that movie

[Steven Koteff]

In terms of other actors with the necessary skills and qualities and
perhaps more age appropriate, not many come to mind to me personally.
Schwartzman does the type reasonably well in *Bored to Death* but is
perhaps a bit too whimsical in the Wes Anderson sense--love him in that
regard, but hard to see him with uncombed hair, both literally and fig. If
that makes sense. Posture a bit too good.

I nominate Emile Hirsch as someone who might've done well. Can defend that
choice more rigorously if anybody wants. Has the screen presence and acting
chops, I think. Conveys an internal goodness though has the ability to
tinge it with skepticism. Can seem both razor sharp and also deficient in
focus and propriety. Has the right sort of physicality (including but not
limited to generally being kind of a small dude, easy to overlook, etc.).

If we're comparing casting choices to the book, I wasn't totally certain
about Brolin. Does a great job of playing Bigfoot the way I think PTA
wanted Bigfoot to be in the movie, but didn't align with my understanding
of TRP's Bigfoot.

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 1:14 PM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
wrote:

> It occurred to me the Phoene might be slightly too old, though in reading
> the book I found that whenever I was reminded of Doc's youth (29 is
> right--it's mentioned at some point that he's going to turn 30 'any minute
> now' though I don't have the book in front of me/can't cite the page) I had
> to sort of revise/refresh my understanding of him to accommodate that fact.
> Which need to revise, for me, is actually maybe essential to how to
> understand him: kind of world-weary, older in spirit than body, maybe in a
> way that relates to what I feel is an innate goodness, if I can reduce in
> that way. Doc has seen more human evil than probably someone his age has
> any right to (maybe small in scale but high in frequency, at least in his
> life that exists pre-page 1), and while he's picked up some skills of
> deduction and some necessary skepticism along the way, he is still in some
> way disappointed to find/unveil evil in the world--surprised not in the
> sense that he is ignorant to it but that it violates some hope he had not
> totally abandoned, at least in some deeply internal place. Kind of latent.
> Like a seed in a seed bank or something.
>
> Maybe the clearest example I can recall of this comes about 75% of the way
> through the book. Again, don't have it in front of me, but it precipitates
> what is really the first/only real fight he and Bigfoot have--the one they
> both apologize to one another for. This is the only time Doc displays any
> real vitriol toward Bigfoot (or anyone, for that matter) that I can recall,
> despite being Bigfoot's bureaucratic and occasionally literal punching bag,
> it seems. And it happens because he held, in some place in his heart, the
> belief that Bigfoot was, in some place in his (Bigfoot's, now) heart, a
> good dude. Which belief he is then temporarily forced to reconsider.
>
> [Halting this train of thought for the time being]
>
> I think Phoenix does a good job of conveying(/channeling?/evoking?) that
> innate goodness and hope--which is necessary to the function of the story
> as a whole, as it relates to the 60s coming to an end, etc etc. Also he's a
> good actor and fun to watch on screen. And he has the unteachable and
> unreproducible quality of leading man screen presence--I can realistically
> buy him going undetected in the reality of the movie and yet when he is on
> screen he commands the viewer's attention, if nobody else's. Which
> combination is tough to reproduce.
>
> Yes maybe old relative to Doc in the book but for the sake of my own
> enjoyment I tried very much to approach the movie as a separate entity and
> asked of it nothing other than just strangeness and fun--asking it to in
> any way reproduce or approximate the real virtues of the book is unfair to
> the movie and director and form in general, I think.
>
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 12:27 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I didn't realize Joaquin  Phoenix was 40 'til I looked it up just now
>> (I still remember him in To Die For [1995]).  Doc is, as I recall, 29
>> in the book. But I didn't register JP as all that much older, so ...
>>
>> Also, I (almost) never (unlike virtually every review published on the
>> subject) never found JP "mumbly" @ all, + I have ePete Townshend
>> hearing, so ...
>>
>> ... then again, Robt. Downey, Jr., ca. nine years older, was initially
>> cast (and admitted he was too old, so ...).  But JS?  You've got the
>> world's biggest Rushmore (1998) fan (a movie, and, esp., a soundtrack,
>> that might as well been made for me), but DEFINITELY NOT JS ....
>>
>> Do see, however, by the director of IMPOLEX (2009),
>>
>> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3093546/
>>
>> http://www.filmcomment.com/article/review-listen-up-philip-alex-ross-perry
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:48 AM, Mark Wright <washoepete at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Although Josh Brolin and Katherine Waterston were wonderful, I've
>> concluded
>> > that J Phoenix was miscast. Too old, playing the part too old, and
>> > fundamentally just not enough gum in the ol' shoe. The job description
>> > "gumshoe" refers to crepe soles, which are good for sneaky-pete-ing but
>> not
>> > much better than leather at the beach. Anyway. As Coy Harlingen Owen
>> Wilson
>> > worked beautifully. But for Sportello Anderson should have used the
>> younger
>> > -- and congenitally more bewildered-seeming -- Jason Schwartzman. But
>> then,
>> > wait, no... Then? Paul Thomas Anderson would have been Wes
>> > Anderson?...(thoughtful, he takes another drag)
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>
>
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