comment #1

Dan Revill says ...

But you would never stoop to do a hit job on anyone.

*rolls eyes*

That DDL sounds like quite the character. All I'm left with is, "So what? It doesn't have an effect on whether or not he's one of the greats."

comment #2

Craig Kennedy says ...

Beaten to the punch again!

comment #3

Noah says ...

"He's always very pleasant and will pass the time of day, but he likes to be pretty much left alone."

Oh my god! He wants to be left alone! Gasp!

The writer of that piece is a moron. The guy wants to be left alone, doesn't go out clubbing at Hyde or anything and the best dirt he can come up with is that he's made a few mistakes in his past that he's since rectified and that he's an intense method actor?

comment #4

Gabriel says ...

What kind of person do you have to be to write a Daniel Day-Lewis take-down piece?

comment #5

le corbeau says ...

I don't think it's a hit piece, I think it's a standard English tabloid piece in which anything other than going tae pub wi' tha blokes is treated as a perversion out of deSade. Listening to classical music and being a vegetarian is liable to get you branded as PLANT-EATER DANNY DRIVES CO-STARS MAD WITH BIZARRE 'MUSIC'.

comment #6

christian says ...

English critics can be such petty little bitches.

comment #7

Ben C says ...

"What kind of person do you have to be to write a Daniel Day-Lewis take-down piece?"

Peter Bart.

comment #8

corey3rd says ...

who the hell doesn't have prop bowling balls to be tossed around the set?

I think the guy is living the good life. At least he's not just becoming a fixture on talkshows and the back of Entertainment Weekly and cranking out Cheaper By the Dozen 3.

far as his on the set antics - the guys on Jackass do more.

comment #9

lionsfan says ...

That, Jeffrey, was hardly a "hit job." It was maybe not as adulatory as you might prefer (and sometimes offer up about other actors), but it was no hit job.

comment #10

Dave says ...

I think of Dave Poland's opinion of DDL in There Will Be Blood, and how it basically comes down to "DDL is great, but not THAT great, because you can always see that he's acting."

Well, you could always see that Jordan was playing basketball, too.

comment #11

Craig Kennedy says ...

You guys are forgetting the lens through which Wells views the world. A hitman sees hitmen in everyone around him. All I'm saying.

comment #12

Mario Borroto says ...

The thing that strikes me about poland is his lack of short term memory. How can you say Day-Lewis is overwrought when he can be equally as subtle when it is necessary? Plainview and The Butcher were larger than life because they were businessmen and gang leaders, respectively. In others roles he has been anything but larger-than-life.

comment #13

ElstonGunnAICN says ...

The Observer piece on Day-Lewis offers a different perspective:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,2239802,00.html

And a Guardian editorial about Day-Lewis backlash:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2244173,00.html

comment #14

Mario Borroto says ...

Thanks for the links. It should speak volumes that not even the reviewer himself believes there is merit in taking away form his incredible skill. It's a backlash in the sense a bratty child reacts to someone everyone else agrees upon.

comment #15

Mario Borroto says ...

Excuse me. It's a backlash in the same sense that a bratty child reacts unfavorably to someone everyone else views favorably. That wonderful contrarian spirit in all of us, I guess.

comment #16

ZayTonday says ...

The article isn't exactly demonizing him, it's just documenting some of DDL's more peculiar character qualities and none of it was really news to me.

Kel O' Neill just couldn't handle DDL's way of acting. Paul Dano, having worked with him before, came into the film knowing what he was getting into though, and therefore worked well with DDL.

comment #17

rocco says ...

I really love Wells' unique phrasing sometimes (in a good way)..."ultimate deathblow," "hit-job piece," "virus-fever"...I just chuckle.

DDL has a transformative quality that very few actors have. Whereas someone like DiCaprio sticks out as Leonardo DiCaprio in just about everything he's ever done, Lewis becomes the character. Even a great actor like Philip Seymour Hoffman carries some vague quality from performance to performance(I don't know, it seems like the wheels are ALWAYS turning in that head) that prevents him from dissolving 100% into character...so DDL may be a misanthrope who broke a few hearts, great, don't worship the man, but to let that taint his awesome performances is a real loss.

comment #18

uboman says ...

I think everybody is sick from drinking from the same milkshake. Make that as you will!

comment #19

uboman says ...

I think everybody is sick from drinking from the same milkshake. Make that as you will!

comment #20

uboman says ...

Excuse the double-post

comment #21

houmas says ...

The guardian article made me laugh, especially the "hammy panto pirate" bit.

I quite admire DDL, but I do see where Poland and some others are coming from. While immediate and compelling, DDL's performances can seem quite broad, unsubtle and theatrical much of the time. I watched The Last Of The Mohicans recently, and I thought he seemed overwraught, almost comically so at times. He can't really dial down his intensity. There's a distinct lack of naturalism about a lot of his work, which is probably his main drawback as an actor. He's a method actor with a broad theatrical style.

He kinda reminds me of Paul Muni (to those who may not know the guy, Muni was the most pretigious movie actor of the 1930's, famed for his ability to transform himself from role to role, much like DDL. Muni also won and oscar and worked quite selectively, like DDL. Muni was also Brando's favorite actor). Muni is probably best known today for being the star of the Howard Hawks version of Scarface. I remember watching Muni in Scarface as a youngster, and quite liking him him. Then I watched it a few years ago, and it was like torture. The stylised hamminess, the theatricality, the eye-rolling the broad mannerisms...it was too much to take. That's when I realised how easy it is for some styles of acting to date, and date badly (though I think his work in I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang still hiold up quite well). A lot of his performances are like that Muni was considered the best actor in the world in the late 30's, lauded by all his peers (from Spencer Tracey to James Stewart) as the actors actor. Today, it's difficult for people to watch the guy without guffawing.

I'm pretty certain DDL's work in My Left Foot will never date, and it's still his finest work to date, imho. But I can easily envision a Paul Muni type situation, where people look back at DDL in Gangs of New York and There Will Be Blood, and think it's a bit too much to take. It's like DDL suddenly decided he wanted to act like Gary Oldman, a talented chameleon of a character actor, whose past performances are beginning to look increasingly ridiculous and hambone in retrospect. I can't watch Oldman in Dracula and Leon today without noticing how hammy he is. But I loved him in those movies when they first came out.

comment #22

Dave says ...

"It's a backlash in the same sense that a bratty child reacts unfavorably to someone everyone else views favorably."

And there, in a single sentence, we have D.Z.

comment #23

le corbeau says ...

Great point and comparison, Houmas.

comment #24

Noah says ...

But houmas, that's also completely discounting Daniel Day's incredibly subtle and restrained performances in In the Name of the Father, Ballad of Jack and Rose, The Boxer, and Unbearable Lightness of Being. There was nothing hammy or overwrought about those performances, just seething with quiet intensity and unending nuance.

comment #25

houmas says ...

Noah; You thought DDL was subtle and restrained in In The Name Of The Father?

I thought he was excellent in that film, but subtle and restrained are not words I'd apply to his performance there. As Gerry Conlon, Day Lewis-gives a particularly "in your face" performance. It's powerful, but not all that restrained. In every scene, DDL really seems to be going hammer and tongs for that oscar nod. It works, because I can imagine Conlon being a very highly strung and intense character in the context of his imprisonment and struggles, the qualities DDL imbues him with. It wasn't hammy, but it might qualify as overwraught.

I'll give you The Ballad Of Jack And Rose though. Very restrained. But how many people cared about his work in that film, or even saw the movie. He's not going to be remembered or judged for performances very few people saw (even I haven't seen Unbearable Lightness Of Being yet, and I've watched most of DDL's movies). I do think DDL is capable of more subtle work, but the majority of the time, he prefers a much more blunt and overpowering approach. And that's what his reputation is being built on, at least in this decade. Paul Muni still has some performances that hold up today, but several of his major ones (notably Scarface) simply don't, and that the problem.

I just think, in terms of legacy, it's pretty risky to rely on performances like Gangs Of New York and There Will Be Blood. Work that broad and threatrical can be subject to re-evaluation down the line. It'd be different if DDL gave a really major subtle performance that attracted as much interest as his broader turns, but I'm not sure if that'll happen. If Al Pacino had Scarface (ridiclously over the top), but didn't have The Godfather (incredibly subtle and understated) among his iconic performances, he'd be viewed in a much less favorable light.

comment #26

Noah says ...

Just because something isn't popular now doesn't mean it won't be discovered later on, though. You can't say with any certainty that his performances in The Boxer or The Ballad of Jack and Rose won't be looked back upon in the years to come as unrewarded masterworks of acting (which I believe his performance in Jack and Rose to be).

Also, I can't believe I left off one of my favorite performances of his: The Age of Innocence. That's probably his most restrained work yet and it's also the most heartbreaking. Also, it's a Scorsese flick which ensures that it will be seen by movie lovers until the end of time.

I can't remember all that much of The Crucible, but I don't think his performance was hammy at all in that. I also don't think he's particularly "hammy" in Gangs of NY or There Will Be Blood either, but I can't really mount a real defense against that charge. I guess what I'll say is that of his last nine movies, only two or three could really be called over-the-top. In fact, I think the majority of his work is extremely subtle. But, hey, I think you've got some interesting thoughts (and I'll disagree with you about In the Name of the Father, where another actor might have resorted to yelling and histrionics and he speaks slowly and softly).

comment #27

Mario Borroto says ...

I have to disagree with the idea that Day-Lewis isn't subtle. Much of his subtly lies in how he builds multilayers unto a performance, even when they are intense. I wouldn't even use Last of the Mohicans to judge his acting, as that was barely a characterization.

His theatrical influences really don't show nearly as much as some seem to think, as the vast majority of his work has been very subtle. I do believe The Incredible Lightness of Being, My Beautiful Laundrette and My Left Foot stand as a testament to that. Really, the only unsubtle part of My Left Foot is his representation of cerebral palsy. The characterization itself is incredibly layered and subtle though.

For all of Plainview's theatrical qualities, he is more layered than anything Oldman ever did and I really don't view it as a very apt comparison.

comment #28

Mario Borroto says ...

Pardon me, "much of his subtlety lies..."

comment #29

Mario Borroto says ...

I am really having a hard time imagining Day-Lewis being considered in much the same way as Paul Muni. There is a lot of naturalism in his work and I just can't ignore the honesty in the emotional roots of his characterizations. Someone like Plainview makes sense because he is a snake oil salesman. It just doesn't strike me as overacting when it feels so appropriate for the character.

comment #30

sarkmbt says ...

"What is it?" asked the little old woman, and looked, and
began to laugh. The feet of the dead Witch had disappeared
entirely, and nothing was left but the silver shoes.
--------------
Nike shoes
MBT
supra footwear
famous footwear
shoe dept