He may or may not be retiring, but it's always a good time for a Jack Nicholson retrospective
Entertainment blogs have been buzzing this week with the news that Jack Nicholson was retiring from acting due to memory loss although this was then quickly contradicted in other quarters. Whatever the case, now's as good a time as any for a Nicholson retrospective. An Actor's Studio alumnus, Nicholson has dominated American cinema for 6 decades as a director, writer and most famously, with over 75 credits, as an actor. He has won 3 Academy Awards from 12 nominations, proving to be an actor first and star second. Despite a public persona as a hell raiser, the real dirt is that Nicholson has shown uncommon professionalism, generosity and loyalty to his fellow collaborators. He may be famous for the big pay checks but the fact that he often gives away the percentage profit cheques is not so well known. And while there are some jobs he obviously did for the money, he is a passionate defender of the actor's art. Just watch his interview on the DVD extras to Reds if you don't believe me. Choosing the definitive Nicholson performance is a tough call, so I have cheated a bit and come up with five, each one showing different sides to the one and only Jack.Rebel Jack
Arguably, Nicholson's most interesting period is the late 60's to the mid 70's starting with his breakout performance in Easy Rider (1969) - though he had already notched up a decade's worth of TV and film credits before then - and culminating with his Best Actor Oscar for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest in 1975. This is when Nicholson the maverick rode in on the exciting American New Wave and redefined the Hollywood leading man. This period includes bravura turns in The Last Detail (1973) and Chinatown (1974) but the stand out film for me is Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces (1970). As the classical pianist turned drifter, Robert Dupea, Nicholson is droll, mercurial and infuriating in equal measure, a man running from the growing realisation that his rebellion may be ultimately meaningless and self defeating. The film is packed with memorable scenes - Robert taking down a jobs-worth waitress is a classic - but Nicholson's (non) reconciliation with his father towards the end of the film, shows the actor at his vulnerable best. Another good reason to visit the film again now, is to savour a fine performance from the wonderful Karen Black who died in August this year.Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Crazy Jack
By the 80's Nicholson was just Jack and that daring and unpredictable element to his work - the willingness to go all out, unfettered by considerations of good taste - became, for better or worse, the distinguishing feature of a Nicholson turn. His performance as Jack Torrance in The Shining (1980) and The Joker in Tim Burton's Batman (1989) bookend the decade and reveal two sides of the same coin. While the flashy, cartoonish, albeit entertaining, Joker has since been supplanted by Heath Ledger's creation, his performance in The Shining has only grown with time and multiple viewings. Jack's "Jack"engenders both sympathy and repulsion, leading David Thomson to describe him as "the wicked naughty boy... the monster of his own loneliness."
The Shining (1980)Jack the Lad
More than just the leer and the wayward eyebrows, Nicholson was always a sensual screen presence - a power which seemed to only increase as he got older and fatter. Intermittent scandals in his private life fed into this lascivious image - Jack was the bad ass that women couldn't resist - Warren Beatty's smutty little brother. He was literally all Id and appetite in The Witches of Eastwick (1987), a cheating but charming husband in Heartburn (1986) and the shifty drifter with designs on the boss's wife in the 1981 remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, which was in it's time notorious for the kitchen table sex scene between Nicholson and Jessica Lange. Nicholson nicely sent up his ageing Lothario persona in the Nancy Meyers comedy Something's Gotta Give (2003) in which the big joke is that he falls for his girlfriend's mother. It's a smug and overlong comedy saved only by the star chemistry of Nicholson and Diane Keaton. A much more interesting comic turn can be found in John Huston's Prizzi's Honor (1985). The film's uncertain tone left many viewers cold on its initial release but Nicholson's befuddled hit-man, lusted after by both Kathleen Turner and Anjelica Huston, is one of his most underrated (though still Oscar nominated) performances and the scene where Huston propositions him "on the oriental" is worth the price of a Netflix subscription alone.
Prizzi's Honor (1985)
Old Jack
Jack Nicholson is that rare beast - a star without vanity. Ever since Terms of Endearment (1984) where he gleefully let the middle age spread hang out, Jack has embraced getting older in a way that Robert Redford (still sporting a baseball cap and leather jacket and playing 20 years his junior in the risible The Company You Keep (2012)) would balk at. Nicholson has done some of his most challenging and best received work as older men down on their luck - like the vagrant in Hector Babenco's Ironweed (1987) and a retired cop brought to the edge of insanity through obsession in Sean Penn's disturbing The Pledge (2001). Many would cite As Good As It Gets (1997) as their favourite late period Jack, and his role as ultimately cuddly OCD misanthrope Melvin Udall, netted him his third Oscar. Though I enjoyed this film tremendously, there is an element of Nicholson playing to the gallery here. He is much better in Alexander Payne's bitter sweet About Schmidt (2002). Coping with the twin blows of retirement and widowhood, Nicholson's Warren Schmidt looks back on his life with heart rending regret. The film is leavened by Nicholson's wry delivery of the letters Warren writes to the African boy he sponsors proving that he can do subtle character comedy and as well as scenery chewing pyrotechnics and I challenge anyone to watch the last scene with a dry eye.
About Schmidt (2002)
Supporting Jack
Four of Nicholson's Oscar nominations were in the supporting actor category. Even as a name above the title star, Nicholson was never above taking a role lower down in the billing (or even uncredited as in the case of Ragtime (1981) and Broadcast News (1987)), proving the old adage attributed to Stansilavsky that there are no small parts, only small actors. Jack was happy to provide the comic diversion and let Shirley Maclaine and Debra Winger do all the dramatic heavy lifting in Terms of Endearment (1984), winning an Oscar for his effort. His big shouty scenes in A Few Good Men (1992) won him another supporting nomination and stole the film from under Tom Cruise and Demi Moore. If his long awaited collaboration with Scorsese in The Departed (2006) didn't quite live up to the anticipation, his cameo in Broadcast News as evening news anchorman Bill Rorish, was a delight. When a producer timidly suggests to Rorish that if he cut his salary they wouldn't have to lay off so many staff, the look of distain on Nicholson's face is priceless. However, for me it's Nicholson's interpretation of playwright Eugene O'Neill in Warren Beatty's Reds (1981) that takes the fifth and final spot in the pantheon of great Jacks. While not a close physical match for O'Neill, Nicholson gets the writer's distilled cynicism - curdling into alcoholism - just right and his scenes with Diane Keaton's Louise Bryant crackle with incomparable energy.
Reds (1981)
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