That might sound like criticism, or even mockery. But Leone needed a hero who presented a mask to the audience. In Eastwood, he found someone who did that naturally—as part of his acting style.
But Leone got lucky.
That turned out to be just what he needed. But some people think this is terrible acting.
Talk show guest Ray Liotta left everyone in stunned silence when he said that Clint Eastwood was the most overrated actor of his generation. But Liotta doubled down—turning to the audience and saying: “I don’t give a sh-t.”
Even so, it’s hard to criticize Eastwood—because this flat style of acting became so pervasive in subsequent years. His detached, emotionless on-screen persona has served as a role model for countless heroes and villains.
Just think of all those Arnold Schwarzenegger movies where the dialogue became famous because it was delivered so mechanically. Or consider Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men—a performance praised by experts for its authentic portrayal of a psychopath. Or even Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad, who became more emotionless and detached with each passing season.
But the defining villain of this style remains Darth Vader. Eastwood had a face like a mask, according to Leone, but Darth Vader wears a literal mask. Not only can’t you see his face, but you aren’t even allowed to hear his natural voice—which has been processed to sound as inhuman as possible.
Clint Eastwood, for his part, continued to work variants on this character type—making millions of dollars in the process. In his career-defining Dirty Harry films, he showed that he required no cowboy hat to work this trope—although he repeats the gimmick of using up all six bullets that was so effective in the closing scene of A Fistful of Dollars.
No, Eastwood didn’t invent deadpan acting. But it had originally been done for laughs—most famously by Buster Keaton. In fact, the first use of the word “deadpan” in print (from 1915) refers specifically to Keaton.
Often the deadpan role went to the so-called “straight man” in comic duos—Martin (for Lewis), Abbott (for Costello), Rowan (for Martin), Smothers (for Smothers), etc. But these flat sidekicks were as necessary as the punchline in creating comic effects.
This deadpan demeanor was intrinsically funny, because any person with so little personality is weird, and makes us laugh.
Before Eastwood, we only see a few hints of this style in dramatic or action films, for example James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause or Sean Connery’s James Bond. But they both seem positively giddy compared with Eastwood’s cold and wooden demeanor.
I call this the “Man without Personality”—and it’s almost always a man. When psychologists studied this character type, they identified 126 movie characters of this sort, and only 21 were female.
So let’s give credit to Glenn Close (in Fatal Attraction) and Sharon Stone (in Basic Instinct). But they are far outnumbered by male cinematic psychopaths with flattened personalities—such as Kevin Spacey (in The Usual Suspects) or Daniel Day-Lewis (in The Gangs of New York) or Anthony Hopkins (in The Silence of the Lambs).
Sometimes these characters are actual machines (as in Terminator or RoboCop or 2001: A Space Odyssey). But even when they are made of flesh-and-blood, they retain obvious robotic elements.
It’s disturbing how much pop culture has fallen in love with these mechanical figures. But even worse, in the world of Zero Personality, all moral values become irrelevant.
That was true even for Eastwood’s debut as the unnamed stranger back in 1964. He does two good deeds during the course of the film—but at the cost of killing (directly or indirectly) most of the citizenry during the course of 90 macabre minutes.
What a bizarre story to tell. And it raises obvious questions:
Where did this personality type come from? And how did it become so popular? (...)
Americans needed decadent Europeans to blaze the trail. We were too optimistic. But they had seen evil, up close and personal. And had stories to tell.
Alfred Hitchcock—an émigré himself—was the only other influential source for this character type in Hollywood films. But Hitchcock turned to psychotics for horror and repulsion, not audience acclaim.
And even Hitchcock knew the European philosophical roots of this personality style. In his underrated masterpiece Rope (1948) he even introduces a Nietzschean professor (played by Jimmy Stewart, of all people!).
He returned to this character type in Psycho (1960)—but, once again, for horror not heroism. And audiences were shocked. Even though there is little graphic violence on screen, the public found this film deeply disturbing—to a degree that Hitchcock himself never matched, before or after.
Then, over the course of just a few years, this murderous psycho went from villain to hero.
By the time we get to Dirty Harry (1971) and Death Wish (1974)—both starring Leone alums—audiences are actually cheering and clapping when the sadistic and expressionless protagonist commits cold-blooded murder. [ed. John Wick]
And here’s the scariest part of the story.
We’ve all become Clint Eastwood today.
Okay, maybe not everybody. But the main forums of public discourse on social media are filled with flat emotionless people who flare up into anger at the slightest provocation.
None of us saw this coming with the rise of the Internet. At least, I didn’t—nor did I hear anyone else predict the eventual effects back in the mid-1990s.
But maybe we should have anticipated it.
by Ted Gioia, Honest Broker | Read more:
Images: Warner Bros./Paramount
