actor/director combos that work, or don't

you've got your classic fits, like huston and bogart. and your not-so-classic misfits, like scorsese and dicaprio. (the trailer for shutter island is what started me thinking about this.) so what makes it work or not work? huston and bogart seems like an obvious one, because their strengths are so similar -- taciturn masculinity, romantic cynicism, etc. but there are less intuitive combinations that have paid off, like hitchcock and jimmy stewart. or laura dern and david lynch.

anyway, thoughts on the good, bad and odd? (speaking of which, obviously leone/eastwood is in the classic category...)

on scorsese and dicaprio, i just really don't understand what keeps scorsese coming back. i actually think dicaprio's been ok in those movies (he's the best thing in the departed, imo, which isn't saying a whole lot), but obviously compared to what scorsese got from deniro -- and vice-versa -- it seems like a stilted and awkward relationship.

He is probably drawn to Leo's charisma and fails to recognize that said charisma doesn't radiate as strongly from the silver screen.

Robert Altman and Eliott Gould. I really wish they'd worked together more.

is truffaut/leaud the most explicit case of a director using a repeated alter-ego?

Good ones: Jean Renoir and Jean Gabin, Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Leaud, Bergman and Liv Ullmann, Hitchcock and Cary Grant/Jimmy Stewart

he's the best thing in the departed, imo, which isn't saying a whole lot

maybe. maybe not. maybe fuck yourself.

^^^^

they only did two movies together, but i think gus van sant figured out how to use matt dillon better than anyone else.

bergman and ullmann, definitely.

i think the difference in how hitchcock used grant and stewart is really interesting. with grant he really plays up his sexiness and derring-do (maybe the clearest precursor to james bond?). but with stewart it's about subverting his all-american every-guyness. the affinity for grant seems more natural, but the tension in the stewart movies is maybe more interesting.

(sorry didn't mean to reignite departed debates. adherents are welcome to adhere to it. just interested in the contours of the scorsese/leo relationship.)

Tarantino & Samuel L. - once he stopped being in his movies, they got hella boring.

and on the flipside of that, i think samuel l. has been sort of trapped by that pulp fiction role in particular. as if his whole shtick is just to say motherfucker a lot.

Melville and Delon

i think david lynch and kyle maclachlan are interesting, because lynch got grief for casting him in dune, but then in blue velvet and twin peaks it was obvious what lynch liked about him (even if they were qualities that maybe didn't translate so well to space heroics).

he made a pretty good paul atreides, who is a dull weirdo if u think about it

with grant he really plays up his sexiness and derring-do (maybe the clearest precursor to james bond?). but with stewart it's about subverting his all-american every-guyness.

In Suspicion and Notorious Hitch unearths the nastiness that a parvenu like Grant suppressed: the Grant character has peculiar notions about how class, money, and sex intersect.

xpost: maclachlan made a pretty good ray manzarek for sort of the same reasons.

(speaking of which, has oliver stone ever used the same actor in two major roles? none that i can think of. when that's the case i always wonder if the director has some preference for fresh blood, or if he's just an asshole nobody ever wants to work with again.)

and true about grant in notorious especially. there is some of that same peeking behind the curtain as in the stewart roles. (a different curtain, obviously, grant's suavity vs. stewart's innocence.)

speaking of which, has oliver stone ever used the same actor in two major roles?

Charlie Sheen.

Herzog and Kinski is arguably the best combo ever.

budd boetticher/randolph scott
sirk/rock hudson

Herzog and Kinski is arguably the best combo ever.

― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, July 21, 2009 10:47 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Charlie Sheen.

oh right. i think of wall st. as so much michael douglas' movie that i forget sheen was in it.

I was actually thinking of a different actor with Lynch: Laura Dern.

definitely. he loves her mouth in particular.

Jaoui and Bacri

starting to wonder if Cronenberg's going to use Viggo in all his movies

what no votes for the deathless duo of Burton and Bonham-Carter??

Godard and Karina to thread

Sirk and Hudson

depp/burton seems to work a lot less consistently than before.

Fellini and Mastroiani or Masina

Cassavetes and Rowlands

x-post ...along with the other regulars

Woody Allen/other actor doing Woody Allen impersonation

George Lucas and Hayden Christiansen

Melville and Delon

^^^^^^^^^^

... and Lino Ventura.

Ford and Wayne

Ford and Fairlane.

Carpenter/Russell

kurosawa/mifune

^ Yoshi!

mario/yoshi

raimi/campbell

Ridley/Russell

Spike Lee/Spike Lee

I'd argue that Woody Allen/Mia Farrow was an underrated pairing. And easily forgotten in light of subsequent events.

good call

Destroy: Costner/Costner, Kasdan/Hurt. In fact, destroy Costner, Kasdan & Hurt

cruise/scott

then you've got your regular supporting characters, like p.t.a. and luis guzman.

I was gonna say P.T. Anderson and Philip Seymour Hoffman, but he was only really memorable in two out of the three roles.

John Woo / Chow Yun Fat
Wong Kar Wai / Tony Leung

George Cukor and Katherine Hepburn.

was going to say apatow/rudd but morbs isn't here to troll anymore :(

I don't think Luhrmann/Kidman works at all, its a very Australian idea of sophistication that doesn't really translate.

Bresson is fun for this.

soderberg/clooney

Coens/John Turturro and Steve Buscemi

coens/frances mcdormand

^^ yes, and John Goodman

How about PT Anderson/Julianne Moore?

Julianne Moore was better working with Todd Haynes.

lee/turturro

Julianne Moore was better working with Todd Haynes.

was just thinking the same thing. i like her fine in anderson's movies, but i think haynes really gets her, and she gets him. those characters in safe and far from heaven would have been very easy to misplay but she found the right underheated tone for them. (and casting her as the joan baez character in i'm not there was partly funny because it cut hard against that uptight porcelain figurine type.)

Ozu / Setsuko Hara
Bergman / Von Sydow

Although apparently Setsuko Hara later claimed that she didn't like acting and only did it to support her family, causing an outcry in Japan.

I just don't like Anderson's movies. I agree with your assessment of her & Haynes.

Peckinpah/Oates

Mike Leigh/Steven Seagal

i really don't know what i think of woody and scarlet

it's like, kind of just kooky and great, but kind of awful too.