Ed norton

Started by AlguienEstolamiPantalones, March 31, 2003, 07:45:00 PM

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budgie

Quote from: Butterscotch Joneswell what do you expect.

Quote from: polkablues
Quote from: budgieWhat's more fun, playing with font sizes or being sarcastic?

The two go together like vodka and handguns.  Inseparable.

I forgot smilies!

Quoteno sometimes greatness is not just one persons opinion, for some its just a fact . you said you think he is great and then did nothing to prove why you think he is great, speak on it, show some passion if you have some

No, greatness is never a fact. And I don't have to 'prove' anything, least of all my passion. Baby.

QuoteWhen is the Butterscotch Jones History of the Cinema coming out, your reading it baby .

Who is your proofreader?

polkablues

Quote from: RegularKarateI didn't say he had NO range, just very little.

Seriously... I like Sam Jackson, I think there are roles he takes that no one else could fill... he's just not as good as some people build him up to be.

Little range?

You need to go watch "Pulp Fiction", "The Red Violin", and "Changing Lanes" back to back to back.  Range will have been demonstrated.
My house, my rules, my coffee

RegularKarate

Quote from: polkablues
Little range?

You need to go watch "Pulp Fiction", "The Red Violin", and "Changing Lanes" back to back to back.  Range will have been demonstrated.

Well, I still haven't seen Red Violin yet, but I've seen Sam Jackson in most of his well known roles and like I said, he's good, but he still isn't the actor a lot of people build him up to be.  Pulp Fiction/Changing Lanes are poor examples of contrast because you can't compare those two and say "wow, that guy can play it all, 'angry, sometimes mellow hip-gangster' AND 'angry, sometimes mellow poor guy'"

budgie

Here's the beginning of a good interview with Ed Norton, in which he talks about being an actor and its limitations, and the interviewer talks about what makes him a stand-out actor of his generation. Norton also talks about being well-adjusted, Fight Club, and taking time out to learn how to fly.


He who calls the shots

With his 1996 film debut, Edward Norton earned the tag 'finest actor of his generation'. But he's not satisfied with being just an actor. It's too limiting, he says, and it leaves you with no control over your own destiny. That's why he's also a screenwriter, director and, he tells Sally Vincent, the reason why he's taken up flying

Saturday April 12, 2003
The Guardian

 
Edward Norton is hardly there. A man-shaped occupant of an armchair, back to the light, a silhouette with nothing on its face. Actors can do this when they feel like it; not be there. Not switch on whatever it is they switch on when they want you to look at them. Marilyn Monroe used to do it as an exercise when she was studying the Method. She'd walk down the street, invisible as any other dumpy little nobody, then, click, turn herself on and ruin the lives of every man in the vicinity. She thought it was funny. With Norton, you get the feeling he's on off-mode because he hasn't called to mind that he, too, has got that knack.

It's not as though he's shy. If he was, he wouldn't reach for the glass jar of jelly beans on the table in front of him, tip out a palmful, convey them to his face and sit back, crunching. The body language says present and available, mouth mobile, chest open, legs splayed. But - and this is weird - your eyes follow the jelly bean jar back to the table and it's as if you've never seen a jujube before. How compelling they are, how shiny in their jar, red, green, yellow, purple, orange. How merry. How mesmerising. If you were a jelly bean hankering for serious attention, you'd want to put yourself in the way of a catalyst of the Norton class. Or if you were some luminary of the film-starring business - Brando, De Niro, Brad Pitt, Richard Gere, the Woodies Harrelson and Allen, Matt Damon, Robin Williams - you'd know the co-star from heaven when you bumped into him. Which explains why Norton's feet haven't touched the ground for the past seven years. He calls it "being lucky enough to be working" and hopes you'll leave it at that.

Not that Norton is taciturn. Far from it. He is, if anything, rather loquacious, as though this hologram has been programmed to protect itself from intrusion with a sound barrier of precision-turned, Ivy League-accented eloquence, using words such as "synergy", "autonomy" and "impracticable" while giving away little more than a faint aroma of the Pilgrim Fathers. A casual observer could glance at the pair of us and run away with the idea that we were having an intense conversation. Actors can do that, too. Create an impression. When they feel like it.

I doubt Norton can help himself. He has this conviction, frequently expressed, that an actor's credibility can be severely undermined by the proliferation of his personal details in the media. He seriously thinks that, if people knew he was raised in Maryland and has a mother and father and two siblings, it would hamper belief in the character he's playing. This elusive, wilful, chameleon quality also describes his screen presence. He is never instantly recognisable as the actor you've seen in a previous film. It's not as though he's in disguise, beyond sporting a bit of a beard, or he's combed his hair differently, nothing major, but it takes minutes to register, yes, there's Edward, even when you've done nothing all week but watch his movies, back to back. And I do mean that as a compliment.

His film debut, back in 1996, earned him his first Oscar nomination along with the vaguely unenviable tag "finest actor of his generation", a Hollywood entitlement bestowed upon young men who turn in a performance to knock your socks off while failing to be possessed of matinee idol looks. Primal Fear might have been specifically designed to test such a contender. It was one of those dual-personality trips, giving Norton the privilege of perfecting the simple, stammering altar boy who, before our very eyes, snaps into the psychopathic murderer he has convinced us he is not. My, how we jumped.

Unfortunately, as so often happens when someone pushes the right button, they are merely called upon to press it again. The film industry cried out for encores, inundating Norton with scripts featuring multiple personality crazies, culminating in the turgid drama of some poor soul with 37 selves. It was a challenge that Norton wisely ducked; instead he signed up for a musical. He couldn't resist the opportunity of working with Woody Allen. Everyone Says I Love You was as embarrassing a piece of vapidity as you could wish for if you wanted to clear your palate between courses. However, Norton managed to depict the all-singing, all-dancing preppy boyfriend in such a way as to preclude anyone ever doing so again for fear of unfavourable comparison. His masterstroke was in his dancing sequences. The trick was to dance while giving the impression that he couldn't really dance. And, at the same time, whenever he walked across the screen, he walked like Fred Astaire. Smooth, elegant, as though his feet were ever so slightly off the ground. Then, amateur dancing. Pure genius! In my opinion. It made Norton smile, anyway.


The rest is at http://www.film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,934898,00.html

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: RegularKarate
Quote from: polkablues
Little range?

You need to go watch "Pulp Fiction", "The Red Violin", and "Changing Lanes" back to back to back.  Range will have been demonstrated.

Well, I still haven't seen Red Violin yet, but I've seen Sam Jackson in most of his well known roles and like I said, he's good, but he still isn't the actor a lot of people build him up to be.  Pulp Fiction/Changing Lanes are poor examples of contrast because you can't compare those two and say "wow, that guy can play it all, 'angry, sometimes mellow hip-gangster' AND 'angry, sometimes mellow poor guy'"

He's great in Red Violin. Also... Caveman's Valentine, Unbreakable... and especially Jakie Brown and Sydney. C'mon.

Camel Lights

i heartily recommend the guardian film website for the kind of breadth and insight so scarcely gleaned from certain contributors.

in an unrelated matter... mr. jones (B) - an intellectual query for you to puzzle over in your pyjamas:

why do you seek to assimilate the experiences of others into a brain so obviously unequipped to receive (and/or accept) the dialectic?

aw, shucks - i take it back. forget ednorton, i think you're the star, butterscotch, of your own private movie. and all the men and women, merely players.

< but he will moan, and scream, and whine
that it's his nature to opine!
to this i nod, and smile content,
for such is childhood's argument >


long live ed norton.

meatball


picolas

i was waiting for you to post.

MacGuffin

Norton Casts Spell
Edward Norton takes on the title role in the Neil Burger drama The Illusionist.

Neil Burger has found his Illusionist. Oscar-nominated actor Edward Norton has signed on to star in the big screen adaptation of the Steven Millhauser short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist," which will start production this April in Prague.

The period piece stars Norton as a magician at the turn-of-the-century in Vienna. The lower-class magician falls in love with a woman who proves to be above his social class. After she gets engaged to a prince, the illusionist uses all of his mystical powers to win over the woman and undermine the state of the royal house of Vienna.

Bob Yari and Cathy Schulman will produce through the Yari Film Group company Bull's Eye Entertainment. Michael London is also producing through Michael London Productions, as are Brian Koppelman and David Levien. Koppelman and Levien produced Burger's first pic, Interview with the Assassin, and they brought the story to Burger and Norton.

Norton, repped by Endeavor, has been working on the indie Down in the Valley, co-starring Evan Rachel Wood. Norton received Oscar nominations for his work in Primal Fear and American History X. Other recent credits for the actor include The Italian Job, 25th Hour and Red Dragon.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

modage

ed norton needs a comeback.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Gold Trumpet

A pretty historical thread, I must say. I'll still argue that Norton's a superficial actor though.

soixante

In quick succession, Ed Norton did Primal Fear, Larry Flynt, American History X, Rounders and Fight Club, a winning streak few other actors can match.  He hasn't done anything good since 1999.  What happened?  The Score, Italian Job, 25th Hour -- Ed needs to make better choices.

He could still be the best actor of his generation.  He needs to work with better directors.  He needs to find better scripts.
Music is your best entertainment value.

ono

...you obviously haven't seen 25th Hour.

MacGuffin

Quote from: soixanteThe Score

The opportunity to work with DeNiro and Brando.

Quote from: soixanteItalian Job

Fulfill the contract obligation or be sued.

Quote from: soixante25th Hour -- Ed needs to make better choices.

He could still be the best actor of his generation.  He needs to work with better directors.  He needs to find better scripts.

Spike Lee is no slouch, and 25th Hour was one of the best films of 2002 named on many critics lists.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Fernando

Quote from: MacGuffin
Spike Lee is no slouch, and 25th Hour was one of the best films of 2002 named on many critics lists.

And more importantly, by xixax members.