Entertainment For Lively Minds
Dennis Hopper
Posted by Slotbadger on 29 May 2010 - 6:28pm.
Very sad news - Dennis Hopper has died. The guy was a legend.
What are they going to say about him?
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I'm not sure
he's capable of resting in peace - but I'll wish him that anyway.
A performer of character and presence
Most obits
will probably mention Easy Rider, AN n oh yeah, Speed (of both varieties) and little else. Lazy gits
I haven't seen that many of his movies...
but he was one hell of a talented photographer.
Who can forget Frank Booth
Don't toast to my health, toast to my fuck!
Paris Trout
Great portrayal of a small town Southern bigot. It is the passing of a Hollywood legend but not sure how many of his films would be accurately described as great.
Not so much great films, as great roles
But I'd put Blue Velvet up there for both.
And his cameo in True Romance was sublime.
Good point Mr W
There was a thread a while back about people who manage to be good even in crap films (I nominated John Turturro). It occurs to me that Denis falls squarely into that category.
I saw a trailer for one of his lesser known films about 20 years ago, where he delivers the superb line: "When we leave the 80s and go into the 90s it's going to make the 60s seem like the 70s".
That would be
Flashback, with Kiefer Sutherland. I quite enjoyed that one.
I'll
always have Dennis Hopper to thank for introducing me to true and tangible horror with his role as Frank Booth.
As a cocky 17 year old I reckoned that having watched The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw and various video nasties of the 80s I'd anaesthetised myself to the conventions of horror. Then I watched Eraserhead and then I watched Blue Velvet and then I got scared, really scared. As soon as Dorothy opens the door and in walks Frank I knew that I was going to remain in a permanent state of tension for the rest of the film.
I don't think I've ever really lost that tension, it was a new and unfamiliar experience and it left an indelible mark on my psyche. Even now I read the paper about a serial killer, a deranged murderer, a mutilated body found in a river and it's Frank Booth I see who has committed the heinous crime.
It was the way Hopper held himself as Frank, a trapped psychotic animal waiting for the slightest excuse to inflict harm and pain to any living thing foolish enough to cross his path. And it was the fact that "crossing his path" was something that could happen without you realising you'd done so. Frank was random, unfamiliar, untethered to any sense of normality or morality on my radar. As I watched Blue Velvet I realised there was nothing in Frank that my self-awareness recognised, but still as I struggled to prevent myself from averting my voyeuristic gaze when Frank appeared on screen something within me could sense that although as monstrous and unknowable as Frank was he was a part of everyone and anyone. I turned away but I always looked back.
Frank was the flip-side of the free spirit, counter culture roles for which Hopper was famous. Frank was the ultimate hawk, the ultimate war-mongerer, the ultimate purveyor of rampant, feckless consumerism: an urban vampire devouring the mind and the body of anyone in his path.
Hopper's portrayal is astonishing. Frank is a monster but he's a credible and three-dimensional monster and therein lies the true horror of the performance. Hopper plays Frank in such a way that you actually believe you could one day be the "fuck" unfortunate enough to meet Frank Booth in your own life.
great post
Mr Bisto sir
And who can forget
the way he way he blew away even Mr Brando in his Apocalypse Now cameo.
Much as I love Apocalypse Now
Hopper saved that movie. And he proved that there are such things as second acts in American lives. After committing career suicide with the Last Movie, he came back not just as an actor but as a pretty decent director. A rare man.
Hopper?
He was a kind man? He was a wise man? He had plans? He had wisdom? Bullshit, man!
He was no saint
quite the opposite perhaps. Maybe his ability to bring deeply troubled characters to life was rooted in a resonance of his own personality.
We need not be reverential of the man but we can be respectful of the work - much of which was remarkable.
And surely we can allow a little time to pass before rehearsing all his faults.
Not my words
...but rather a quote from Apocalypse Now
doh!
my bad
nicely played Mr Steerpike
No probs Sheev ...
... Any man brave enough to fight with his guts strapped on him can drink from my canteen anyday
I've just been watching Apocalypse Now
and forgot how much Robert Duvall stands out in it: he's only there for not much more than Dennis, but you remember most of his bits; "I love the smell ...", "Charlie don't surf", "Fucking savages" etc.
Of course Dennis is good too, but in a way he's better in the making-of documentary Hearts Of Darkness (which really challenges the original as the better film). Pretending to Francis Ford Coppola that he just "forgot" his lines (whilst clearly in a chemically influenced state of mind), and so on.
he got out the boat
never get out the boat man
A true great
He worked with Brando twice; with Dean twice. He was in Cool Hand Luke and Gunfight At The OK Corral. As well as all the more obvious films that the obituaries will mention.
A friend of mine found this clip today:
True Romance - Sicilian scene with Christopher Walken......
......Just superb......
When I was getting into
films in my late teens, Hopper was a name to learn and look out for. One of the first to entice me from the path of mainstream cinema.
Respect.
For once, I have to say...
This video tribute seems to get it right:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10191448.stm
There is a fantastic piece in Uncut this month...
.... on The Last Movie. Lots of drugs. And 40 hours + of mostly unusable footage by all accounts...
There was only ever one guy
to choose to play the psychotic captain of a supertanker powered by row upon row of human rowers, roving the oceans of an inundated planet, plotting piratical plunderation.
I love a lot of Dennis Hopper movies, but I almost treasure him as much for being the guy to call whenever you want a brilliantly bonkers baddie of bug-eyed bent.
Upped, Foxy,
for the alliterative tour de force.
Sheer Class no matter what the role.
Perhaps not his greatest moment...
... but it sure looks a lot of fun - and some great beard moments, next month's cover star maybe?
Check out "Not Quite Hollywood" the history of Ozploitation for some background on Hopper's impact on Australia and the director!