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Manly Man Theatre: Steve McQueen

Margin Walker

00:02 / 09.09.01

A couple of nights ago, I watched "The Thomas Crown Affair" & it reminded me that Steve was THE MAN!!! He made The Great Escape. He beat his rap at Pappillon. He made The Getaway. He was cool as hell in Bullit. Shit, the mofo even escaped The Blob!

What the hell was Hollywood thinking when they did a remake with Pierce Brosnan?! Did Pierce almost have his finger cut off by Peter Lorre? Did Pierce ever hang out with Bruce Lee in real life? Pfft, like Pierce Brosnan could ever be Steve McQueen.

Thoughts?

Little Miss Anthropy

07:40 / 09.09.01

Well, they're both one-note actors with a limited repertoire of facial expressions, who have been transformed into cinema iconography despite, not because of any real talent. Who else (apart from Bruce Willis) could pull off a McQueen role so well?

Margin Walker

15:59 / 09.09.01

Well, they're both one-note actors with a limited repertoire of facial expressions, who have been transformed into cinema iconography despite, not because of any real talent.

Obviously, I'm gonna disagree about the "no real talent" bit, but this brings up a good point. Steve McQueen was Steve McQueen in a Steve McQueen movie. Just like Humphrey Bogart was Humphrey Bogart. In a Humphrey Bogart movie. And Mae West. And Peter Lorre. And Cary Grant. And etc, etc. Perhaps being "one note" is what makes them memorable & larger than life.

Frankly, that's something that's bugged me about today's Hollywood for a long time. Who else is carrying that tradition? Steve Buscemi? Dennis Hopper? Alas, theirs is a dying breed....

Who else (apart from Bruce Willis) could pull off a McQueen role so well?

You bastard. Here I am defending Bruce WIllis. Fine, let's this over with. "Moonlighting". So there.

Ganesh

16:06 / 09.09.01

Perhaps these actors' facial inexpressiveness actually adds to their 'tough-guy' appeal?

Little Miss Anthropy

16:30 / 09.09.01

Reminds me of EMPIRE's two sentence review of Coppola's 'Dracula': "Keanu Reeves is no good. Chop him up for firewood."

bio k9

17:10 / 09.09.01

Don't forget the Magnificent Seven.

Steve McQueen was THE FUCKING MAN! Anyone who says otherwise should be forced to watch the atrocity Baldwin and Bassinger created when they tried to remake Getaway (five minutes should be enough).

Jack The Bodiless

17:12 / 09.09.01

No. About twelve minutes gets you to the sex scene, and then the sight of The Oldest Baldwin taking his shirt off should be enough. For anyone.

The Strobe

18:02 / 09.09.01

Yeah, but remember the original Getaway: great as it was, Ali McGraw was NOT up to much. Acting-wise.

But I wouldn't have her out of the picture for the world (and nor would Steve).

Margin Walker

09:43 / 10.09.01

Don't forget the Magnificent Seven.

Hell yeah!! To this day, I still haven't seen Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai" (which was the basis for "The Mag 7") because I love "The Mag 7" so much that I can't bear to see a different version of it. (sniff)

Kinda like the story of Sam Peckinpah while he was doing "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid". James Colburn walked by 'Bloody' Sam's tent & heard him crying. He entered the tent and found Sam drunk & weepin' like a widow. Why? Because he couldn't bear the thought of killing off Billy The Kid at the end of the movie.

Steve McQueen was THE FUCKING MAN! Anyone who says otherwise should be forced to watch the atrocity Baldwin and Bassinger created when they tried to remake Getaway (five minutes should be enough).

Dear God, don't do that!! Talk about cruel & unusual punishment! Just hook their nuts up to a car battery like you'd normally torture 'em.

moriarty

09:43 / 10.09.01

quote:Originally posted by Margin Walker:
Kinda like the story of Sam Peckinpah while he was doing "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid". James Colburn walked by 'Bloody' Sam's tent & heard him crying. He entered the tent and found Sam drunk & weepin' like a widow. Why? Because he couldn't bear the thought of killing off Billy The Kid at the end of the movie.

Christ. Now you've done it. Anyone got a hanky?

I always imagined there was adifference between a screen "legend" and an actor in that, like Margin Walker has said, they were essentially playing themselves or the ideal they had created. I'd add Jimmy Stewart and the Duke to that list.

The weird thing is taht even when they did portray a different type of character (Bogie in The African Queen, Stewart in any of his films with Hitchcock) they were still, well, Bogie and Stewart. And yet they weren't.

grant

15:06 / 10.09.01

I think that might be the key. The icon is the one who's able to pull off being that same character in radically different contexts.
Hmm.

Does Ed Harris have it? He's anything but one-note, and yet... John Glenn in The Right Stuff was Ed Harris, and so was the Director in The Truman Show.
And, from the clips I've seen (missed the movie) so was Jackson Pollack

Margin Walker

01:47 / 11.09.01

Does Ed Harris have it? He's anything but one-note, and yet... John Glenn in The Right Stuff was Ed Harris, and so was the Director in The Truman Show.
And, from the clips I've seen (missed the movie) so was Jackson Pollack

Perhaps. He seems to play the same role in different films, which might be the bone of differention/contention. Ed Harris often tends to play the roles of hard-ass, driven characters. Perhaps like Robert De Niro. Perhaps like Al Pachino. Or Marlin Brando Or Dustin Hoffman. But, for me, Ed Harris has a pretty wide palatte of acting (not saying that the above mentioned bunch of actors don't, ya understand).

Anyways, in closing, "Viva McQueen"!!!

Saint Keggers

02:22 / 11.09.01

You know who I would have like to see in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair instead of Pierce Brosnan..Christopher Waulken. He'd add an interesting creepy tone to a cool character.

bio k9

11:05 / 11.09.01

Fuck remakes.

Seven Samurai is a great (three hour) movie. Magnificent Seven is also a great (though much shorter) movie. The reason? Its not a fucking remake! The people who made Magnificent Seven took Kurosawa's story and transported it to another time and place in the same way that Kurosawa used the works of Shakespeare in his own films (most notably, Ran).

RiffRaff

11:18 / 11.09.01

Also, Yojimbo, which became Fistful Of Dollars. A scene-for scene (practically line-for-line) translation. Hard to say which I like better; depends if I'm in the mood for ass-kicking samurai or ass-kicking Clint Eastwood.

Jack Fear

16:48 / 11.09.01

quote:Originally posted by Biodegradable K-9:
Seven Samurai is a great (three hour) movie. Magnificent Seven is also a great (though much shorter) movie. The reason? Its not a fucking remake! The people who made Magnificent Seven took Kurosawa's story and transported it to another time and place...Mm. While I'd seen both films before, I just recently saw each again, one within a week of each other, and with the memory fresh I was amazed by how closely Mag 7 hews to 7 Sam. Scene-for-scene, character-for-character. A re-imagining, more than a re-make, I suppose--but still... not simply "inspired by" or "based on," but wholesale lifted up and plunked down into a different context.

Jack Fear

16:49 / 11.09.01

Oh, and I'm a amazed that no one has mentioned The Tao of Steve yet. Great little movie, and some fine dissection and analysis of what it means to be a Steve.

grant

17:01 / 11.09.01

Who were the other Steves?

Jack Fear

17:10 / 11.09.01

Other specific Steves mentioned were Steve Austin (the Six Million Dollar Man), Steve McGarret (from Hawaii Five-O)... but Steve is more a state of mind, a condition to which we as men can aspire. "Steve isn't just a name, it's a way of living... James Bond is a Steve. Spider-Man is a Steve."

The Steve is the archetype of coolness. The average American male is a Phil: the Stu is needy and pathetic: the Ray is crazy/dangerous--a Steve gone bad.

Here--you can calculate your Steve-itude.

[ 11-09-2001: Message edited by: Jack Fear ]

Jack The Bodiless

17:25 / 11.09.01

Hot damn. I'm a goddamn fuckin' Steve.

Jack Fear

17:27 / 11.09.01

You lucky son-of-a-bitch.

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