Everyone seems to agree that character in film is considerably different that character in literature. The visual nature of the medium affords the audience opportunity to make assumptions based on a character’s look and motion alone, and this is an important difference from character description and development in literature. We see minutia in appearance and demeanor that is difficult to convey with words. When you talk about typical Hollywood typecast characters (such as Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis, or Julia Roberts) or the personal history of actors (such as Robert Downey Jr.), it’s important to remember that as an observer, both in film and real life, we attempt to categorize and organize based upon appearance. This might stating the obvious or taking the argument to a logical extreme, but the assumptions and shortcuts we make when assessing a person’s character from appearance is a finely honed cognitive heuristic that we all use daily. Novice film viewers can partake in this action, organizing a character within their own existing categorical schema, placing the character in an archetype for easy consumption.

Brett talks about the importance of an actor’s biographical history in terms of audience’s knowledge of the real-life person, especially in the case of Robert Downey Junior. First off, I loved Iron Man. I thought that it worked as a better summer blockbuster than The Dark Knight and was a refreshing superhero flick that deviated from the established norm of the past few years.

The characters in the film were larger-than-life archetypes…they felt real to me not because of dialogue or action (for they’re singular and comic-booky in motivation and action), but because of performance. Besides Robert Downey Jr.’s stellar performance in playing himself, Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard present equally impressive and compelling performances. They just really seem to be having fun.

I felt similarly engaged and charmed by the actors in Simple Men. By keeping the archetypes simple, we see ourselves and people we know in the characters on the screen. Certainly, they feel caricaturish at times, and their performances can often come across as presentational, but we can overlook massive coincidences and theatrical performances if the character looks and feels authentic. I like the idea of Haynes attempting to depict “the awkwardness of real speech” in Safe rather than using traditional Hollywood dialogue. Awkwardness, silence, and being at a loss for words are all parts of the human experience. Sure, the performances in Simple Men is versed and theatric, but the way the characters hold themselves was attractive to me. I loved trying to get a feel for what the director wanted to say about what it means to be a man, love, and various other themes based on his hilarious characters, and I especially liked trying to formulate an image of the father by combining the personalities and looks of his sons.

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