In Jan Troell's "Hamsun" shown two days ago--but actor Max
von Sydow couldn't make it in time--the star of many Ingmar Bergman films
plays Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun. Nobel Prize winner and Norway's prime
author ("The Hunger"), Hamsun sided with the Germans during the
Second World War; he and his wife, a former actress, were ostracized until
the old man's death. The film focuses on his latter years. There's a whiff
of revisionism here but Von Sydow's rendition of the literary giant (a most
cantankerous fellow) -- "a lifelong dream of mine," the actor
said -- has Best Actor written all over it.
Unless Nick Nolte snatches the award from him. Based on a Kurt Vonnegut
novel, Keith Gordon's "Mother Night" also takes place during and
immediately after WWII: Nolte is in jail (next to Adolf Eichmann's cell,mind
you) and, in flashbacks, recalls his days as a Nazi propagandist. Per Vonnegut,
the character is based on "Lord Ha-Ha", a Brit who lectured and
spoke on Nazi radio, "I just wondered what would have happened had
he been an American", Vonnegut said, "who'd actually been enrolled
by the Allies' Secret Services precisely to infiltrate the Nazi media."
Nolte at his strongest and most vulnerable. A pillar of granite with a crack.
A superb, and superbly honest, performance.
Back to his slender but solid and muscular days, Nolte is in great shape.
He'd better be: in a couple of days, he starts shooting, in Montreal, the
new Alan Rudolph movie, co-starring Julie Christie.
Remember his swallowing a cockroach ("Vampire' Kiss"), his
squeaky voice ("Peggy Sue Got Married") and his singing "Love
Me Tender" (David Lynch's "Wild At Heart")? The tribute to
Nicholas Cage didn't reveal much we didn't know--except that the guy had
enormous charm (of the dangerous kind), takes huge risks and actually sort
of made his professional debut in... "Divorce Court" (or was it
"The Dating Game"?)
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