Does anyone else think that this is one of the most consistently annoying performances of all time? I think everybody else does great but she just messes it up for me. I still love the movie, but I'd watch it a lot more if he'd cast someone better.
shareNo
Let's get dangerous!
yes, she was truly annoying!
What the $%*& is a Chinese Downhill?!?
the only other thing I've seen her in that I remember is "the Unit". She's virtually the same character and equally annoying in that. Those bangs just make me angry for some reason.
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Hey hey, let's back off here. Don't mess with the Pidge!
Dog my cats indeed!
I can eat fifty eggs
Only because she doesn't method-pretend-act like most everyone else doesn't mean she acts badly. To me she acts intersestingly enough.
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Pidgeon was great. Love her!
shareShe couldn't deliver a line, even if she was a coke dealer...
shareI have to agree with you on that one, max. I've just recently watched it again and I have to say her acting stinks in it. I don't know if it's her line delivery timing, repeating parts of her lines again, or what...but she seriously ruined this movie for me. The only other thing I can recall seeing her in is "The Winslow Boy". Honestly, I can't remember what her acting was like in that, probably because I was too busy drooling over Jeremy Northam. Guess I'll have to watch it again, too.
shareHer performance is standard Mamet -- check out Glengarry Glen Ross (on stage, if possible... movie wasn't bad, but it's much better live), House of Games, even Ronin.... Mamet has a writing style all his own -- personally, I loved her performance - matched what her man wanted to a T!
Eh. Well, not everyone can deliver Mamet's staccato prose like Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey and William Macy. She tried.
shareHer performance is standard Mamet -- check out Glengarry Glen Ross (on stage, if possible... movie wasn't bad, but it's much better live), House of Games, even Ronin.... Mamet has a writing style all his own
I have to disagree with you, I really found Pidgeon's acting very irritating, she was very overwhelmed in this. GGGR is a very good film with great line deliveries, how the hell can you compare Pidgeon's poor performance with the likes of Pacino, Lemmon, Harris, & Balwin in GGGR?
Global Warming, it's a personal decision innit? - Nigel Tufnel
Totally agree. Irritating is perfect word to describe her. She's just too....
GGGR was absolutely brilliant. Pryce, Baldwin, Spacey (what a cast) all fabulous. Wish I saw the play.
Saw through her from the beginning. On the other hand, why would anybody have only one copy? What naïve fool would trust the only copy to a government law enforcement agency? And he had no friends other than Lang? No One?
I was too busy looking at her, didn't hear a word she said :) But seriously, i agree her performance was a little off, but she was very good in Heist.
shareI'm watching the movie right now and I can't stand her. She's worse than a porn actress. I have stale bread that can act better than this. I don't know if I'll be able to finish the movie at this rate. Ugh...
shareRebecca Pidgeon is David Mamet's other half. Draw your own conclusions...
shareThe fact that I want to devote as little attention to her as possible, does make her monologue on the plane setting the entire premise (everybody may be an impostor) easy to miss.
shareI wholeheartedly disagree... I developed such a huge crush on her character, wishing she was offering to make ME dinner & breakfast! Her style of delivery was distinctive, even if it seemed off-putting, but then again, she's pretending to be someone she's not. I didn't mind her quirky bangs either; she's still a doll!
I can see where others might dislike her tho... Similar to, everytime I watch Keanu Reeves, I simply feel that his character is a bit feeble-minded, because of his "style"...
I thought she was absolutely dreadful, delivering her lines like a 16-year-old in a high school play for the first time. It was the biggest drag on an otherwise great movie.
shareI agree with you. I liked her character so much that, for me, it was the biggest "Oh no!" moment in the film when I realized, as soon as I saw the gun in the x-ray machine and confirmed by the plane ticket to Venezuela, that she was in on the plot as well. I had really wanted her to be one of the good guys.
shareLet's get this straight. What the hell are bangs anyway? It sounds like The Waltons or Tom Sawyer language. Is it what the English would call a fringe? Is it hair coming straight down over the forehead, to the eyebrows? Is that it? Is that them? Is that them dang bangs?
I can eat fifty eggs
Yes, that hair combed downward over the forehead is commonly known (at least in North America) as "bangs." Sorry it took so long for someone to confirm it to you. On the other hand, the internet is such an easy place to check out things like that - I hope you didn't wait this long.
And you may be correct on the term's antiquity: Dictionary.com links the origin from "bangtail," a term for racehorse. That makes sense - it seems like the most typical hairstyle for horses. I suspect some of the girls I've known sporting bangs would have liked the connection with horses. Ironically, I think wearing bangs tends to widen or broaden the appearance of a long or narrow face, which should reduce the references to having a "horse face" used to describe narrow-faced people.
Many thanks bwj8. You're right, I did have this personally confirmed by a North American horsey girl some time ago and only had to pay a small price for the privilege.
The internet is one resource for answering questions of this sort, I think I was just nervous typing "bangs Rebecca Pidgeon" into a search engine.
Thank you again for taking the trouble to clear this up.
I can eat fifty eggs
Yes, they're one & the same...another movie from the same year, Lost Highway, featured Patricia Arquette with a SEVERE case of bangs!! I guess that was the in thing that year...
shareI agree with you and really liked her character and way of talking. In fact, there was something really attractive about her in this movie that I can't put my finger on. I think her soft assertiveness was a real turn on.
shareI think Rebecca Pidgeon's performance is my favorite thing in the whole film. I love "The Spanish Prisoner," and she's a big reason. Her delivery is perfect - she's given offbeat dialogue to work with, and she makes it work because she convinces you that this is truly how this woman talks. She's eccentric but not self-consciously so. Is it part of the con? Is it the diversion that keeps Joe from figuring her out? Or is this just who she is? Hard to say. But Rebecca Pidgeon is brilliant in this film.
shareCouldn't agree more, mikeclaw! Although I love everything about this movie, Rebecca Pidgeon's eccentricity was what made it click for me. One really believes that she talks that way, is some kind of throwback, using language of a bygone era. The viewer feels Campbell Scott's character's fascination with her as well. She is attractive, which catches his eye initially, but I think he is totally intrigued by her individuality. She always seems in charge of the situation, no matter how bizarre, while he is always bewildered. I think he comes to believe she will in fact be his savior, figure out the whole plot against him and rescue him. Alas, she betrays him in the end.
shareShe was playing a creepy, questionable, assertive character. She needs to intrude into Joe's life.
I thought she was kind of spooky and interesting.
Many actors have a unique, characteristic delivery, and they are cast accordingly. She may be just one of those.
I don't think you can either criticize or praise any actor in a Mamet movie since they're so restricted by his technique -- he makes them rehearse with a metronome for crying out loud. Their cadences, their beats, etc. are all so familiar after seeing his movies, you wonder why actors take jobs with someone who limits their freedom so much. The writing is great and original, but as an actor I'm not sure I entirely understand the appeal.
shareWell, her husband writes highly stylized dialogue, and she delivers highly stylized lines.
Lindsay Crouse comes in for a lot of the same criticism in House of Games. Is it them, or is it him?
***Spoilers follow***
I liked her. She made me smile in the scene in which she sells the "fight" with Joe (in the car at the airport), even if it was a dead give away that she too was up to something. I also liked how she said, "Oh," when she realized Joe wasn't buying it anymore.
Her delivery is the whole point of her character, for God's sakes. She's the exact opposite of Joe, someone who's crafted a character for herself as a means of protection and manipulation and uses that character to her benefit. The smile at the end is her only sincere moment in the whole movie.
I really gotta find better ways to waste time.