The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (61 page)

So many of these pictures were duds, and still Caan had not carried a successful movie. In
Chapter Two
(79, Robert Moore), he seemed remote from both the part and the film. In truth, he was embarked on a crisis involving marriage, drugs, and finances, to say nothing of his attempts to direct and complete
Hide in Plain Sight
(80), a touching movie about a father who risks losing his child when the stepfather disappears into the witness relocation program.

Thief
(81, Michael Mann) was a throwback to the earlier Caan, and a fine, stoic, but desperate movie—it may be the actor’s best work.
Les Uns et les Autres
(81, Lelouch) was a disaster, and
Kiss Me Goodbye
(82, Robert Mulligan) might have been taken as a verdict on Caan’s career.

He was away five years and came back markedly heavier, grayer, and sadder: but
Gardens of Stone
(87, Coppola) was affecting. Then came
Alien Nation
(88, Graham Baker), a cameo in
Dick Tracy
(90, Warren Beatty), and a fine performance of beleaguered authorial machismo in
Misery
(90, Rob Reiner). He missed warmth or plausibility as another gangster in
Honeymoon in Vegas
(91, Andrew Bergman), and found himself in one more major flop,
For the Boys
(91, Rydell). He was in
The Program
(93, David S. Ward);
Flesh and Bone
(93, Steve Kloves).

The idea persists—not least in his mind—that Caan might have been a big star. So he is cast, and sometimes indulged, a lot. Still, he begins to gather a few nice world-weary hitters, and it is good to see him holding himself together:
Tashunga
(95, Nils Gaup);
A Boy Called Hate
(95, Mitch Mason);
Bottle Rocket
(96, Wes Anderson);
Eraser
(96, Chuck Russell);
Bulletproof
(96, Ernest Dickerson);
This Is My Father
(98, Paul Quinn); as Philip Marlowe in
Poodle Springs
(98, Bob Rafelson) for TV; awful in
Mickey Blue Eyes
(99, Kelly Makin);
The Yards
(00, James Gray);
Luckytown Blues
(00, Paul Nicholas); good in
The Way of the Gun
(00, Christopher McQuarrie);
Viva Las Nowhere
(00, Jason Bloom);
In the Boom Boom Room
(00, Barbara Kopple);
Warden of Red Rock
(01, Stephen Gyllenhaal);
A Glimpse of Hell
(01, Mikael Salomon);
In the Shadows
(01, Ric Roman Waugh);
Night at the Golden Eagle
(01, Adam Rifkin);
City of Ghosts
(02, Matt Dillon);
The Lathe of Heaven
(02, Philip Haas).

As we begin to wonder why he isn’t in
The Sopranos
, he seems to be in nearly everything else:
Blood Crime
(02, William A. Graham);
Dogville
(03, Lars von Trier);
This Thing of Ours
(03, Danny Provenzano);
Jericho Mansions
(03, Alberto Sciamma);
The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie
(03, Paul Johansson);
Elf
(03, Jon Favreau); in the TV series
Las Vegas; Dallas 362
(03, Scott Caan, his son);
Santa’s Slay
(05, David Steiman);
Get Smart
(08, Peter Segal); and a voice on
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
(09).

Michael Cacoyannis
, b. Cyprus, 1922
1953:
Kyriakatiko Xypnima/Windfall in Athens
. 1955:
Stella; To Koritsi Me Ta Mara/The Girl in Black
. 1957:
To Telefteo Psemma/A Matter of Dignity
. 1960:
Eroica/Our Last Spring; Il Relitto/The Wastrel
. 1961:
Elektra
. 1965:
Zorba the Greek
. 1967:
The Day the Fish Came Out
. 1971:
The Trojan Women
. 1975:
Attilas ’74
(d). 1977:
Iphigenia
. 1987:
Sweet Country
. 1993:
Pano Kato ke Plagios/Up, Down, and Sideways
. 1999:
Varya/The Cherry Orchard
.

When the Second World War began, Cacoyannis was studying law in England. He stayed, worked for the BBC, and eventually joined the Old Vic as an actor. When he returned to Greece he began to direct films and quickly became the luminary of Greek cinema. His first films were impressive by any standards: intense emotional melodramas, set in Athens and the provinces, often graced by the photography of Walter Lassally.
Stella
introduced Melina Mercouri, while
The Girl in Black
and
A Matter of Dignity
centered on the melancholy beauty of Elli Lambetti. But the strain of sustaining a native and modern Greek cinema proved too much, and in the 1960s he fell back on classical adaptations, with Irene Papas as
Electra
and a spectacular international cast in
The Trojan Women
. Worst of all, and most successful, was
Zorba the Greek
, a film that reeked of tourist ouzo and encouraged Anthony Quinn to see himself as a noble savage. His work was evidently inhibited by the political situation in Greece.
Attila
was a partisan account of the Turkish invasion of his home island, but
Iphigenia
was a return to Euripides and Irene Papas’s blatant declaiming. Like the earlier attempts, it came off as an inducement to high-culture tourists.

Nicolas Cage
(Nicholas Kim Coppola), b. Long Beach, California, 1964
Around the time of
Leaving Las Vegas
(95, Mike Figgis)—a stunning performance and deserved Oscar winner—Nicolas Cage let it be known that he had a policy of mixing dangerous, offbeat roles with mainstream entertainment pictures. Even at the time, it sounded like an attempt at self-persuasion, and now it has to be said that the Cage of the last few years has been distressingly fixed on moneymaking movies of questionable worth. This is the more disappointing in that he was always a lead actor riven with intriguing flaws, whereas lately he has seemed entranced with being cast as surly badasses, too full of attitude to leave room for the human complexity of
Leaving Las Vegas
.

Still, he is a determined maverick, a natural outsider, with Coppola blood that insists on doing things the unlikely way. David Lynch once called him “the jazz musician of actors,” and even if he has seemed to be coasting lately, Cage could develop into a very rare middle-aged figure. If he doesn’t have enough money yet to settle for risk, then what is the point of money?

He is the son of dancer Joy Vogelsong and literature professor August Coppola (the older brother to Francis), and he has always shown the large, if sometimes incoherent, artistic aspirations of his father. He left Beverly Hills High School at seventeen and has been acting ever since:
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
(82, Amy Heckerling);
Valley Girl
(83, Martha Coolidge);
Rumble Fish
(83, Coppola);
Racing with the Moon
(84, Richard Benjamin);
The Cotton Club
(84, Coppola); a big challenge in
Birdy
(84, Alan Parker); rowing in
The Boy in Blue
(86, Charles Jarrott).

Then a run of romantic roles helped establish him (and he sounded like Jimmy Stewart)—
Peggy Sue Got Married
(86, Coppola); wooing Cher with great feeling in
Moonstruck
(87, Norman Jewison);
Raising Arizona
(87, Joel Coen). As if to warn people, he ate a live roach in
Vampire’s Kiss
(89, Robert Bierman), and gave off a wonderful comic-book sheen in
Wild at Heart
(90, Lynch). He followed with
Fire Birds
(90, David Green);
Zandalee
(91, Sam Pillsbury);
Honeymoon in Vegas
(92, Andrew Bergman);
Red Rock West
(92, John Dahl);
Amos & Andrew
(93, E. Max Frye);
Deadfall
(93, Christopher Coppola, his brother);
Trapped in Paradise
(94, George Gallo);
It Could Happen to You
(94, Bergman);
Guarding Tess
(94, Hugh Wilson); very villainous in
Kiss of Death
(95, Barbet Schroeder).

Then came
Leaving Las Vegas
and the maximization of opportunity:
The Rock
(96, Michael Bay);
Con Air
(97, Simon West);
Face/Off
(97, John Woo), a further study in nastiness;
City of Angels
(98, Brad Silberling);
Snake Eyes
(98, Brian De Palma);
8MM
(99, Joel Schumacher); working very hard in
Bringing Out the Dead
(99, Martin Scorsese), which costarred Patricia Arquette, his wife from 1995 to 2000; close to shameful in the absurd
Gone in 60 Seconds
(00, Dominic Sena);
The Family Man
(00, Brett Ratner);
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
(01, John Madden);
Windtalkers
(02, Woo).

Unpredictability is now the only constant: he acted in and directed
Sonny
(02); he was close to brilliant as twins in
Adaptation
(02, Spike Jonze); and then
Matchstick Men
(03, Ridley Scott);
National Treasure
(04, Jon Turteltaub);
Ghost Rider
(05, Mark Steven Johnson);
The Wicker Man
(06, Neil LaBute);
World Trade Center
(06, Oliver Stone);
Next
(07, Lee Tamahori);
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
(07, Turteltaub);
Bangkok Dangerous
(08, the Pang Brothers);
Knowing
(09, Alex Proyas); delirious, redoing Harvey Keitel in
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
(09, Werner Herzog)—the perfect union of actor and director.

James Cagney
(1899–1986), b. New York
Cagney never lent himself to a cult. Just as in the 1930s he complained of having to make too many undistinguished pictures, so he was in fixed retirement for many years, after a last working decade in which he was beset by unworthy material. Nevertheless, he had become such a household figure that every nightclub entertainer thought himself obliged to carry an impersonation of Cagney. Such imitations do not conceal the fact that Cagney is one of the most original and compelling performers in American cinema. Although endlessly associated with the supposedly “brutal” and “realistic” qualities of the gangster film, Cagney is one of the most stylized of actors. Look past that familiar belligerence and you will find a compressed gaiety and a delight in outrageous, inventive movement. His reputation for slugging women on the screen needs to be compared with Dietrich’s man-eating act: in both cases, there is an innate tenderness and a real sexual inquisitiveness that makes the action ambiguous. Cagney is charged with restlessness, and yet he always contrives to discharge the agitation daintily or with conscious style. Watch him listen to other players and you will realize how often other actors cruised. If he is frightening it is because of that attentiveness and the feeling that what is being said or done to him may provoke extraordinary and unexpected reactions. No one could move so arbitrarily from tranquillity to dementia, because Cagney was a dancer responding to a melody that he alone heard. Like a sprite or goblin he seemed to be in touch with an occult source of vitality. What a Bilbo Baggins he would have made; or imagine his Hyde to Fred Astaire’s Jekyll.

Cagney began in vaudeville and was a song-and-dance man with Joan Blondell in
Penny Arcade
when Warners bought the show as a package and turned it into
Sinner’s Holiday
(30, John Adolfi). He was signed up by Warners and, after appearing in
Doorway to Hell
(30, Archie Mayo) and William Wellman’s
Other Men’s Women
(31), he made his first great impact in
Public Enemy
(31, Wellman), one of the original gangster films, in which Cagney smacked Mae Clarke in the face with a cut grapefruit and ended a ballet of hysterical expiration dead on his mother’s doorstep. It was the gleeful smartness in Cagney’s playing that made
Public Enemy
so influential and that induced the public’s ambivalent feelings toward the criminal classes. There was no doubt about the violence within Cagney, but he managed to relate the bootlegger’s swagger to the boldly extended death throes of the finale in a way that made the character exotic and magical. He quickly became a star, cast largely as gangsters or tough, cynical men, notably harsh to women. After two films for Roy del Ruth—
Blonde Crazy
(31) and
Taxi!
(32)—he played a race-car driver in Hawks’s
The Crowd Roars
(32) and a boxer in del Ruth’s
Winner Take All
(32). Always snappy and aggressive, he was the dynamo at Warners: in Le Roy’s
Hard to Handle
(33); Lloyd Bacon’s
Picture Snatcher
(33); Mayo’s
Mayor of Hell
(33); and then brilliant as the producer in Bacon’s backstage musical,
Footlight Parade
(33). In del Ruth’s
Lady Killer
(34) he again roughed up Mae Clarke, and in Michael Curtiz’s
Jimmy the Gent
(34) he turned to comedy as rapid as automatic fire. It was at this time that Warners teamed him with the more stolid Pat O’Brien, perhaps because there was hardly an actress who could stand up to him—typical of this association was Lloyd Bacon’s
The Irish in Us
(35). He was one of William Keighley’s
G Men
(35) and then a redneck Bottom in Reinhardt’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(35), a hint of Cagney’s neglected comic impulse. Not that he wasted any of the black jokes in Hawks’s
Ceiling Zero
(36), one of the most breathtaking analyses of the hard man in the American cinema. Cagney was on bad terms with Warners and made two poor pictures at Grand National—
Something to Sing About
(37, Victor Schertzinger) and
Boy Meets Girl
(38, Bacon)—before acting the coward to impress the kids in Curtiz’s
Angels With Dirty Faces
(38), with O’Brien again and Ann Sheridan;
Boy Meets Girl;
the pleasantly silly
The Oklahoma Kid
(39, Bacon); and two more crime movies: Keighley’s
Each Dawn I Die
(39) and Raoul Walsh’s
The Roaring Twenties
(39). It is worth noting that these two films show how much more at ease he was in the genre than either of his costars, George Raft and Humphrey Bogart.