Intermittent Movement
- a blog by Brian Pera
- I'm a writer/filmmaker living in Memphis, TN. THE WAY I SEE THINGS, my first feature film, was completed in 2008 and over the course of the following year toured festivals around the world. A second feature, WOMAN'S PICTURE, was filmed in October and November of 2009. It features Calpernia Addams, Amy Lavere, and Ann Magnuson in lead roles. The executive producer of WOMAN'S PICTURE is Ira Sachs. The film is currently in post production. My first novel, Troublemaker, was published in 2000. I co-edited a collection of film writing called Life As We Show It, which was released in June of 2009 by City Lights.
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Why do actors have to closely resemble the historical figures they're portraying onscreen? Clearly, most of the pre-1970s films that were about real people featured actors with only a passing resemblance to them.
Is Chapman's physical image so etched in the minds of Americans (or others) that it was important for Leto to eat ice cream with olive oil?
These are probably the first pics of Chapman I've seen since 1981, and I have only a vague recollection of his image. What would be wrong with a thinner screen version of Chapman?
I guess I come out of this from my theater experiences, where it's quite common to have actors of different body types, facial features, ages, and more recently, races or genders playing characters who either are associated with a certain look (in the case of fictional characters in classics) or historical figures.
I have no idea, really, what Karen Silkwood or Jan Schlichtmann looked like and don't know if Streep or Travolta tried to resemble them, but who cares, really?
This weight stuff seems to me a fetish.
But then I know someone who was really bothered by Val Kilmer playing Jim Morrison because the actor had too much chest hair.
La Motta's weight gain was an important part of his character's transformation, but I guess it could have been hinted at in another, less showy, way.
Since I've been 18, I've ranged in weight from 105 to 185 (somewhere in the middle now) and I don't think I ever felt different when I moved.
Is there anything about his weight in Chapman's story - I didn't really pay much attention to it, I guess - that makes his (unremarkable) weight important? From what you say, no.
Of course I may have him totally mixed up with John Hinckley. Or David Berkowitz or Arthur Bremer.
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