I
don’t usually write about specific actors, but this actor I feel is worthy of
discussion. In my opinion, Mr. Brad Pitt
is one of the best actors of this generation but never seems to get the honor
he really deserves; an Oscar. In 1996,
Brad Pitt was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for, “12 Monkeys” but lost to
Kevin Spacey for, “The Usual Suspects” a HUGE snub in my opinion. I think “The Usual Suspects” is very over
rated but that’s a different article for a different day. Then, in 2009, Pitt got his first Best Actor
Nomination for, “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button” but lost to Sean Penn for
“Milk” (Right call in my opinion). In 2011, Pitt got the Best Actor Nomination
again for the fantastic film, “Moneyball” and lost to Jean Dujardin. Hey, it happens; but it happens to Brad Pitt
A LOT. I’m waiting for Mr. Pitt to
accept an Oscar for a career that really has had very few poor films and rarely,
even if there is a poor film, is it due to Pitt. If you read the man’s filmography, he has done
at least a dozen great films and no real stinkers.
Look
at “Se7en” directed by David Fincher. When Pitt first got that script, he read three
pages of it and put it down. A friend of
his talked him into reading the script all the way through. (You can hear the
whole story on “Inside the Actor’s Studio”.) He didn’t want to do the same cop film we had
seen a million times before, which shows he cares about what films he makes and
the characters he plays. The other
reason I bring this up is because a lesser actor could have easily made the
character of Mills just what Pitt wanted to avoid, a generic character that we
have seen a million times before. In
“Se7en”, Pitt pulls off lines in a dark film that will make you laugh. For example, “Just because he has a library
card doesn’t make him Yoda.” This line
is in reference to a serial killer on the loose, but we laugh. The character portrayed is multi-layered - Mills
the cocky cop, Mills the family man and Mills the broken man at the end of the
film. The “WHAT’S IN THE BOX,” scene in
my opinion is an Oscar worthy scene on its own. The glazed look in Pitt’s eyes when the film
ends, is heart breaking.
The
list goes on. In “A River Runs Through It”,
he plays a brother who can’t get himself out of trouble but has no problem
getting into it. We would think this is
an easy role to pull off and maybe it is, but Pitt raises the bar. He uses his charisma and charm making you
worry about the character. He creates
relationships with the character’s brother and father that feel REAL on every
level. So, we care and cry about events
that are never shown on screen near the end of the film. In the film “Inglourious Basterds”, he plays
an unorthodox Nazi Hunter. This
character could easily have been overacted and become one of the most annoying
characters in film history, but not with Pitt in the role. He creates interest with an accent that is SO
out of the box, it’s loveable. It’s also
something he has never done. There
aren’t many actors that can spew out Tarantino dialogue. It’s more like singing an Opera than speaking
lines but that twang and arrogance that Pitt brings to the character makes us
go along for the ride without question.
“Fight
Club” is an amazing film where he plays a man who runs an underground fight
club. The line, “I want you to hit me as
hard as you can” doesn’t make much sense in reality, but the character of Tyler
Durden makes it real and Brad Pitt makes Tyler Durden real. This was also somewhat of a departure for
Pitt. He plays a character who, at his
core, is just a nut case and a pretty bad dude.
So why do we care about a nut case and all the pain that he feels, the punches
he takes and antics he goes through in his day to day life? The reason IS because Brad Pitt is playing a
nut case and doing it so well, it’s at times uncomfortable. We are intrigued by this but the actor has to
keep you invested to bring the intrigue.
Pitt has fully immersed himself
in the role and is no longer anything but that character. In “The Devil’s Own”, Pitt plays a terrorist
IRA gunrunner living in the United States with a New York City police officer. What makes that role special is Pitt brought
out the character’s passion for his home and the brutal, open honesty and
emotion of what the man believes in… where his moral core is coming from. We feel what the character feels and we see
things from his point of view. The role
is played so well that we are rooting for this guy. That honesty and raw emotion makes us sympathize
and rationalize what this man is doing and see life from his perspective. It also doesn’t hurt that he does a Northern
Irish accent pretty damn well. In “The
Devil’s Own”, there is a scene in a church at a Confirmation ceremony with a
long shot of Pitt’s eyes and you feel like you are looking into the character’s
soul and feeling all he feels - the pain, the sorrow, the regret and the
passion for his cause. At least I felt
that way.
The
aforementioned mentioned “Moneyball” is another film that has many shots of
Pitt’s eyes whereby you know exactly what the character is feeling. That shows the caliber of Brad Pitt’s
talent. You feel what the character
feels just by seeing the look in his eyes. I never feel like I am watching Brad Pitt the
movie star on the cover of magazines. I
feel like I’m in a world with a man I have never met before and I am
invested. The man’s love of his craft
and the talent he has makes you care about these characters. Every single time he steps on screen, he is
no longer Brad Pitt.
What
I am saying by rattling this list of a few of the characters Pitt has played,
is the guy NEVER (with the exception of the “Ocean’s” films) plays the same
character twice. He’s not someone who
can be type cast.
I’m
sure you are all sitting at home saying, “Tons of actors can do this. It’s not
just Brad Pitt.” The sad truth is not as many actors as you would think can do
this type of work and some of the actors that can, choose not to. For example, look at Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is a very talented actor but he
doesn’t take roles anymore that hold much emotional weight. He does his action movies and puts great
effort into them but the big emotional films like, “A Few Good Men” or “Born On
The 4th Of July” or even “Jerry Maguire” aren’t coming out anymore
and let’s face it the man can’t do accents to save his life. I mean did you see “Far And Away”? Another example I would throw out there is
Matt Damon. I love a lot of Damon’s work
but I don’t think it’s at the caliber of Pitt’s. “Good Will Hunting” and “The Departed” are
probably the only two films I would put in the same category as the majority of
the films I listed from Brad Pitt and the real emotional storyline in “The
Departed” revolves around Leonardo DiCaprio’s character (who is not quite at Pitt’s
level yet. That being said, he’s getting there very quickly.) Matt Damon is a great actor but he doesn’t
evoke the same emotion that Pitt does, not since “Good Will Hunting”. Damon seems to be another extremely talented
actor to jump on the action train. Not
to the same extent as Cruise, but he’s heading in that direction. The actors that are doing what Pitt does
would be guys like Christian Bale, Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. These men are actors that hold you by the
throat and don’t let go until the film is over; but guess what? Those men all have an Oscar to show for it. Brad Pitt still does not.
-George
McCann
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