Continuing our series in which writers reveal which movie stars and characters they emulate, Xan Brooks tells us why Joseph Cotten in The Third Man was, for him, the king of the underdogs a pack which also includes James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story
Peter Bradshaw: why I'd like to be George Sanders
Let's hear it for the makeweights and spear carriers, the blundering best buddy and the plucky second-billed. They are dogged, flawed and they rarely get the girl. These men are my teachers, my idols, my role models if you like, although one might just as easily describe them as handy points of identification. Whichever way you slice it, the picture isn't pretty.
When we sit down to watch a film, the first thing we do is start looking for ourselves. We're hunting someone to latch on to and believe in; an active, idealised version of the spectator in the chair. The supremely self-confident (or the wildly deluded) may find that in James Bond, Ripley, or Indiana Jones. But by the age of 13, steeped in puberty, such imaginative leaps were already well beyond me. I was not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be (although, come to think of it, even Hamlet failed at being Hamlet). So I slowed my pace and found new friends amid the hoi polloi. More often than not, they proved to be better company anyway.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 23 hours ago.
Peter Bradshaw: why I'd like to be George Sanders
Let's hear it for the makeweights and spear carriers, the blundering best buddy and the plucky second-billed. They are dogged, flawed and they rarely get the girl. These men are my teachers, my idols, my role models if you like, although one might just as easily describe them as handy points of identification. Whichever way you slice it, the picture isn't pretty.
When we sit down to watch a film, the first thing we do is start looking for ourselves. We're hunting someone to latch on to and believe in; an active, idealised version of the spectator in the chair. The supremely self-confident (or the wildly deluded) may find that in James Bond, Ripley, or Indiana Jones. But by the age of 13, steeped in puberty, such imaginative leaps were already well beyond me. I was not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be (although, come to think of it, even Hamlet failed at being Hamlet). So I slowed my pace and found new friends amid the hoi polloi. More often than not, they proved to be better company anyway.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 23 hours ago.