Todd Phillips’ unremittingly grim Joker (2019).

Back in 1972, Lewis made his first bid for artistic credibility with the thankfully as yet unreleased The Day The Clown Died.

In 1992, Spy magazine described the picture thusly: "An unhappy German circus clown is sent to a concentration camp and forced to become a sort of genocidal Pied Piper, entertaining Jewish children as he leads them to the gas chambers."

Unfortunately, the basic concept was resurrected and tweaked in two execrably mawkish pictures; Life is Beautiful (1997 - Roberto Benigni) and Jakob the Liar (1999 – Robin Williams).

Some actors successfully made the transition from popcorn movies to more serious fare – notably Dirk Bogarde, the ‘Matinee Idol of the Odeon’ in the 1950s, who went from Rank’s adodyne Doctors comedies to star in the films of directorial heavies such as Visconti, Resnais, Fassbender, Losey and Tavernier.

Perhaps more surprising is the later career of Burt Lancaster, who changed artistic gears occasionally to appear in pictures by Visconti, Altman, Louis Malle and Bertolucci.

Action stars Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to get serious with the zombie drama Maggie (2015) and 2017’s Aftermath, but personally I preferred him spoofing Hamlet in The Last Action Hero (1993).?

His one-time rival Sly Stallone played a deaf, put-upon sheriff in James Mangold’s crime drama Cop Land (1997), and to tell the truth he wasn’t half bad, holding his own with co-stars Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta and Harvey Keitel.?

Tom Cruise dallied with left field cinema a few times, earning plaudits for his turn as motivational speaker/pickup artist Frank Mackey in Paul Thomas Anderson’s interminable Magnolia (1999) whilst comedian Adam Sandler was excellent in the Safdie’s hyperkinetic Uncut Gems (2019).

The Ridiculous Six star was also in a Paul Thomas Anderson picture, 2002’s Punch Drunk Love, where he earned some of his best reviews to date.

Better even than for Little Nicky (2000).

You could say that Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights (1997, Anderson again) was a brave choice, but the former convicted criminal believed the porno-film production flick was bad for his image. And to be frank, he didn’t really act much in it, his scene stolen at the end of the movie by a tripodic prosthetic phallus.

When Wahlberg played a Professor of Literature in Rupert Wyatt's 2014 remake of The Gambler, credibility was stretched too far.

A name no-one associates with art house cinema is boorish ‘comedian’ Jim Davidson. So why mention him?

Amazingly, the Up the Elephant and Round the Castle/Home James star took a role as a nasty, thick security guard (big stretch, some would say) in Peter Greenaway’s pretentious A Zed & Two Noughts (1982):

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the part didn’t develop into a new career for Davidson in the films of Terence Davies, Jonathan Glazer, Ken Loach or Mike Leigh.

Although…incredibly, Davidson acted with none other than John Malkovich in the comedy-drama Colour Me Kubrick: A True...ish Story (2005).

Jimbo plays one Lee Pratt ("low-rent Liberace with an Elvis gleam in his eye" according to the New York Times) who is duped by Malkovich’s real-life Stanley Kubrick impersonating conman, Alan Conway.

Should we applaud the attempts of actors to stretch themselves?

In the main, I would venture a qualified ‘yes’; whilst some stars drop the ball, others have provided us with unexpectedly interesting performances, belying the one-dimensional nature of many of their usual movies.

And of course, the reverse, when serious actors are tempted by mainstream Hollywood roles, the results can often be far worse.

Witness Al Pacino (Jack & Jill), Julianne Moore (Kingsmen: The Golden Circle) Robert De Niro (The Adventures of Bullwinkle & Rocky), Bob Hoskins (Super Mario Brothers), Malkovich again (Johnny English),?Catherine Keener (Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief) Harvey Keitel (Little Nicky), and Juliette Binoche (Godzilla).

But, as ever, there’s always an exception to the rule.

Case in point Sir John Gielgud, who won the best supporting actor Academy Award for his portrayal of the foul-mouthed butler Hobson in Arthur (1981).

The actor, who was famed for his sonorous interpretation of the Bard’s verse, nabbed the gong with such classic lines as

“Perhaps you would like me to come in there and wash your dick for you, you little shit.”

(Hobson to Arthur – Dudley Moore)

Stephen Arnell March 2021 - updated