Watched the DVD of Broken Flowers last night and I’m bewildered at this type of “acting.” Scene after scene he just stands (or sits) there, frozen-faced for minutes at end. They could have saved a fortune by renting a manaquin.
It was not as pointless and borning, IMHO, as Lost In Translation, but it was close.
Is this some new style of acting and directing, or is it just Murray?
It’s Murray. Don’t forget The Life Aquatic, where he did essentially the same thing, although at least it was a much more entertaining movie than the other two. As I described it in another thread, in all three films, he plays the same morose, midlife-crisis-stricken mope who sits there motionless for minutes on end, while all around him absolutely nothing happens.
In *Broken Flowers * it kind of makes sense, particularly before he takes off on his journey. It conveys just how he is at a standstill, his heyday as a Don Juan is passing and he has nothing else, except when his buddy comes over to distract him. He also doesn’t know what to do without a woman there to relate to.
I know as a channel-flipping person I have a short attention span and am uncomfortable with someone just sitting there, so these kinds of scenes really get it across to me how bored and uninspired the person is. The king of this kind of movie for me was Celeste, where she has long periods of just waiting for something to do, and the movie communicates the dreariness of every minute.
Anyhoo, it’s not like there’s necessarily real acting going on there, but it does mean a lot to me as a viewer. And having a live actor do it rather than a mannequin does add a little more realism. 
I loved Broken Flowers. Murray does some very subtle stuff that shows you he’s not just sitting there doing nothing; sometimes he’s sitting there thinking, and sometimes he’s sitting there making an effort not to think, trying to block out the obvious things he might be thinking about. I can’t think of any other actor who could have pulled this off; think of it as the actor’s version of the way painters use “negative space.”
Granted, if you want car crashes or a screaming emotional climax, this ain’t your movie. I loved it.
By the way (posting in white since spoiler tags aren’t working):
The kid in the car at the end, who the film strongly suggests in Murray’s son, was played by Murray’s real-life son, Homer Murray.
Even seen any other Jim Jarmusch movies?
I haven’t seen *Broken Flowers * so I can’t comment on it but I do enjoy the acting style Murray used in *Lost in Translation * and The Life Aquatic.
I also enjoyed both of those movies immensely and I get the sense that their both “you either love 'em or hate 'em movies.”
I would disagree that the deadpan morose style is just Murray.
Ryan Gosling pulled it off nicely in The United States of Leland , a very underated movie in my estimation.
I think it takes true talent to be able to very subtly convey emotion through the mask of depression or apathy.
It’s a far cry from Charlton Heston’s overamplified on-screen hysterics.
When I first got a computer that could play DVDs, one of the first batch of discs I purchased was Mystery Train.
The ending to Broken Flowers drove me nuts. Hey…I’m all about subtle and the unspoken and all that. But I just don’t think Bill conveyed the depth that the story wanted him to. I still haven’t decided whose fault the shortcomings were; Murray, the director, the writer…
I loved the Sharon Stone segment. After that, it hit a mammoth speed bump.
I’ve spent about the last ten years trying to convince myself that I like Jarmusch’s movies when…I just don’t. There, I said it. I love Down By Law, but that has more to do with the fact that it’s Tom Waits and Roberto Benigni sitting there staring into space for twenty minutes at a time. I understand some of what he tries to convey with these long moments of pensive silence, and sometimes it actually fits in the movie, but most of the time the actors just seem extremely uncomfortable.
I did not care for Broken Flowers, but I don’t think it had anything to do with Bill Murray.
Yeah, of course it’s acting. Bill Murray doesn’t display a flat affect when he’s going about his day-to-day routine – he’s acting like someone who’s got some serious emotional problems.
I liked Broken Flowers a lot, and thought that Murray’s performance was spectacular – it’s not like he was a mannequin – you could see him trying to process things as they were presented to him, and how difficult it was.
So many great reaction shots, like:
“That’s a bit of a thorny issue. Dora and I always wanted to have children of our own, but we never could.”
…and then Murray’s eyes, as you see him struggling to extract the information he needs from that ambiguity, and his frustration and not being able to ask an honest, direct question.
It’s a great character study of a man who’s suddenly realized that he’s drifted through his life without ever really connecting with anyone in a meaningful way. He’s utterly alienated and dealing with the realization that it’s the logical result of his own character.
It takes more talent to portray that kind of quiet desperation than it does to chew scenery with hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing histrionics.
That may be true, but between those two polar opposites is a vast field of fine acting.
Of course, but even without going to extremes, it is simply much easier to convey emotion by being more expressive.
It’s one thing to use your entire body, face, and voice to convey confusion, despair, or whatever – human beings have developed a sophisticated non-verbal vocabulary – but it’s another thing again to be able to put it all in your eyes, and still leave no doubt about what the character is feeling.