NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/rec/arts/movies/36097

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-23 | 4.8 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Peter Reiher)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: Robert De Niro, most overrated actor?
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Date: 23 Dec 92 20:33:21 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Sudhir K Sastry) writes:
>Robert DeNiro has received much admiration for his performances throughout his
>career.
. . .
>Excuse me, but I find such extravagant praise to be a bit much.
>
>DeNiro has had some very impressive performances in his career.
>
>A further look reveals some painful limitations.  One notable feature of
>DeNiro's acting is his diction:  usually underenunciated words, occasionally
>slurred, with a hint of the New York streets.  This is perfectly in context for
>many of the roles he chooses, (gangsters, street hoods, illiterates or blue
>collar characters)  but after a long string of movies with this type of
>delivery, I wonder if he can handle a role which requires him to speak English
>in an articulate fashion.

De Niro has done this quite well, when called upon.  His elegant devil in
"Angel Heart" had very good diction, as did Monroe Starr in "The Last Tycoon"
and his architect in "Falling In Love".  So, for that matter, did his
priest in "True Confessions".

>How might DeNiro fare in a major Shakespearean
>role, where eloquence and poetry are such important attributes?

A reasonable question, which is unanswerable, at the moment.  Unless
De Niro chooses to perform Shakespeare or some other part where poetry
is required.  One might wonder what De Niro's Cyrano would be like.

>A comparison with other notable actors is revealing.  Marlon Brando, for
>example, has played his share of mumbling inarticulates ("On the Waterfront",
>"A Streetcar Named Desire") and yet has played intelligent characters (The U.S.
>Ambassador in "The Ugly American").

De Niro's devil seemed pretty sharp, as did most of the other characters
mentioned above.  They weren't especially inarticulate, either.

>DeNiro's extraordinary efforts at physical preparation for roles is thus
>curiously offset by an apparent lack of attention to the characters' manner of
>speech.

Not really true.  It is a fact that De Niro has played many characters
who have certain similarities - obsessed, violent men.  Still, if you
study the vocal patterns of his character in "The Deer Hunter" and compare
them to those of his character in "Taxi Driver", or either to his
character in "The Last Tycoon" or his character in "The Mission", I don't
think there would be any problem in seeing the difference.

>Another item that comes to mind is the issue of the risks taken by an actor
>(risk meaning selecting a role for which one could be seen as miscast, and
>consequently earn critical ridicule).

Monroe Starr was a large risk for an actor's in De Niro's position.  So
was his conquistador in "The Mission".  "Awakenings" was little like
anything else he did.

Still, there is some truth in this criticism.  Again and again, De Niro
returns to the sort of parts particularly associated with him - emotionally
violent New Yorkers.  Often, when he chooses a part outside that range,
the film has turned out not to be memorable, like "True Confessions",
"Falling in Love", or "The Last Tycoon".  That may be more because the
scripts are weak than that the performance is bad, but De Niro stands out
in the memory mostly because of half a dozen roles that do share many
similarities.

>I have always sensed an invisible wall
>or a strange detachment between me and his characters.  Imho, he does not seem
>to draw one into the inner workings of his mind to the extent to wahich you
>want to root for him.

This is, of course, a matter of opinion.  I felt no such wall with his
performances in "Taxi Driver" or "The Deer Hunter", for example.

>When one looks at DeNiro's work in context of an elite line of British actors
>from Laurence Olivier and Alec Guinness through present-day actors such as

Olivier's screen range wasn't quite as great as one might have hoped.  In
unlikely parts, he tended to give bad performances - his Big Daddy in
"Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" wasn't much, and he was embarrassing in "The Jazz
Singer".  Guinness, also, has tended to strike only a few notes (often
brilliantly clearly) - the meek eccentric, the military martinet, the aged
guru.  He's done other parts of course, and Olivier did some unlikely
parts where he succeeded admirably well, but De Niro is a much younger
man than either of these, with a lot of career ahead.

--
        Peter Reiher
        [e-mail]