Cate Blanchett = Queen of Theatricality in Film

http://feelthefilms.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/cate-blanchett-the-queen- of-theatricality-in-film/

Cate Blanchett roped her way up the list of the most critically female film stars of the past decade. Earning nicknames such as “Cate the Great”, Blanchett joining the company of Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, and Nicole Kidman, regarded by film fans and critics as the actresses that will be remembered. To be completely honest, Blanchett never sparked with me. She was never able to full connect to me internally in her work. Blanchett has been able to master the external traits of a character, but for me, she doesn’t emotionally ignite a reaction for her character’s troubles.

Blanchett’s sterling quality as an actress is her theatrical ability to embody a character. She’d be one of the greatest stage actresses to walk the face of Broadway, Blanchett’s work is best viewed from afar. Every actress has strengths and weaknesses in a role; though Blanchett really could paint a beautiful and perfect picture, the painting would have nothing deep enough to touch the observer. There’s no communication Blanchett has found, in what I’ve seen of her work that doesn’t work, unless she’s blatantly yelling at the viewer.

In her Academy Award winning role in The Aviator, Blanchett perfected Katharine Hepburn’s walk, voice, and physical persona. The energy she brought to the role reinforced the movie’s endless running time and made the minutes fly by. She had everything right, but skin-deep. Blanchett never took the next steps of transcendence to Hepburn’s heart. I still love the performance; she makes me smile and giggle and a positive reaction from playing someone as defined as Hepburn was obviously not easy to earn. In a year where her competition was next to nothing, I say approve it as a deserved Oscar winning performance.

The introduction of Cate Blanchett as a serious actress and a Oscar-bound beneficiary came with Elizabeth, my personal favorite of her filmography. Queen Elizabeth I is showed to the audience with the truth Blanchett found in the transformation of a girl into a woman. It is her most declaimed, but powerful representation of a character. She’s outstanding in Elizabeth, sadly that performance is remembered not for the quality, but the outrage that Gwyneth Paltrow won the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love over Blanchett (deservingly, in my opinion). In 2007, Blanchett reprised the role in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, but the vigorous turn made in 1998 was lost here and her performance felt like dried up scraps of the original.

Blanchett proved her third nomination to be acceptable for Notes on a Scandal with her cutthroat work beside Judi Dench. This is the role that really clarified my outlook of Blanchett’s acting ability. She takes the character on the page in Notes on a Scandal and brings her to life injecting zest into every line of the character; Blanchett takes develops the character with a theatrical approach, exaggerating the flaws, the gullible view of her situation, and sexual urges. She has our attention at all times.

In I’m Not There, but she is great with the technicalities of Bob Dylan, but never makes me feel like the character is real. A deserved nomination, I suppose, but not her most complete work. Her most subtle work is found within Babel, which she owns the scenes she’s present in. She’s decent in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but it’s hard to distinguish her character from any other character she’s played where she had to rely on her generic-ostentatious style. I enjoyed her appearances in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, her most meaty being The Fellowship of the Ring.

She’s been receiving best of the decade reviews for her portrayal in Blue Jasmine, and that is a performance I’m dying to see. I’m exceptionally fond of Vivien Leigh’s A Streetcar Named Desire portrayal of Blanche DuBois, and there have been frequent comparisons made. A few moviegoers who have found Blanchett distant in the past say she’s in top-form in Blue Jasmine and it couldn’t be further from the word distance. With the reviews she’s won over from critics, it’s her Oscar to lose, even if she’s the only performance in contention that has been released. You don’t get those reviews every day, the type of reviews that Mo’Nique received for Precious and Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight.

Blanchett is the master of mimicking and imitating, her work in The Aviator and I’m Not There are proof of this. She often creates characters that may feel overcooked on the surface. Blanchett doesn’t feel false in those hammy performances, just empty in the way Kidman, Streep, and Winslet never leave a character. I do enjoy her acting, I just wish Blanchett was able to make me feel, instead of telling me how to feel it. I hope Blue Jasmine is her way of finally clawing into my heart and up acting radar.

Feel the Films: A Blog by R.C.S. -> http://feelthefilms.wordpress.com/