With the best will in the world, is it ever possible for actors blessed with incomparable beauty to get under the skin of the homely characters they play?
I can really only go on supposition, but I do tend to assume that the life of the super-beautiful movie star contains less in the way of futility and failure as those of we shabby mortals. There is one thing the gilded screen god or goddess will never know, and that's what it's like to be ugly. In fact, scratch ugly – even the experience of being blandly average is intrinsically beyond them. Which, for even the most gifted actor, is going to be a hurdle in a biopic of someone demonstrably plain.
On this supposition is founded the misgivings I've always had about Howl, the study of poet Allen Ginsberg at the time of his obscenity trial in 1957 which will debut at next month's Sundance festival.
I can really only go on supposition, but I do tend to assume that the life of the super-beautiful movie star contains less in the way of futility and failure as those of we shabby mortals. There is one thing the gilded screen god or goddess will never know, and that's what it's like to be ugly. In fact, scratch ugly – even the experience of being blandly average is intrinsically beyond them. Which, for even the most gifted actor, is going to be a hurdle in a biopic of someone demonstrably plain.
On this supposition is founded the misgivings I've always had about Howl, the study of poet Allen Ginsberg at the time of his obscenity trial in 1957 which will debut at next month's Sundance festival.
- 12/11/2009
- by Danny Leigh
- The Guardian - Film News
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