I’m caught up in a weird sleep cycle because of recently being in Paris, etc. And I can’t write about Martin Scorsese‘s Rolling Thunder Revue (which I saw around midday) until Monday. So I have to take a nap but in the meantime…

[Originally posted on 8.20.15]: Director Rod Lurie is conducting another Hollywood-centric Facebook poll, this time about the greatest-ever lead performances in feature films. Which right away excludes James Gandolfini in The Sopranos so the HE version is allowing performances from longform cable.

Lurie started me off with a taste of 20 performances, and right away I was saying to myself “these are too familiar, too boilerplate…where’s that special-passion choice that defies conventional thinking?”

What is a greatest-ever performance anyway? My theory is that picks in this realm have less to do with skill or technique or even, really, the actor, and a lot more to do with the viewer and what they choose to see. The choices that people make tend to reflect their intimate personal histories on some level. Because they’re choosing performances or more precisely characters who closely mirror and express their deepest longings, fondest hopes and saddest dreams.

My late younger brother was tremendously moved by Mark Ruffalo‘s portrayal of a loser in You Can Count On Me, in large part because my brother was that character. I know a lady who’s always felt close to Vivien Leigh‘s Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind for the same reason. Bill Clinton once said on a High Noon DVD documentary that Gary Cooper‘s performance in High Noon is his all-time favorite because Will Kane‘s situation (everyone chickening out when things get tough and leaving him to stand alone) reminded him of what it’s often like for a sitting U.S. President.

When I began to assemble my pantheon the first nominees that came to mind were Gandolfini, Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, Monica Vitti in L’Avventura, Amy Schumer in Trainwreck (I’m dead serious), George Clooney in Michael Clayton, Gary Cooper in High Noon, Mia Farrow in Broadway Danny Rose, Lee Marvin in Point Blank, Alan Ladd in Shane, Brad Pitt in Moneyball, Marilyn Monroe in Some like It Hot and Jean Arthur in Only Angels Have Wings. This is without thinking anything through or second-guessing myself.

Tatyana wants to visit the Getty Museum tomorrow (i.e., Saturday). The Getty isn’t a “museum” as much as a consecrated tourist destination for weekend lookie-lou types. I generally avoid tourist destinations as I can’t abide the company, especially the way these places make me feel like I’m one of “them”. In my mind there are few things worse than this because it means a constant replay of “lemme outta here, lemme outta here, lemme outa here.” I would rather be confined for five hours inside a dank, windowless basement room with puddles on the floor and rats scurrying about than visit the Getty on a weekend. Visiting on a weekday afternoon might be a different thing. A couple of years ago I was given access to a private viewing of the Louvre’s Ancient Egypt exhibit — the absence of lines, crowds and people crowding into souvenir ships afforded all manner of sublime pleasures.