Donna Peberdy – Masculinity and Film Performance

Автор: Donna Peberdy
Название книги: Masculinity and Film Performance
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Театр и Кино
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

A lively and engaging study of on-screen and off-screen performances of masculinity, focusing on well-known male actors in American film and popular culture in the 1990s and 2000s. Peberdy examines specific social, cultural, historical and political contexts that have affected age, race, sexuality and fatherhood on screen.

Two men sit at their desks in an office that was burgled the previous
night; their future as salesmen rests in the hands of the policeman
in the adjacent room. ‘I swear it’s not a world of men’, Ricky Roma
(Al Pacino) states matter-of-factly, ‘It’s a world of clock watchers,
bureaucrats, office holders. … We’re the members of a dying breed.
That’s why we gotta stick together.’ Shelley ‘The Machine’ Levene
(Jack Lemmon) nods but is less confident than his colleague. Praising
him on his performance that day, Roma continues: ‘I thought: “The
Machine, there’s a man I would work with”. … That stuff you pulled. …
That was admirable. It was the old stuff… The things I could learn
from you.’ A nervous half-hearted smile crosses Levene’s face: he cannot
contain his pride at being complimented by the best salesman in
the office but, at the same time, he knows he does not deserve such
an honour for he is the man who has stolen the Glengarry leads. As
Roma makes a sales call, the camera stays on Levene. The actor takes
his clasped hands to his face, presses his index fingers to the bridge of
his nose and slowly draws his fingers down, outlining his nose until
they rest against his lips (see Figure 1.1). He chokes slightly. With
a resigned laugh and sad smile, he sighs and drops his still-clasped
hands to his lap. When the policeman calls his name, the camera
closes in on Lemmon’s face as he nods wearily. Glancing over at
Roma, Levene tries to catch his eye to say sorry for letting him down,
or to explain he is no longer the salesman of his younger years and
needed the money, or that his daughter’s mounting hospital bills left
him with no choice. But confident and assertive Roma is mid-pitch
and watery-eyed Levene cannot find the words