Thank you. I don’t know how many times I’ve said the same thing to people extolling DiCaprio’s virtues in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?. I apparently did so well at portraying an autistic teenager in the play David’s Mother a few years ago that a mother of an actual autistic teen saw me after the play and registered shock at the fact that I was not actually autistic. So either I’m at least as good an actor as DiCaprio, or…
Playing such characters–like Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man–isn’t acting; it’s mimicry.
Oh, and I guess I should add that, as Sampiro says, actually playing the autistic character was a piece of cake. (Unlike Dustin Hoffman in Rain Main, David in David’s Mother is severely autistic–he can vocalize, but not much else.)
He’s a good actor and has integrity. After the success of Titanic he could have done any number of schlocky romantic comedies or action flicks and pocketed 20 million per, but he laid low. The not great, but still underrated The Man with the Iron Mask was filmed and finished long before Titanic was released. He then chose to work with Danny “Trainspotting” Boyle on The Beach (which I haven’t seen), and it certainly wasn’t a project that a commercial whore would have picked. He’s in a position similar to George Clooney. They could easily coast on their popularity and looks, but instead take projects based on interesting material and who they’ll be working with.
Gangs of New York should have been released last year. It’s not Leo’s fault that it was pushed back and back to where he’ll have two movies coming out within days of each other. It sure does give Leo-haters more fodder for their irrational frothing though.
Some of the comments about him are so ignorant it’s hilarious. He’s proven himself has an actor many times over, in movies as diverse as This Boy’s Life to Marvin’s Room, to The Basketball Diaries to Romeo and Juliet, and several more. He doesn’t have to prove anything to anybody, and he doesn’t have to apologise for anything, least of all appearing in Titanic or becoming the unwitting object of adoration among teenage girls the world over. He didn’t seek out that popularity and did everything he could to minimise it. He practically disappeared after Titanic’s release. If he was spotted at a nightclub it was splashed all over the tabloids, and the hoopla was made even more intense BECAUSE he shunned the spotlight and kept to himself. If he was spotted out shopping it made the entertainment TV shows for days, then people complained that he was “everywhere” and they were sick of him. Never mind that he was probably only seen in public a handful of times in 5 years.
Anti-Leo talk makes me snicker. He doesn’t have to “regain popularity” and people who think he’s a loser because (take your pick) The Beach was a “box office bomb,” he didn’t get nominated for an Academy Award for Titanic, he was once splashed all over teen magazines, he’s no longer splashed all over teen magazines, he soon will be splashed all over teen magazines again, Gangs fails at the box office, he’s not nominated for Gangs or Catch Me or whatthefuckever reason people can pull out of their ass, are just being silly.
He’s an actor who takes his craft seriously, and who is as appalled as anyone what happened after the release of Titanic. He’ll do a good job in Gangs of New York, he’ll do a good job in Catch Me If You Can, he’ll do a good job in Alexander the Great, and any other project he chooses to do in the future. People who condemn him for events that he had no control over during a 6 month period of his life will just have to deal with it.
If it is so darned easy, I suppose it is quite a commentary on the level of acting ability in the world that most of the people I know who actually know a few hundred autistic and retarded people find the average Hollywood retarded guy a joke.
And a particularly bad tasting joke. The mildly retarded, highly verbal and perpetually childlike demeanor of the dramatically portrayed retarded person is just so precious. Such tender wisdom, and that slightly palsied hand! Oh, the pathos, and the inner beauty.
What crap.
Try portraying fifteen seizures an hour; or screaming half of the time and semi conscious the rest. Play to the audience without letting the audience ever see your face, because you can’t stand the looks you get when people see you. Try playing how to ask for a conversation or even a drink when you can’t move a muscle, other than your eyes. Play a retarded guy who is selfish, and sneaky, and holds grudges. Or play someone who is just plain mean, and mentally retarded too. Or even a real saint, who will not compromise on what he knows is good, although he knows almost nothing else.
But, Hollywood does have a facile understanding of the image that the public wants to be true of the retarded. They want them to be shy, and tender, and have only enough visible deformity to identify them. And they want them to be like good boys and girls. As if the limits they got from life weren’t enough.
And ninety minutes is pretty close to the average saturation point for up close contact, too.
Sorry about the rant. But the thing wrong with the parts of handicapped people in the movies has nothing to do with Leonardo di Caprio. He didn’t write the part. He does seem to have lousy taste in movies, though.
As a lifelong Alexander buff (there’s a bust of him looking down at me right now) I can’t tell you how much I’m dreading that movie. It’s being produced by Baz Luhrmann, which means it’ll be chocked full of “what a clever and unconventional boy am I” camera shots, it’ll probably make Jesus Christ Superstar look historically accurate by comparison, it’ll either make him look like the biggest bastard in history or a rock star… ech. Not looking forward.
(I like it better when Scorcese was in charge, even though it meant that we’d probably see Robert DeNiro as Philip, Sharon Stone as Olympia, and Joe Pesci as Darius.)
It’s being directed by Baz Luhrmann. I can’t wait! He’s finished with his “Red Curtain trilogy” and is on to a new phase, which looks to be historical dramas. You should NOT judge how it will be based on his three previous films. It will be totally different in look and feel. I think Baz and Leo will take the man very seriously.
According to IMDB, the screenplay, written by Ted Tally (Silence of the Lambs, All the Pretty Horses, Red Dragon), is being adapted from a book by Valerio Manfredi. I’m not familiar with this person or the book, or even Alexander. You tell me how close the book is to being historically accurate.
That’s only true to a degree. It’s certainly easier to get attention playing those roles, but playing them well actually takes skill. It’s so rarely seen, though, that it’s difficult to recognize. ( See Dustin Hoffman in Rainman for a flashy, yet ultimately shallow portrayal of autism) In fact, Di Caprio did the most genuine mentally handicapped person I have ever seen on film, absolutely brilliant, not one false note anywhere in the performance. Simply perfect.
Another portrayal of a handicapped person that was utterly flawless, not just showy, was DiCaprio’s * Gangs * colleague, Daniel Day Lewis, in * My Left Foot. * Amazing, amazing.
Generally speaking, I’d say Mr. Scorsese is a pretty decent judge of acting talent.
No matter who is telling it, the story of Alexander is an astounding one. Unfortunately, the book(s) by Manfredi are translated so poorly that the prose comes off quite stilted and dry; I am sure it doesn’t read the same in Italian.
I would have loved to have seen a movie version of author Mary Renault’s powerful version of Alexander.
While Leo is not one of my fave actors, I will probably check out both Gangs as well as Alexander. Gangs has Day-Lewis, and Alexander has, well, it has a really cool plot.