By Sheila O'Malley
[Mickey Rourke's latest film, The Wrestler, opens today in limited release.]
It hasn't been easy for Mickey Rourke fans over the last 15 years. He's given us much cause for complaint, and even despair. He has forced us to defend the indefensible, and say things to our scornful friends along the lines of, "I think there's a lot to like in Exit In Red." I have grasped at straws, I have seen terrible straight-to-video movies and soft-core porn, I even suffered through the abysmal Another 9 1/2 Weeks which actually caused me pain because of how tired and defeated he seemed. I have stuck up for him in the face of dwindling evidence of his genius, but I am not a fair-weather fan. Fifteen years of badness is difficult to withstand. His early promise was such that it galvanized an entire generation of young actors, making them want to do better, push harder, take more risks, and then, it felt like overnight, he left us. Where did he go? The details are coming out now, and much was obvious at the time as well. He flamed out publicly. He got involved in a crazy-making tabloid-frenzy marriage. He hated acting, became bored with it, so went back to being a boxer (his first love). Then followed the strange (and tragic, to me) morphing of his face into something unrecognizable. He had multiple operations on his face due to his boxing, but I think there was a little lip-and-cheek-plumping action going on before that. Something happened to him in the early 90s, and you can see it unfold if you watch his films in chronological order. It made me really sad at the time.
The first Mickey Rourke film I saw was Angel Heart. I was in college, studying acting. His performance in that film riveted me, made me almost nervous, because I wondered if I could ever be that raw, that good, in my own work. This was not a singular experience. I have spoken with many of my actor friends and it was the same for them as well. This was a contemporary, blazing onto the scene, with work that rivaled the best I knew from the past: Brando, Cagney, Clift. The only equivalent I can think of is when Russell Crowe exploded onto the American scene with L.A. Confidential. I had been aware of Crowe for some time, having loved him in Proof and Romper Stomper, but it was like a meteor from outer space when he starred in L.A. Confidential. Obviously it wasn't just actors who loved Crowe, and Rourke, but there was a special lightning-bolt of excitement in that community at the prospect of these new guys--doing exciting, powerful work--inspiring us. My friend David and I went out after seeing Angel Heart to Bickford's, and sat up all night, ranting and raving about Mickey Rourke, especially the relentless last standoff between Rourke and De Niro when Rourke says "I know who I am" probably twenty times in a row. I kept thinking he would stop, that there were not further depths he could possibly plumb in the same line, but he kept proving me wrong. This was a man not only at the top of his own game, but the top of anyone else's as well.
Turns out, I had seen Mickey Rourke before, I just didn't know that it was him. It was in Body Heat, where he has one chilling star-making scene as the arsonist with a conscience. He dominates that scene with a sense of taut energy mixed with gentleness and relaxation (Mickey Rourke's stock-in-trade) and he is one of the takeaways from that film. That was his breakthrough.
As far as I was concerned back then, he was "it." He was the one I wanted to watch. New Mickey Rourke movies were anticipated like the release of the latest Harry Potter. And for a while there, it felt like he kept topping himself, he kept fulfilling on that promise first seen in Body Heat. It was an extraordinary run.
He was captivating in Diner, and the 50s seemed to me to be his proper milieu. There was something old-school about him. He belonged in diners at 3 a.m., with a cup of coffee and a crumpled newspaper and some floozy dame crying about him across town. He was not a modern man. He was unashamedly masculine, yet with that undercurrent of softness and vulnerability that all of the great old movie stars (Bogart, in particular) had. He would be completely at home in Only Angels Have Wings, or Dawn Patrol or The Big Sleep. His manliness was not a pose or anything ironic. It was not defensive or postured. It was authentic. He was a throwback, but it just goes to show you that that kind of energy is always in style, and it went a long way in describing his appeal. Crowe had it too in L.A. Confidential. A pre-"enlightened" man. Robert Mitchum is another actor Rourke reminds me of. Rourke had the same drawling easiness, the same tangible potential for danger and violence, but also the same sizzling sex appeal that turn women movie-goers into puddles in the aisle. Rourke's sense of humor is wry, a little bit pained, he is always distant from events in some way, there is some long horizon he always seems to be looking at which keeps him from full involvement. Perhaps it is an awareness of death, of failure, of the foibles of mankind. His cards are held close to the chest. He is tough, but he is not dumb. You can see this at work in Rumble Fish, where he plays the mythical Motorcycle Boy, one of his loveliest performances. He belongs in black and white. Even his color films seem like they should have been in black and white.
It is interesting to me that Rourke so often played "stars," meaning he played the person in the group of friends who had that extra something: smarts, pizazz, charisma. You can see it in Diner, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Rumble Fish. Rourke was never really an ensemble player--he was too much of an individual for that, and his presence, even very early on before he was a star, tipped the balance of a movie. He was like a magnet, drawing all of the attention. He couldn't help it. But he was lucky, then, because he played characters who were also like that, in their smaller scope of life. You don't need to be a star, in the Hollywood sense, with a salary and an entourage, to be a star. We all know guys like that, guys who are not famous, but who have a glitter to them, something "extra." It could be the security guard at the building where you work who throws out flirtatious comments as you walk by, and instead of being weird or offensive, it makes your day. Or it could be the old guy at the corner coffee shop, who sits there every day, doing the crossword, holding court, over-tipping the breakfast waitress just because he knows it's the right thing to do, dispensing advice and opinions that everyone remembers.
These people are "stars." Mickey Rourke played guys like that. Boogie, in Diner, is down on his luck, he's a hairdresser, he's wild, he's kind of a loser, actually, in the surface of his life. But he is 'the one' of that whole group. He is connected to something deeper, his own sense of truth perhaps, or an existential yearning for something more. He wonders if there is something "more" than the narrow circle he currently resides in. He has "it," star quality, and all of his friends look to him for advice and support and validation. He has his own planetary forcefield. Charlie, in The Pope of Greenwich Village is the same type of guy, a "pope" no less, someone who walks down the street, all dude-d up with his manicured nails and shiny spats. A man aware of the sensation he makes, just by walking into the room. Heads turn. "Do I know that guy?" Henry, in Barfly, although an alcoholic, fringe-dwelling mess, also pulls attention towards him, mostly negative attention, but it's just the flip side of the same coin. Beneath the narcotic haze, his intelligence flickers, making him individual, funny, unexpectedly romantic, and still somehow sensitive. He also can take more punches than any other man and still remain standing. This gives him a certain cache in the sorry swirl of a world he resides in. He is notorious. He couldn't be anonymous if he tried.
Rourke needed to play people like that. His star quality was so intense that it could not be submerged or ignored; it had to be utilized and acknowledged in whatever role he was playing. Marlon Brando had the same thing. It is difficult to cast these men properly. It is difficult to place them in a context. Their force of personality tends to take over the story, whether that is right for the project or not. Elia Kazan tells stories of how troubled he was during rehearsals for the Broadway production of Streetcar Named Desire with Brando as Stanley and Jessica Tandy as Blanche. He knew that the audience sympathy should reside with Blanche, but Brando's power made him undeniably the focus of the entire production, and audiences started to "side" with Stanley. They cheered when he raped Blanche. It upset Brando, too, because he felt that men like Stanley were why the world was such a horrible place, but he couldn't help what he was doing up on that stage. He simply entered a scene, saying nothing, and couldn't help but pull all of the attention his way. That kind of magnetism cannot be easily explained, but, like pornography, you know it when you see it. It cannot be faked.
Rourke's star-power ended up isolating him more and more, and you can see it in films like 9 1/2 Weeks, where that character floats in an unconnected world, alone, his only connection to humanity through the brief affair with the woman. Although that film was a giant hit and made him the sexiest man in the world for a brief season, it is a harbinger of things to come. No longer will Rourke sit across the diner table from a group of his friends, shooting the shit, living and listening, joking and advising. He will be alone. In the late-80s/early-90s, Rourke made, in succession, Wild Orchid, Desperate Hours and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, and that, as they say, was that. Rourke did not recover.
Obviously, the desert that Rourke found himself in in the 90s was not just due to bad movie choices. He was notoriously difficult and combative. He was not well-liked. He was violent. He became un-insurable. He bad-talked other actors. He knew he had talent, he knew he was at the forefront of the new pack, but he could not reconcile the fact that this was also a business. He hated "suits" and authority figures. He didn't give a shit who he pissed off. One of his major errors in judgment was bad-mouthing Sam Goldwyn Jr. after 1987's IRA thriller A Prayer for the Dying, blaming Goldwyn for the movie's failure. Doors began to slam shut on Rourke, doors of opportunity and second chances, and he didn't realize what was happening until there was no way out.
What a spectacular and self-inflicted fall from grace.
In the late-90s, Rourke started to appear again in movies that people could actually see, directed by people you had actually heard of. The newer batch of directors were less interested in his past shenanigans and terrible reputation. They remembered his tender and violent genius in the 80s and wanted him in their projects. Sean Penn put him in The Pledge, and Rourke's five minutes onscreen in that film is as wrenching and shattering as any acting I have ever seen. It is nearly unwatchable. You want to look away to give that character some privacy in his grief. I remember the buzz in my group of actor-friends after The Pledge came out. "Did you see Mickey Rourke's scene?" we asked each other, as excited as the tuxedoed waiters at Harmonia Gardens were at the prospect of Dolly Levi's impending return. "Did you see Mickey Rourke? Did you see Mickey Rourke?"
As corny as it sounds, I never got over missing him. I never reconciled myself to the fact that he was no longer on the scene. He had elevated the art form, he had reminded us what we loved about good acting. Sean Penn, no slouch himself, tells of how, as a younger actor, he would sneak onto the sets of Mickey Rourke movies just to watch Rourke act. When Rourke stepped aside, he laid the playing-ground clear for other actors because, as long as he was there, he couldn't help but dominate. It was his nature, his talent.
To contemplate the long-deferred dream, that Mickey Rourke might return, was exhilarating.
One night in 2000, I sat in a small movie theater in New York, part of a sparse, polite audience, to watch Steve Buscemi's Animal Factory, starring Willem Defoe and Edward Furlong. A rather typical prison drama, with a nice performance by Defoe and a terrible amateur performance by Furlong, the entire thing comes alive every time Furlong goes back to his cell, because his character's roommate is a cross-dressing queen with no teeth named Jan the Actress. Jan the Actress has a hard oiled body, but she dresses in frilly bras and cut-off vests. She reads celebrity magazines and pontificates on life in a friendly way from her bottom bunk. She has a long rambling monologue about how she wants to go to "Paris, France" and "sit in a motherfucking cherry tree on the Champs Elysees," and while this character could have been a cliche, a stereotype she is not. She emerges as a living, interesting human being.
She has a moment when, in the distance, she can hear the slamming of a cell door, not even her own, and it is as though, for the first time in her life, she feels what it means to be behind bars. The character probably started off in juvenile hall as a teenager and graduated to more serious adult crimes. She is fully "institutionalized." There are no lines to suggest this, but it is all in that moment, the brief flicker of panic and despair in her eyes at the sound of a cell door clanging shut in the distance. It is a terrific cameo. I missed that actor when he wasn't onscreen. I was disappointed when Furlong's character was moved to another cell block because that meant no more appearances of Jan the Actress, and so the movie, for me, never quite regains its balance after Jan the Actress exits the action. Jan is in the film for probably fifteen minutes all put together, but you feel, through the rest of the film, that something is missing. I stayed to watch the credits roll and when I saw that that vivacious flirty and logical-minded criminal (Furlong, in trouble, asks Jan what he should do. Jan replies, "'What are you gonna do', sugarplum? You're gonna get a fucking knife, that's what you're gonna do.") was actually played by Mickey Rourke, I gasped out loud in the theater, frozen in my seat. That was Mickey Rourke?
Here he was, yet again dominating an entire movie, not just when he was in it, but when he was not in it as well.
Rourke is the reason to see that film.
Sin City was the beginning of what people are now calling "the comeback." One of the things that is interesting about Rourke and the roles he is choosing in this second or third wave of his career is that directors and writers are openly utilizing the baggage Rourke brings to every part: the memory we all have of his arresting, almost fragile beauty, the years of obscurity, the wild-man persona. These things must be dealt with, they cannot be ignored. Rourke cannot now just slip back into an ensemble drama. He brings too much with him. The only way to handle such a situation is to deal with it head-on, and Robert Rodriguez's Sin City did just that. It was based on a graphic novel, so the pressure to achieve kitchen-sink realism was gone, something that worked in Rourke's favor.
He could be grotesque, he could be campy, he could (as he used to do) allow us in the audience to project all kinds of things onto him. He was strong enough, he could take it. He growled and sneered, he mourned his lost love (a hooker he spent one night with, but even that would resonate for someone like Mickey Rourke, and he knows that we know that), he kicked major ass left and right, and in the end, it was near-impossible to kill him. He is run over repeatedly, he falls out of windows, he is shot at ... but he keeps getting back up. Metaphor for Rourke the actor? Of course it is. Rourke is obviously just fulfilling the needs of this particular character here, but it's never that simple. He cannot "disappear." He never could. The charisma of his persona was too strong. Early on, when he was in projects worthy of him (Pope of Greenwich Village, Angel Heart), the result was often powerful, riveting. But later on, when the ease of stardom was taken away from him, he just looked lazy, adrift, bored. He knew he didn't have to work as hard as other actors to pull focus, so he just stood there, smoldering and whispering and it all began to look schticky and cheap. He was imitating himself. It was painful to watch.
In Sin City, Mickey Rourke fans from way back could watch him take that persona, that persona we missed so much, and pour it into this brilliantly high-camp venture. He didn't have to carry the film--there were other leads--but, again, he dominates. I think everyone is good in that movie, but he is what I remember. It was a thrilling moment for diehard fans. It felt like ... something was about to happen. Sin City wasn't it, but it felt like a precursor, a deep breath before taking the plunge.
Over the last couple of months, the text messages and emails and phone calls have been flying back and forth amongst my group of friends. "Did you hear about Rourke in The Wrestler?" "When does it open again?" "I can't wait!" "Is he back? Do you think he's back?"
I saw an advance screening of The Wrestler a few weeks ago and there is a moment, early on in the film, when he staggers down the street, through a bleak New Jersey morning, a great hulk of a man, too big for his clothes. His face looks battered and puffy, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I got an acute and clear memory of his performance as the deformed criminal in 1989's Johnny Handsome. In the opening shots of that film, "Johnny Handsome" skulks down the street; his face has a ballooning forehead, a bulbous nose, a cleft palate. We know it is Mickey Rourke because he is the star of the film, but we cannot tell it is him. The story of that film, of "Johnny Handsome" getting an operation on his face that leaves him looking like, well, a young and handsome Mickey Rourke, is the reverse of what we have seen happen in Mickey Rourke's real life. It is one of those odd art-meeting-biography truths.
In The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke's actual face looks like the makeup-job he had done in that movie almost 20 years ago, and it's a strange, tragic thing to contemplate. It is not my place to ponder why Mickey Rourke did what he did to his beautiful face. I have some theories. We've all got theories. They are, ultimately, irrelevant. What struck me, in watching his performance in The Wrestler, is how he consciously references us back to those old performances. He lets us remember him how he was. He is not trying to hide anymore, like he was in, say, Wild Orchid, where we, the audience, were supposed to look at his plumped-out cheeks and lips and not ask ourselves the question, "What the hell is he doing to his face?" Now he knows that we know. No more lying and smokescreens. It's all out now. No need to hide or pretend anymore. He has set it up that way. The change in his face is an undeniable fact, and the film does not soft-pedal it. The ghost of the old Mickey Rourke does hover around him still, but in the context of The Wrestler, with its opening montage of newspaper clippings of his old wrestling triumphs, it is perfect. The baggage Mickey Rourke brings doesn't just work, it is essential to the film. He owns it.
Down on his luck, Rourke's character Randy "The Ram" Robinson takes a job working behind a deli counter in a local grocery store. He is nervous. He treats his first day almost like a wrestling match, getting pumped up to be with the public again. On the underside of this is, of course, his existential despair at what his life has come to. What about his dreams? What about who he used to be? What about the glory, the fame? But "The Ram" is a survivor, if nothing else. This guy doesn't just act tough, he is tough. He stands behind the deli counter and the customers start coming. It is my favorite scene in the film, and tears flooded my eyes as I watched Mickey Rourke treat his service job like a Borscht Belt comedy club. He is peppy, humorous, he banters with customers, he makes sure that the person walking away from the counter has had a nice experience, something that might brighten their day. He is "on." A small woman in her 70s comes up to place her order, and he jokes with her, "What you havin' spring chicken?" There is pathos in the scene, because you can't help but wonder what would have become of such a beautiful spirit if he had had a different life. But there is also joy because he is doing his best with the hand that he's been dealt, and isn't that what most of us are trying to do in life? Even in bad times?
It makes me realize that, yet again, even though Mickey Rourke is playing someone in The Wrestler who could be classified as a "loser," this character is a "star," not just because he was a once-famous wrestler, but because he has the personality for it. You either have it or you don't. Even when his career as a wrestler is taken from him, due to having a heart attack, he finds a way to channel it elsewhere, meeting and greeting people on their level, unafraid to be corny or silly, wanting, above all else, to connect.
But make no mistake, this is no romantic Rocky tale. The joy of that scene is short-lived, and events begin to conspire to push "The Ram" out of all areas that might provide comfort, love, connection.
It is a great performance, one that I am still processing and thinking about. I am not sure where Mickey Rourke fits in now. He "fit in" when he was young because he made it to the Alpha-Dog position of male Hollywood stars, and was gorgeous and sexy. He can no longer rely on those things. He must rely on something else that is much more permanent: his talent. He needs to choose wisely, and the problem still remains that it is difficult to cast Rourke properly, even more so now.
David Thomson, in his New Biographical Dictionary of Film, writes, in regards to Rourke:"For Mickey Rourke has rather "gone away," leaving us to marvel over what happened to this glorious, rebellious kid actor, so tempted by silly sexual show-off, by the idea of becoming a boxer, and just being difficult, out of reach. He could come again. The guy one sees in The Rainmaker could still be waiting for his right moment, the big role, the unequivocal revelation that he has always been in charge."
Is that time now? We Mickey Rourke fans can only sit back and remain hopeful.
After all, we're used to waiting. We can hang on a little bit longer.
House contributor Sheila O'Malley blogs about film, literature, photography and life at The Sheila Variations.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Gone Away, Come Back: Mickey Rourke
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40 comments:
Wow,wow,wow!What a superbly written article.The first time I've seen someone put into print what serious Rourke fans think.You have nailed it.The only person I ever wanted to be other than myself was Rourke in the 80's.He was brilliant and he epitomized cool.A very well written piece.
maybe he should play the joker if that character were to reappear in forthcoming batman movies.
i'd love that.
This is a great piece. I can completely relate to rooting for the Mickey Rourke of long ago to come back. It's fitting that "The Wrestler" doesn't play to the obvious sentiments of redemption, which seems fitting for Rourke.
The first time I saw Rourke was "The Pope of Greenwich Village" which was underseen at its release, but I think has grown in stature mostly due to Rourke's performance, which is charismatic and electrifying, reminding you of the best of Brando or DeNiro without ever replicating their mannerisms like most actors tend to do.
I don’t know which I like better, this or your Newman tribute. But it doesn’t matter. You’ve definitely found your niche, Sheila. As a former actor it gives me a thrill to read writing by someone who completely comprehends the nuts and bolts of performance. More of these pieces, please!
I truly disliked THE WRESTLER, but agree that Mickey Rourke is extraordinary in it, and has pretty much always been a fascinating actor.
It's great to hear someone praise him for his committed performance in ANGEL HEART, which deserves to be rediscovered.
When Rourke showed up in THE PLEDGE and ANIMAL FACTORY, it was a reminder of what a powerful presence he has onscreen -- but also I think Quentin Tarantino helped by telling the press that M.R. was an actor he really wanted to work with. I think that allowed filmmakers to see the actor in a new light.
Maybe someday, QT will give him a honey of a role (as he did for Kurt Russell, David Carradine, Robert Forster and Pam Grier). That's something to look forward to.
Great piece.
Thanks for the nice words, everyone!
One of the things I think Rourke doesn't get credit for is how funny he actually can be. Barfly shows his surreal sort of absurd sense of humor, it's all behavioral, coming from listening and talking - nothing overt - and it's kind of beautiful to watch.
The Wrestler is obviously not a funny movie - but there are certainly funny and charming moments, and he's awesome in them. He's not just a brooding serious dude glowering at the camera and taking himself too seriously. He's playing a character. He knows how to nail the moments that need to be nailed.
Also, the way he sighs deeply throughout The Wrestler started to make ME feel my body and muscles aching. That sigh goes to his bone marrow.
Jeremiah - I think Mickey was asked to play Stuntman Mike, if I'm not mistaken. I agree - I think Rourke and Tarantino could (potentially) be a match made in heaven.
I know that there is a list of almost mythological length of all the roles Rourke supposedly turned down - so I'm not sure if there's any truth to that Stuntman Mike story.
My face is on fire! Thanks!
That was really well said. What was so great about Rourke was how he evoked the magic of the older, really mythic actors, particularly Brando. The only current actor who gives me those kinds of chills is Mark Ruffalo, when he's in stuff that properly capitalises on his talents. Thanks for a really great piece, it said just about everything that needed to be said about Micky Rourke.
Beautifully said. One of the best things I've read all year.
Sheila: "I stayed to watch the credits roll and when I saw that that vivacious flirty and logical-minded criminal (Furlong, in trouble, asks Jan what he should do. Jan replies, "'What are you gonna do', sugarplum? You're gonna get a fucking knife, that's what you're gonna do.") was actually played by Mickey Rourke, I gasped out loud in the theater, frozen in my seat. That was Mickey Rourke?"
I had exactly the same reaction to "Animal Factory." I didn't read the presskit prior to the press screening I attended and hustled out of the theater quickly to call back an editor, so I had no idea that Mickey Rourke played Jan until I ran into a couple of friends outside the screening room and talked about the film with them. I liked it a lot -- Steve Buscemi is a terrific, still-underrated filmmaker (even after his behind-the-camera work on "The Sopranos"), and even though it wasn't the greatest prison picture of all time, it had a low-key realism and a gentleness that really stood it apart from other movies in the same vein. The real knockout, though, was the guy who played Jan. "Whoever that guy is, he's an amazing actor," I said. "That was Mickey Rourke," another critic replied. I believe my response was something along the lines of, "Get the fuck out of here."
I haven't seen "The Wrestler" yet -- I'll probably do so this weekend. I hope the tongue-bath Rourke's been getting isn't setting me up for a letdown.
Rourke was (familiar story) a minor god to me when I first started seriously paying attention to directors and actors as a high school student in the 1980s. It probably isn't overstating the case to say that he was to certain moviegoers of that generation what Brando and Dean and Montgomery Clift had been in the 50s (only more emotionally direct, and thus more likable even when he was being a complete shit, onscreen or off).
I don't think he ever had the technical range of Brando, but he had an everman quality that Brando often had to create as meticulously as he created his more abstract performances. Rourke could mix it up, find different aspects of himself and tease them out, but he was always Rourke in a way that more chameleonlike actors (Brando, DeNiro) often were not. In my review of "Johnny Handsome" for my college paper, I spent about half the column talking about Rourke's performance, his screen presence, and at one point I noted, with some amusement, that even when he was under nine inches of putty, he was unmistakably Mickey Rourke; the whispery voice, the who-gives-a-shit posture, the distinctive way he smoked a cigarette (playing around with it as if it were his tiny dance partner) were all dead giveaways.
I even liked him in "Year of the Dragon," which, despite a strong antagonist performance by John Lone, good backup work by Raymond J. Barry as his partner and some spectacular sets and action sequences, is basically a huge neon heap of fascist horseshit. That scene where he pulls his wife's body out of the flaming car screaming, "It's evidence!" is so horrifically powerful, so true to the essence of that character, that it transcends the cheapness of the situation and brings the film to a place it doesn't have the balls to go otherwise, and where it couldn't have stayed anyway even if it had gone there.
Top Five Rourke performances:
1. "Angel Heart." It is to Rourke's career what "On the Watefront" was to Brando's. It maybe isn't the most technically challenging performance, but it covers an astonishing spectrum of feelings and psychological states, and in terms of summarizing the actor's appeal, it covers, well, the waterfront.
2. "Diner." Who can resist Boogie?
3. "Animal Factory." Rourke's definitive reply to anybody who ever said he had charisma but lacked chops.
4. "The Pledge." One of the most powerful cameos in modern movies. So powerful, in fact, that the movie never quite recovers from it.
5. "Sin City." Rourke's story is really the only part of the film that I carried away with me, and it's mostly due to the simplicity of the story and the way that Rourke turbocharges the cliches and makes them play as honest and true. The key, I think, is that while, on the page, Marv reads as a macho hardcase, a woman-hater who really doesn't give a fuck about anybody and is using Goldie's death as pretext to go on a typical hardboiled-action-movie rampage, there was something Bogart-like in the way that Rourke played the guy; it made me think that the killing hit him on a personal level, and everything he did after that was about avenging a woman who actually meant something to him, no matter how strenuously he kept insisting otherwise. He really sells the conceit that this brute has the soul of a lover, a poet, even though he himself probably doesn't know it or won't admit it. Marv is more a postmodern doodle than a human being. Rourke makes him into a human being, somebody who is, to quote David Milch on his "Deadwood" characters, a mystery to himself.
And talk about Rourke's sense of humor: He's one of the few contemporary actors who could sell the electric chair sequence and make it both a horrifying, straightforward, blowout ending and a satire on tough-guy movies ("Is that the best you can do, you pansies?")
You're right, Sheila -- the indestructibility of the "Sin City" character, and the willful, proud, singleminded brutishness, amounts to a meta-commentary on Rourke's career at that point, and on the unkillable vigor of his talent.
Interesting interview with Rourke about his boxing obsession here.
Although I think he'd started having plastic surgery before he officially gave up acting for boxing in 1992, I strongly suspect that his current Easter Island look had less to do with Michael Jackson-like compulsion to deform his face than with the punishment he took in the ring (which, he admits in this interview, was fueled by a desire to replay his aborted, youthful attempts to be a boxer).
Rourke's answer to the interviewer's question at the end tells me all I need to know about the last 15 years of his life.
he smoked a cigarette (playing around with it as if it were his tiny dance partner)
I love that. A perfect description.
Your comment, Matt, makes me wish I had mentioned Year of the Dragon in the post - but I chose to leave it out. It's an interesting performance, I think - a bit counterintuitive (and the girlfriend/newscaster is HORRENDOUS) ... but yes, that "it's evidence" moment is horrifying - and, in fact, all of the pained hopeless yet still somehow humorous scenes with the wife are really wonderful. You can feel the busted-up dreams in that relationship. Good stuff. I can't really remember, off the top of my head, but I think that's one of the only times Mickey Rourke has ever played a married man.
It is so nice to hear the passion with which he is remembered.
He's one of the few actors that I not only admire, but find exciting.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on The Wrestler, Matt.
Rourke was actually fired from Tarantino's GRINDHOUSE, for the sad record.
A lovely and serious-minded piece about an important actor. Thank You, Sheila. Mickey fans have been waiting a long time for this.
While most actors are praised these days for pyrotechnic, presentational and insular performances, what I remember most about Mickey Rourke was the relationships he helped create:
Boogie and Ellen Barkin in DINER.
Paulie & Charlie in POPE
Henry & Faye in BARFLY
Mickey & Kim in 9 1/2 WEEKS
And just about everyone in ANGEL HEART. There's a scene where he goes to an asylum to investigate a patient and a young, pretty nurse helps him ("Did you do anything nice this weekend?" he asks while watching her ass). This throwaway, two-minute scene has so much sexual chemistry and possibility, like a lot of scenes in ANGEL HEART, that I wouldn't mind if the movie took a detour into another film altogether.
Oh, and just to add to the conversation, here are my top 5 Rourke performances (excluding The Wrestler):
1. Johnny Handsome: the scene where he takes off the bandages and stares at his new face is so unbelievably real that you literally FORGET that the makeup job of the first 45 minutes of the movie was a makeup job. His response to his clean clear face is so painful and confused and happy that it is heartbreaking. The movie is not great, but boy, is he great in it.
2. Pope of Greenwich Village: all swagger and brawn - but with that feminine meticulous energy that he brought to so many of his roles (the frighteningly neat closet in 9 1/2 Weeks, for example, the way he takes care of the women in the salon in Diner, etc. etc.) - This is a man who understands the importance of appearance. His gentleness with Eric Roberts is a wonder to behold. As a person who has about 40 cousins, all of whom I am close to - I can say that he NAILS that relationship. It's very specific, not easy to capture. You are not siblings, but you are not friends, either. His growing desperation and rage in that film is torturous to watch, because you can sense - that underneath all the flash and swagger - is a real sweetheart. Again, Rourke's stock-in-trade, but here made electrifying.
3. Diner: A wonderful performance, but I have to say: the moment when he, with ulterior motives, comes on to Ellen Barkin's character in the salon ... Just watch what he does there. It elevates the performance from something real and enjoyable - to something that reaches out from the screen and grabs you. He knows that what he is doing is deplorable. He hates himself. But imagine that scene in the hands of another actor. It would have been obvious, all telegraphing and "showing" the shame and guilt. Mickey Rourke sits there, literally stewing in his own nastiness ... I also get the sense when she asks him, "Was I good?" (meaning: in bed) and he says, "You were the best" that he is not telling the truth. But it is a kind lie. The kind of lie you should tell. That is a knockout scene.
4. Animal Factory: for the sheer and unbelievable bravura of it. I still can't get over my shock that that was him. Superb.
5. Sin City: I kind of wished that that movie would never end, I enjoyed it so much. And I agree with Matt - his storyline was paramount for me. I am sure some of that has to do with the fact that IT WAS MICKEY ROURKE but more than just that: he manages to find every level of irony and humor in that part, and what I love so much about it is that he is unafraid to be BIG. He is unafraid of the huge gesture. He almost goes into an abstract realm, and I think that's perfect - that's where he should go. He's brilliant.
I concur that Rourke is an underappreciated screen talent, and I've enjoyed him in many of these aforementioned films like Angel Heart, Diner, The Pledge etc. but Sin City was a stylized disaster - nobody emerged unscathed from that, least of all the hack Rodriguez.
Rourke always evinced an intriguing mix of sweetness, chivalry, cynicism, self-awareness, self-loathing and seemingly arbitrary cruelty -- a mix that is the hallmark of quite a few of cinema's most memorable leading men.
The deli counter scenes in The Wrestler feature the highest highs and lowest lows; few other scenes got as many laughs and drew as many tears. It was a nearly perfectly executed aspect of Randy's life apart from wrestling, the part that ripped him from his element and damaged him most. But as has been noted, his attempts to make the most of it shine brightly and offer the pièce de résistance of his character's humanity. Thanks for a good article.
As usual Sheila, your comments are right on the mark. One thing I'd like to throw out into the conversation: Barfly. I have seen it more than 50 times, and I am convinced it is his best performance. What is your take? Very overlooked and under celebrated. Otherwise, great as always. Keep up the superb work!
Terrific writing.
And I agree with Matt on ANIMAL FACTORY. It's a solid little film, with a real humanistic streak. The DVD also has a great commentary track, with Eddie Bunker (who wrote the book) and Danny Trejo (who co-stars) reminiscing - pretty frankly - about their time in San Quentin together and their lives afterward.
Speak -
You know, Barfly deserves its own article - and I have been thinking of doing so on my own site. I'm with you - it really stands out in his body of work, and I am in love with that performance. I love, especially, the humor of it - which is very different from the humor Rourke finds in other roles.
One of my favorite moments in that movie lasts all of 1.2 seconds. It's the first scene between Dunaway and Rourke, when he goes over and sits next to her at the bar. They start to talk. And Rourke says in that very particular voice he has chosen to use for that role (a really wonderful imitation of Bukowski himself): "So I'm going to ask you what everyone asks me." She says, bored, guard up, "What?" He drawls, "Like ... what do you do?"
I can't quite describe WHY that moment is sooo funny - but I just love it. He is so confused by people's obsession with what other people "do" - why do we have to "do" anything?? So the way he says that line is just SPOT ON.
Definitely under-rated. I would consider it not just a charismatic powerful performance, but a great one.
wstroby:
I agree that the commentary track to Animal Factor is well worth listening to! Buscemi is a director I love, and I'll see pretty much anything he does. And the material is wonderful - I did like the psychology of it, and the relationship described between Furlong and Defoe. I thought Defoe was good, I just thought Furlong was in way over his head. It kind of distracted me. I liked him very much as a child actor, but in Animal Factory he seemed lost (to me).
The stories of how Buscemi sent the script to Rourke, and Rourke being confused, like, "You're sure you want me to play THAT part??" and Buscemi said, "Yes, yes, Jan the Actress, that part." What a brilliant casting decision.
thanks for the article - Mickey Rourke is awesome, can't wait to for the opportunity to see The Wrestler
wow, awesome post. You nail the tragic breadth of his career without sacrificing depth. Angel Heart was a lightbulb moment for me too, even though I'm no actor.
I have been looking at Mickey Rourke's career since I looked at and read a recent article in New York, the weekly magazine. There were a series of pictures of Mickey through his career to now. I became transfixed by the extent to which he changed himself. Robert De Niro in Raging Bull seems like child's play in comparison and this is Mickey's real, not reel, life. If you look at his interviews as well as his roles in film there is that sweetness, the swagger, the smile, the humor, and the "I've been there and done that" demeanor, and the sexual vitality which all totals up to someone you can not take your eyes off. You wrote a phenomenal article and got it just right. I hope he reads it.
The most important thing to say about Mickey Rourke is that he is one of the best actors of our time in the mode of the Actor's Studio which should be very proud of him. Without Mickey Rourke would there have been after him: Penn and Depp among younger actors. DeNiro and Pacino have become charactetures of themselves. And one other thing I have never read about Mickey: he is the original cool dresser. And it is clear that Depp follows his lead. Just look at the pictures. Even the gangster pose of late is way cool. He is truly an original.
The story I heard is that Rourke did'nt turn down Stuntman Mike; that Tarantino originally wanted him to play it, then decided he was'nt right for it, and did'nt cast him because he realized it would be seen as Rourke's big comeback part--but that it would ultimately hurt his career more then help it.
Year Of The Dragon: A wild Stone script, relentless Cimino direction--an 80s pulp opera. (Great commentary track by Cimino on the DVD.) Rourke is probably miscast (too bad Tarantino did'nt know him then)--he's too young, too low key, for a part that was probably written with Walken or De Niro in mind, and would have been better suited to somebody older and more forceful. But the sadness and vulnerability that suddenly emerges from him in the last scene, precisely at the moment Mahler wells up on the soundtrack--the sudden unity of direction, dialouge and acting, was almost overwhelming. In a way, a moment that maybe Bresson would have even been proud of.
Saw the Wrestler tonight--man, is Rourke great. And I remember standing in the lobby of the same theater a few years earlier, talking to someone about Animal Factory: "Yeah, he plays a drag queen! He's awesome!"
Terrific piece--really enjoyed it. Makes me think a little of the line John Huston delivers in Chinatown, something like: "Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all become respectable if they live long enough." And when I think of that line I see Nicholson standing there, with all the magnetism of someone like Rourke but not the range or depth. Rourke was a hero of mine, too, as an ardent moviegoer. My buddies and I still paraphrase one of his lines from Barfly--"I don't know that I hate cops, but I do feel better when they're not around." I'm glad he's back; I hope he stays a long time.
Marvellous take on Rourke. Did you see him as Francis of Assisi in Liliana Cavani's "Francesco" (1989)? I thought it another revelatory performance of an oft-depicted character generally made utterly insipid by sentimentality.
I was just going to mention what Mike mentioned. My favorite Rourke performance by far and I love him in virtually everything (though only the 150 minute Italian language cut holds up as a masterpiece).
Also, at the risk of completely invalidating myself, where is the love for Wild Orchid???? Iconic. Seriously.
Great additions to the conversation, everyone, and thank you to Dana Stevens for linking to the piece.
I did see Francesco - I loved it!! Fascinating.
Fingers crossed for Sunday. But the best part is that I don't think it will matter to HIM, whether he wins or loses. He's just happy to be here. Awesome.
They're showing The Godfather movies on Bravo (?).
..and it occurred to me after watching The Pope of Greenwich Village and Angel Heart recently that Mickey in his prime could have played Michael Corleone, Sonny, and young Vito Corleone. (Hard to imagine him as Fredo)
Mind you, I think he would have easily surpassed James Caan's performance, held his own with Pacino (think Pope), and been not quite as convincing as Deniro.
If you watch the scene in The Pledge, it's only 2 minutes long. But the emotion he goes through -- naturally and organically -- in that period of time is amazing. He's belligerent, understanding, sad, ashamed, and finally bittersweet and frustrated.
It's interesting -- we lost Heath Ledger too soon, but we maybe we'll be allowed Mickey for a little while longer.
Great article, but...
Rourke's greatest role was, without a doubt, as Henry Chinaski in "Barfly." It is totemic. He owes a lot to Bukowski's magnificent screenplay - not to mention Bukowski himself, who he largely imitated for the role - and to Schroeder's great direction and his co-stars. But Rourke was never before nor has he been nearly as great.
Reading this article and the comments in response I must say that I'm somewhat horrified by everybody's crush on "Angel Heart." That movie - with it's ridiculous jump cuts and DeNiro eating a boiled egg after saying "It's been said that the egg represents the soul" - was the absolute apex of bad 80s filmmaking. It was horrid beyond belief, Rourke's performance was scenery-chewing, and you people are celebrating it! Astonishing, truly astonishing.
I have yet to see "The Wrestler", and I'll assume that it's good and Rourke is good in it. But it's hard for me to do that, because Aronofsky has made some dreadful movies ("Requiem for a Dream" chief among them). Still, I hope he wins the Oscar, because he should have been nominated and won for "Barfly" and didn't.
Wow...that is one of the best essays I have ever read on Mickey. Hell, on anyone. I'm going to hang around a bit and read some of your other pieces - you have the gift.
Agree with most of what you said, especially regarding Animal Factory (I also didn't recognize Rourke right away and I knew he was in the picture!)...thought Furlong was horrible and distracting when everone else was so good (how frightening was Tom Arnold??)
I noticed Mickey in Body Heat but Diner blew me away (still in my top ten ever) and like you I have suffered painfully through some awkward and defensive moments over the years. But that hasn't stopped me from collecting them all, even the early TV movie stuff.
I wrote a short piece about Mickey's comeback a few years ago - the man has had more touted comebacks than cats have lives - there's a link below. Hope you enjoy.
http://drbristol.wordpress.com/junk-drawer/
Great writing, heartfelt and accurate all the way through. Well done.
I have always had a soft spot for Mickey Rourke. I have seen him pop his head up in movies over the last 15 years and reacted. He has that indefinable something that makes you want to watch him.
God loves a trier and everyone loves a comeback. He was robbed of his Oscar. He can't please everyone and he shouldn't try. He's a character and the world needs characters. It would be a boring planet without him.
Wonderfully written piece and excellent observations! The only thing that has left me scratching my head lately when reading about or discussing Mickey since I saw The Wrestler is how everyone overlooks his fantastic role in 'Spun'. that was the first time I had seen Mickey after a loooong time, and I thought he was excellent in that, is that film generally not liked by Rourke fans?
drbristol -
Your piece was gorgeous. I just put up a link up to it on my site. The "fragile as an egg" line is my favorite. Nice work.
Thanks for all the great comments, everyone.
This essay on Mickey has brilliance and depth in its detailed analysis of Rourke's meteoric career.
I will now do the opposite:
Mickey was robbed.
Sunday.
At the Oscars.
He wuz robbed!
To the members of the Academy:
Never give a great actor his second Oscar for all the wrong reasons when you can give another great actor his first Oscar, for all the right reasons.
Really enjoyed reading the article and agree that Rourke is a great, underrated comic performer. Check out his cameo as a bookie threatening Vincent Gallo in the Vinman's 'Buffalo 66'; it's one of those perfect scenes that I could watch endlessly. Every gesture, every nuance is wonderful.
I wish only good things for the guy.
I really have to agree with Beau Jack the Great, I have seen both Milk and The Wrestler; Sean does deserve an Oscar for how well he done in Milk, but it just a question of who deserved it better. Think about the struggles of Rourke, think of his life and then you have Penn, who has also quite the colourful past. Then also think about who is more likely to be in the situation to be nominated again.
The Academy, in my mind, think they are a power unto themselves. They did exactly the same thing to Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. He deserved the Oscar more that Denzel, that is a plain fact, and he was robbed because he has a bad temper and because it would be more politically correct, considering. They should just have given it to Rourke, I am saddened.
Great writing! It's so intelligent! What a treat.
You should publish in big magazines, I'm tired of reading articles written by fools.
Weird-I was thinking the same thing about Johnny Handsome. It gives me the chills.
As Richard Burton said about Peter O'Toole,"He turns acting into an almost mystical thing."
The same can said for Mickey Rourke.
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