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hazeleyes
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| Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 12:36 am Post subject: Film Stew.com Article Comparing Joaquin with Humphrey Bogart |
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I thought this was really cool. Please enjoy!
 Film Stew.com Editorial
The Ghost of Humphrey Bogart
by Richard Horgan 10/16/2007
Oscar winning actor Joaquin Phoenix is roughly the same height as Oscar winning actor Humphrey Bogart was, 5’ 8” ½ to 5’ 8” to be exact. He also, like Bogie, has a prominent scar on his lip, though in his case it’s a birthmark, not the result of a careless childhood doctor.
So it’s perhaps not surprising that with a little help from writer-director James Gray, Phoenix now has two crime dramas to his name that are highly reminiscent of specific early Bogart efforts. The current We Own the Night throws back to 1938’s Angels with Dirty Faces, while the previous 2000 effort The Yards recalls 1940’s They Drive by Night, a truck driver drama that, believe it or not, has nothing to do with the 1938 British truck driver drama of the same name.
For no good reason other than perhaps the fact that it made it cheaper to license songs for the soundtrack from the likes of The Clash and Blondie, Gray has set his latest not in present day Brooklyn but rather in the Brooklyn of 1988. Maybe that’s Gray’s movie subconscious talking, as by doing so, he aligns his latest as sort of a 50th anniversary echo of the Brooklyn-set Faces.
Does this mean that Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin are the new James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart? Or that Phoenix should consider starring in a remake of Casablanca? Hardly. But there’s no doubt that if Joaquin had been a contract player back in the 1930’s and 1940’s, he would have been cranking out a lot more of these types of movies.
Another thing that might have been different for Phoenix back then is that not only would he have not gotten to portray 6’ 2” guys like Johnny Cash, but he might also have been forced to wear five-inch heels to line up with taller co-stars. That’s what Bogart had to do for example on the set of the aforementioned Casablanca, so as to triangulate more authentically with the 5’ 9” Ingrid Bergman and the 6’ 3” Paul Heinreid.
But perhaps the thing that most solidly bonds the part-Spanish Joaquin to the part-Spanish Humphrey is their shared distaste for deconstructing the art of acting. The Bogie quote, ‘Acting is like sex: you either do it and don’t talk about it, or you talk about it and don’t do it,’ is easily something Phoenix could have uttered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival press conference for We Own the Night, during which he dodged all explain-your-method queries.
So here’s a toast to JP, who dropped the adopted moniker of Leaf early on in his career, and to HB, who chose to loose the middle name of DeForest: ’You are two P’s (performers with a capital P) in a petrified pod.’
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Lola
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| Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 12:52 am Post subject: |
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What a fun article! Thanks!
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jpfan4life
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| Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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Another good read about Joaquin! Funny comparison to Humphrey Bogart!!!
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Rosie
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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Great comparison... and also, TG Joaquin never has to wear those HEELS! Wonder if Bogey ever got hazard pay out of that...
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