In his heyday, Reynolds was more an archetype than an actor. In some ways he was the antithesis of Seventies cinema as we idealize it today. He was an oldschool movie star who, having hit it big, settled into essentially playing himself. But perhaps because he was so popular during that decade, he was tied to it, more so than his peers, in a way that dated him with surprising suddenness. At the time, as his star fell, the moral of the story was that people had tired of seeing him cavort with his cronies on screen. Reynolds was held up as the textbook case of a performer who was having a more entertaining time making his movies than audiences were having watching them. From a greater distance, he seems more like those stars of the roaring 20s who couldn't keep their popularity in the 30s even if they could speak well. Like them, arguably, Reynolds was the victim of an abrupt cultural shift that rendered his persona obsolete. Disregarding the calendar, you can mark the transition from "Seventies" to "Eighties" by the fading of Reynolds' star. Why the Eighties should have excluded him is unclear, unless you see his fall as another repudiation of essentially rustic Americana along the line of the early-seventies purge of hillbilly shows from TV. It probably tells against Reynolds as an actor that, unlike other stars who stumbled around the same time, he never really managed to reinvent his stardom despite numerous opportunities. Perhaps he was meant to be a star only at a certain moment in pop history, but the least you can say about him is that he made the most of his moment.
3 comments:
"Reynolds was held up as the textbook case of a performer who was having a more entertaining time making his movies than audiences were having watching them."
Overall you are pretty good...but this is just plain stupid.
Reynolds also dabbled in music. Released a single from "Smokey & The Bandit 2" that failed to make the top 40.
Both his work on the television series EVENING SHADE(which awarded him with an Emmy award)and BOOGIE NIGHTS were his only chances at re-inventing his career,which Burt Reynolds never took a chance upon riding on(ala Sylvester Stallone with SHADE,OSCAR,and SPY KIDS 3). Had his most recent film THE LAST MOVIE STAR received a wide theatrical run(in the indie/arthouse theater circuit)and would he had lived long enough to film his scenes for ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD(with rumors of his role now being recasted with Robert Forster),maybe Burt Reynolds would have lived long enough to jump onboard at(what would have been)the second chance of the re-invention of his career.
Post a Comment