Jack Nicholson (1937-2007), a retrospective

An actor who always is the person who he plays.

Last summer I suddenly saw any initiatives to show movies with Jack Nicholson. I don’t know why. Could it be because he is dead now for five years? Anyway, I saw five of the movies he is playing in. In chronological order:

In Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969) we can enjoy Nicholson just for a short time. He is the young and insecure lawyer George Hanson, dressed in a white suit, who is in jail for drinking and sits there with the two motorcyclists. He gets an aspirine from a guard and is set free with his mates. He decides to go with them to Mardi Gras and gets his golden football helmet from his home. He had almost thrown it away, he says, but his mother told him to keep it later in his life for his son. George is very talkative. He learns to smoke marihuana and talks at night at the campfire about marshman that observe them. Later on that night he get killed by rednecks. With this role he made himself known as an actor.  

In Five easy pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970) Robert Dupea is kind of a lonely cowboy, strolling around. He did not become a concertpianist, but picks up all kinds of jobs and leaves them again before getting in trouble. He travels not by horse but in an old car and hates his relationship with Rayette, a childish women. He can get very angry, like in a restaurant if he cannot get toast. Then he wipes away all the glasses from the table. He doesn’t seem to know what he wants. He goes to his upperclass family because his father is very ill. He is a good piano player but misses the right attitude. He doesn’t get along well with women. At the end he talks to his father, who cannot speak anymore. Then he is sentimental about not having been able to have contact with him during his youth. He says they would not have had a better contact if his father could speak.

In The shining (Stanley Kubric, 1980) Jack Torrance is a unsuccesful writer who acts very friendly but doesn’t control his impulses. In the past he hit his son Danny when he threw his papers on the ground. In the beginning we see him driving through the Rocky Mountains, on his way to an interview for the position of a caretaker of The Overlook Hotel in wintertime when it is closed. He is very charming during the interview and we know already that later on everything we turn out for the worst. His wife speaks to their son Danny, who has his doubts about a winter in isolation because he has special senses. He has to listen to a boy called Toby who lives in his mouth. The beginning of the movie is the best. For the horror I rather go to a Polanski movie.  

The postman always rings twice (Bob Rafelson, 1981) is like a continuation of Five easy pieces. The lonely cowboy is called Frank Chambers this time. He is hitchhiking and during a stop in a petrol station the driver leaves while Frank is still eating a steak. Nick Papadakis, the Greek owner of the place, asks him to be his assistant. Frank agrees after taking a look at his beautiful blond wife Cora (Jessica Lange) who works in the kitchen. Cora turns out to be a femme fatale: she attracts Frank and pushes him away at the same time. Frank sometimes takes her with violence. Different times they try to start a life together, but they don’t succeed because Cora is not sure about Frank and neither about herself.

In About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, 2002) Warren Schmidt is a retired director of an assurance compagny. He and his wife become Forster parents. His wife dies after she bought him a camper. He wishes to go to his daughter and her boyfriend in the Midwest, but she wants him to wait till her wedding. He travels around and on a campground he gets invited by a young couple. When the man leaves to get beer, Warren tries to seduce the woman but she doensn’t want him.

He doesn’t like his daughter, her husband and neither his family, but in his speech he agrees with the marriage and returns home, feeling desperate. The drawing of his adopted child makes him cry.

Jack Nicholson is playing someone who is not very succesfull and that makes him very sympathetic. One almost gets addicted to look at him, this womanizer, who always is the person who he is playing.