| Page 1 2 THE DUELLISTS, VOL. 2: COCKFIGHT by Zayne Reeves and Nathan Williams Nathan Williams:Warren Oates and Harry Dean Stanton are two of the greatest character actors of their era. They appear together in no less than four, very distinct films (Two-Lane Blacktop, Dillinger, Cockfighter, and 92 in the Shade). They were the yin and yang of the American psyche (the quiet, earnest soul and the brash loudmouth). They were good friends (Stanton delivered Oates’ eulogy). They were irreplaceable gifts to American cinema. But we cinephiles are not happy just praising that which we love. We must rank things (“I am the author. You are the audience. I outrank you.”). And as hard as it is, if the discerning viewer is honest with him/herself, then the answer is all too clear: Harry Dean Stanton was a better actor with a broader, longer career, and his legacy will prove to be the greater. Maybe Warren had more raw talent, maybe not. But it’s the films that matter, and Harry Dean has more great film roles and demonstrated a greater range and depth of acting. Obviously the two had different strengths. Warren could never have played Harry Dean’s greatest role (the man-child Travis in Paris, Texas). Nor would there have been any point in Harry Dean even trying to attempt Warren’s tour de force (Bennie in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia). But where Warren was pretty much stuck exploring the nastier side of masculinity, Harry Dean had the ability to explore a much fuller range. He’s a homosexual hobo in Blacktop. He’s a hapless, lovelorn P.I. in Wild at Heart. He is the pious Saul in The Last Temptation of Christ. He’s the villainous Brain in Escape From New York. He’s the goofball Toot-Toot in The Green Mile. Warren’s range is basically how violently his character wants to hurt other living things. In Badlands he only wants to kill dogs and beat up Martin Sheen. In Wild Bunch he wants to slaughter every Mexican over the age of four. Every other role is somewhere between these two on a scale of sadism. And then, of course, there’s longevity. Yeah, it’s not fair that Warren died so young, but it’s not fair that Roberto Clemente went down in that plane either; doesn’t mean he is better than Willie Mays. Because Harry Dean’s career is much longer, he’s had the interesting older roles that help cement a great career. Yeah, some are straight cash grabs, but nothing Harry Dean has done is as embarrassing as two late-career TV movies of Warren’s—namely, starring in remakes of both True Grit and The African Queen. Let’s face it Zayne. We should just call this debate off. Because there’s no way you could really think that Warren Oates is a better actor than Harry Dean Stanton. No goddamn way. Zayne Reeves: When you step to Warren Oates, you step to Death Row, son. How you can even type that shit without falling to your knees and begging your faded VHS copy of Ride The High Country for forgiveness is beyond me. Then again, you also think THX 1138 is a good movie and that R. Kelly is anything but a cold-blooded cash whore whose R&B stylings are as mercenary and soulless as his predilection for underage ass so I shouldn't be surprised that you'd get this so wrong. Stanton had more great film roles? Can I enter your fantasy kingdom, Nathan? It was Oates' performance as Sam in In The Heat of The Night that was that fine film's heart and soul. What's so touching is how effectively Oates shows Sam to be completely out of his depth and the sad, haunted look in his eyes always diverts my attention even from the likes of Poitier and Steiger. In the underrated There Was A Crooked Man, he stood out in an ensemble that included Burgess Meredith, Lee Grant, Hume Cronyn, Henry Fonda and a never-better Kirk Douglas. His beautifully understated turn as Arch in The Hired Hand makes absolute mush of your argument that his range was limited to playing bloodthirsty psychopaths. Witness the scene with Verna Bloom where he caresses her foot or when a dying Peter Fonda whispers "Hold me, Arch" and tell me the man wasn't on par with Hackman and Duvall. And then there is his career-defining work for Sam Peckinpah and Monte Hellman. His Henry Hammond in Ride The High Country is the vicious idiot completely bereft of a single redeeming quality and Oates plays him as such so that Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea look like the classy old school pros that they have to in order for the film to work. Yes, Lyle Gorch (his character in The Wild Bunch) is a trigger happy hombre, but he also injected glimpses of humanity into the role that made the staggering massacre at the end a tragedy that would have eluded the film if we didn't like something about him. And then there's down-and-out Bennie in Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia. It's a star performance of the first order and he makes carrying this tough, stomach-churning masterpiece of human barbarity look easy. Whether coolly playing the piano while Gig Young and Robert Webber get seriously weird on us or sharing a tender moment with the excellent Isela Vega, Oates proved that he was not only a world class actor, but also an honest to goodness movie star. With Hellman, Oates' hyper masculinity was distorted with astonishing results. Known only as GTO, Oates' performance in Two-Lane Blacktop is a wonderful piece of black comedy that showcased his innate understanding of tone and character building. Piece by piece, we see this loudmouth taken apart by his own hubris and yet he's such a mesmerizing screen presence that we, the audience, never turn on him. Best of all is his towering portrayal of Frank Mansfield in Cockfighter, where he deftly manages to define Zen cool and absolute foolishness at the same time. I think in your rush to pigeonhole Oates, you miss the poetry and the comedy that he was able to mine in these macho characters and how no two members of his rogue's gallery were ever alike thanks to his endless creativity and imagination as an actor. Yes, he was in some real dogs but he always came through, dignity intact, and I think it should be mentioned that a working stiff character actor like Oates didn't have the choices that, say, a De Niro or Nicholson had when it came to picking which role was right for him. He had to work, and when you take into consideration that he was brilliant in scripts he probably didn't care for, you can't help but have an even greater appreciation for his talent. And I think it's kind of bitchy to bring up those TV remakes because, on the one hand you slam him for being typecast which is something he had no control over and then you take him to task because he took a couple of huge gambles in the hopes of getting those same narrow-minded casting directors to look at him differently. It was just his bad luck that those opportunities also happened to be signature roles of the two most iconic male stars in American cinema history. But, in failure and in success, Oates played the grander tune. He was far superior when it came to connecting with his fellow actors and building believable relationships, where Stanton is usually cast in the Christopher Walken role of the funny weirdo flushing to the beat of his own plumber. You mentioned Paris, Texas which is a film that is brilliant in parts but lacks a central core largely because Stanton, like Claude Rains before him, gets exposed when he's asked to carry the emotional weight of a film. The little tricks that make these actors such a delight in supporting roles stunt the development of their characters when they are in every scene and it mutes what should be a devastating finale with Natassja Kinski. There was a reason Stanton always played second banana to Oates, Nathan. A goddamn good reason. Nathan Williams: You touched on something interesting, Zayne, in that sprawling (far beyond our word restrictions) rant. You mention that Oates didn’t have the freedom of role choice the way a De Niro or Nicholson did, and then you hypocritically admonish Stanton for often getting cast in roles secondary to Oates. You also somehow curiously ascribe any of Oates’s less compelling roles to “bad luck,” as if the man or his agent didn’t have any say in the matter (the days of studios owning actors had been over for decades). So why exactly didn’t Oates get Nicholson’s roles? Was Nicholson better looking? I’m no expert but I hardly think so. In a decade when the likes of Hackman, Sutherland, and Allen were big stars, why not Oates? Hard to work with? Couldn’t shake the accent? Didn’t flatter the right casting directors? No, the truth is that despite his infatuation with stardom, Oates was never true star material. He had loads of screen presence, don’t get me wrong. But a real star needs not only presence, but the ability to demand identification from an audience. No matter what gangland slaughter Pacino is up to, we’re in his corner. Nicholson’s gassing thousands to a mediocre Prince single, but we’re still rooting for him. Oates, however, is exciting to watch at best and downright alienating all too often; we never truly identify with him. Obviously Stanton is even less star material that Oates was, so why do I bring this up? Because I think much of what attracts you to Oates over Stanton is the former’s star power rather than his actual acting ability. Is Cockfighter really a great performance, or is it just hilarious and captivating to watch someone of Oates’s magnetism doing something that petty and ridiculous? Oates was little more than a B-grade star, but he preferred chasing this path over actually acting. Stanton never aspired for stardom and thus his roles and performances were more liberating. Stanton is the sort of actor who could have been in a Bergman film, in a Tarkovsky film, in a Bunuel film. He has an otherworldly, poetic quality that you deride as “lack[ing] a central core.” What he lacked or, rather, resisted, was easy explanations. There’s a story behind every one of Stanton’s characters and the discipline not to give too much. Sometimes the sideshow is more interesting than the main attraction. Page 1 2 |
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