From my review in Taki's Magazine:
Win Win affords Giamatti the kind of flustered everyman role that has made him an unlikely star. But what’s most interesting about Giamatti is how much high-class breeding it apparently takes these days to portray run-of-the-mill schlubs.
I can’t help comparing the 43-year-old Giamatti with another pudgy Italian-American actor from Connecticut who specialized in playing Average Joes, Ernest Borgnine (now 94). Borgnine and Giamatti epitomize the evolution of social class over the last half century.
I discovered something hilariously incongruous about the real Giamatti versus the kind of characters he plays. What legendary secret organization did Giamatti join back in the 1980s?
Read the whole thing there.
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21 comments:
OT. I finally saw TAKEN with Neeson. What's with all these American movies about saving young women from sexual savages? There's SEARCHERS. DIRTY HARRY(where Harry tries to save a young woman from Scopio). TAXI DRIVER. HARDCORE. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Remake of GET CARTER, which was more about violence done to the girl than to a guy. SPARTAN(Mamet), briliant movie. Do other nations make similar movies?
If it's an American speciality, why? Could it be a kind of American paradox? America offers more freedom to women, which puts women more at risk of danger?
Or, is it the product of American history of race relations? Saving the white woman from blacks in BIRTH OF A NATION? Rescuing white girls from savage Indians? A legacy of Northern European racial puritanism? TAKEN ends with Neeson killing a bunch of swarthy 'Muzzies' to save his pure white virginal daughter from violation.
The movie may also serve as a kind of catharsis for the Angry White Male who lost out in the Global Order. Neeson starts out as a beta male character, humiliated by his wife's marriage to a much richer man. Neeson's gift to his daughter is a dinky karaoke set while stepdad gives her a horse. Many working class and middle class whites who lost out to global elites could identify with Neeson the hapless beta-boy loser. BUT, he turns out to be one badass mofo when it comes to fighting. Through 'working class' fist-fighting and hunting-instincts, he establishes his all-American alpha cowboy masterfulness over, well, just about everyone. It's like Bourne-Again Americanism.
The movie aint much, but it's watchable enough. Too bad the movie just went for action and missed out on the ironies, such as Neeson doing monstrous things in the name of justice. Even TEAM AMERICA was more insightful and nuanced on this matter.
What I did find offensive is the ending where the hero and his daughter seemed to have learned nothing. Surely, both saw how the rest of the world lives. The poverty, corruption, abuse, organized crime, sex slavery, drug addiction. Yet, at the end, it's as though, 'hey, we are safe in America again, so never mind what happened to us or what we went through. Let's go see some pop singer, see if she can help you with your singing career, and forget about everything else.' There is no indication that the girl feels anything for other girls who were abducted and enslaved as long as she's safe back at home and has her toys and goodies to play with.
It's even more ridiculous when we consider that American pop music encourages young girls to dress, act, and look like hookers.
I don't exactly understand your point. Giamatti would have always been forced to play run-of-the-mill schlubs, no matter what time period he acted in. There was no Golden Age of Hollywood era for movies about Renaissance poetry professors. . Borgnine, on the other hand, is a more versatile actor. Can you imagine Giamatti as a member of the Wild Bunch?
you seem to have a soft spot for average "schlub" white guys who aren't very good looking.
me, too. me too actually.
Ernest Borgnine is still trying to get work, and is apparently fit enough, according to my cousin who cleans pools in Horrorwood.
Maybe they should team up.
What's with all these American movies about saving young women from sexual savages?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FFQ_g8OoQM
Eli Wallach is about a year old than Borgnine and was quite amusing in the latest Gordon Gekko movie.
I enjoy this blog,this week it means looking up words such as...
Ipsative
Confabulation
Epicene
Schmutzkrieg
Dramedies
And, enwallowment, needs to be dropped into conversation more often.
I always like seeing Borgnine. He's got personality, something Hollywood could always use more of. He's always been underrated if you axe me.
His grandson might become a meth head. Regression to the mean and all that.
Giamatti was good in "The Illusionist" with Edward Norton and the highly underrated Rufus Sewell. My favorite line was when Norton, agape with indignation, asks Giamatti "Are you completely corrupt?", and Giamatti replies, with equal indignation, "No! Not completely!"
From the review: "Critics refer to such films as 'humanist' without explaining what this kind of movie has to do with the vaulting ambitions of Renaissance Florence."
Priceless. Even better than your swipes at Gladwell.
"What's with all these American movies about saving young women from sexual savages? There's SEARCHERS[sic]."
The searchers in The Searchers are not trying to save Debbie from the Indians. Ethan, whose mother was killed by the same tribe years earlier, searches for Debbie to kill her, now that she's been defiled by contact with the Indians. Martin tags along hoping to save Debbie from Ethan.
The movie isn't really about saving young women from savages, sexual or otherwise. The plot is merely the medium for Ford to discuss his message re redemption, place, family, community--all the usual Fordian preoccupations.
Another actor who's great at portraying working-class schlubs: Burt Young (best known for the Rocky movies).
http://www.burtyoungartandfilm.com/
You may be making too much of the difference in backgrounds between Borgnine and Giamatti. Your "study" puts a lot of weight on sample sizes of one.
Borgnine was a true natural. He practically walked in off the street and played "Fatso" in "From Here to Eternity". Without his screen menace Lancaster would have had no one to play against. Two years later he won the acting Oscar.
That's how it worked in the early days. John Ford came from a working class background while Howard Hawks was a patrician. What they had in common was they didn't go to film school. Scorsese, Lucas and Spielberg had formal preparation. Earlier directors and actors just stumbled into films. Modern actors like Giamatti have had acting school or stage credentials in their background.
I don't think there is a lesson here about Italian actors. The most popular Italian actor of all time - Rudolph Valentino - came from a privileged background - maybe more prominent and aristocratic than Giamatti's. Borgnine is the outlier here.
Albertosaurus
Anyone want to lay odds there's a perennial elitist joke at Harvard about the stupid rubes who think Yale grads run the Universe?
The searchers in The Searchers are not trying to save Debbie from the Indians. Ethan, whose mother was killed by the same tribe years earlier, searches for Debbie to kill her, now that she's been defiled by contact with the Indians. Martin tags along hoping to save Debbie from Ethan.
That's a wrinkle that develops pretty late in the movie. For most of the film, they're just looking to rescue her. If Ford had Ethan intending to kill the defiled girl all along, he was very subtle about it. And it wasn't that she was "defiled," it's that she'd gone native. Stockholm syndrome. Which is why he decides to kill her only after she fights being rescued (IIRC). It went without saying that she was defiled.
Or maybe I'm remembering it wrong and need to watch it again. :)
I thought that Ernest Borgnine's role in Red was refreshing, and wished that he had more screen time.
Why is first anonymous laying Taken, a movie made by a bunch of French dudes, at America's feet?
"That's a wrinkle [Ethan searching for Debbie to kill her, now that she's been defiled by contact with the Indians] that develops pretty late in the movie."
No. Marty alludes to it pretty graphically midway through the movie when he says to Laurie, "That's what I'm afraid of, Laurie, him{Ethan] findin' her{Debbie]. Oh, I've seen his eyes at the very word Comanch. I've seen him take his knife...Never mind, he's a man that can go crazy wild. And I intend to be there to stop him in case he does."
"For most of the film, they're just looking to rescue her."
Again, no. Remember the scene in which Ethan and Marty are on horseback in the falling snow? (It's about 40 minutes into the movie, which is slightly over 2 hours long.) Ethan says, "If she's alive, she's safe. For a while, they'll keep her to raise as one of their own until, till she's of an age to..."
"If Ford had Ethan intending to kill the defiled girl all along, he was very subtle about it."
Not really. Maybe what you're missing is that Ethan is willing to rescue Debbie alive while she's still a child. Once she's a young woman and has become the wife of one of the Comanche, she's defiled in his eyes and must be killed.
"And it wasn't that she was 'defiled,' it's that she'd gone native. Stockholm syndrome. Which is why he decides to kill her only after she fights being rescued (IIRC). It went without saying that she was defiled."
See the preceding. Ethan himself has "gone native" in a way, that is, he speaks the Comanche language, knows them and their customs. It's definitely the defilement aspect of Debbie's captivity that enrages him.
"Or maybe I'm remembering it wrong and need to watch it again. :)"
There's no better way to spend a couple of hours. I'm a big fan of this movie, as you might guess. I have the 2006 anniversary edition (even though I rarely buy any DVD not in the $1 bin at Walmart) and have watched it more times than I recall. It's rare to find anyone outside of movie forums who's willing and able to discuss it. Thanks for your reply.
I met Ernest Borgnine at the comic-con convention last summer in Toronto. He was real nice and seemed hardy. His handshake was very strong.
Some confirmation for Steve on Borgnine's culinary habits. They've got pictures of Ernest at Al's Italian Beef in Chicago.
Giamatti has a likeable on screen persona. He was great in Sideways. I do not like the fact that he favors continuing Pete Rose's exclusion from the HOF. He says rescinding his father's ban of Rose would be disrepectful to the memory of Bartlett Giamatti. So this nothing of a man's last act can never be reversed and the (arguably) greatest living ballplayer has to suffer because it would hurt his feelings.
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