RARA-AVIS: Re: JC & LDC

From: Steve Novak (Cinefrog@comcast.net)
Date: 07 Oct 2009

  • Next message: Patrick King: "Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Leonardo DiCaprio IS Travis McGee"

    ...!!!...

    To call Jim Carrollıs life ³noir or harboiled² because he did a buncha drugs, hanged around with rockers and wrote a few notable things about itıall...is a gross, large, misdirected, painful, childish....overstatement... Even Patti Smith, with whom he hanged around, and a personal humongous personal favorite (Œrmember, I live near Detroit since 74...before punksınıall), would not be a ³noir character²...she may have dabbled in noir iconology (like Carroll) in her poems (wonderful ones...better than her songs), songs, life...but she was never and never will be a ³noir character²... Just like Jim C.

    They are both wonderful beings, who have contributed much and whose writings are worth any personal library, but ³noir characters² themselves, they are not.

    Hanging around at the bar and/or the drug-pen for years does not Œmake youı noir/hardboiled...writing about it, in fact, would take you instantly out of the category, since you are Œone step beyondı...to make a musical bad pun...but what you write, the characters you develop/write/depict, might be...no problem with that...

    Keitel in Bad Lieutenant is ³noir²...Keitel in real life is not...and never was...actually very mld... Jack N in Chinatown (gotta make a Polanski ref. since nobody has, on Chiken-Rara...???!!!!!), is ³noir nı nasty², yet in real life nothing more
    (very conventionnally enough) than a 60ıs druggy/hippie/playboy bunny-macho/dreamer/hoop fan...who was never Œcapable of anythingı like Noah Cross advocates for the human race in the film itself..

    With this in mind...who would ever again in Rara consider mush-faced LDC for a noir character...and why...??? I tell you what: if some director casts him, and makes him that, gives him that patina, then we will all applaud...but until some Œmean fckı director got into it and got the performance out of it...we just better all shut up...because a boy is a boy...it is what it is...

    Montois adamant and bored with the subject headline...

    PS: for now on I urge every Rara member to instantly delete anything with the heading: ³Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Leonardo DiCaprio IS not yet Travis McGee²...it will make our autumn days better...and the leaves fall more gracefully...

    On 10/7/09 8:13 PM, "sonny" <sforstater@yahoo.com> wrote:

    > what role was that? or do you mean him in real life and you don't think he can
    > act?
    >
    > did you see 'basketball diaries'? speaking of which, the author of that, poet
    > jim carroll, died recently. his life was hardboiled. or noir. or something.
    >
    > --- On Wed, 10/7/09, Chuck <chuckelp@ix.netcom.com
    > <mailto:chuckelp%40ix.netcom.com> > wrote:
    >
    > From: Chuck <chuckelp@ix.netcom.com <mailto:chuckelp%40ix.netcom.com> >
    > Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: Leonardo DiCaprio IS Travis McGee
    > To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com <mailto:rara-avis-l%40yahoogroups.com>
    > Date: Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 5:25 PM
    >
    > No way.
    > I don't "get" 'nardo as anything but a spoiled rich kid.
    >
    > --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com <mailto:rara-avis-l%40yahoogroups.com> ,
    > Stephen Burridge <stephen.burridge@...> wrote:
    >> >
    >> > DiCaprio has been playing men of action in thrillers lately.  I thought he
    >> > was good in "Body of Lies".  A photo of him in character as the suburban
    >> > husband in "Revolutionary Road" may not be the best way of evaluating the
    >> > suitability of his appearance for the McGee role.  I agree with the comment
    >> > that memories of "Titanic" and "Gangs of New York" may be affecting
    >> people's
    >> > sense of what he can do.
    >> >
    >> > Mind you I only read a few McGee novels, many years ago, and I don't retain
    >> > much of a sense of the character.
    >> >
    >> > Stephen
    >> >
    >> >
    >> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
    >> >
    >

    [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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