Jack Nicholson and the Supreme Art of Acting.

I am taking this opportunity to pay homage to one of my preferred American actors: Jack Nicholson. In my view, he represents a master of his craft. His greatness stemmed not from the commercial appeal of the characters he played, or the ease or popularity of its scripts, but from his highly crafted ability to bring to life whatever characters he embodied.

It was not just pure mimicry or other subterfuge commonly used in Hollywood, but his acting was an emotional tour de force. Nicholson’s career spanned over more than 50 years and over 60 films. Some of his most renowned films include One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Chinatown (1976), The Shinning (1980), Terms of Endearment (1983), and As Good as It Gets (1997), among several others. He was also the recipient of numerous awards including, but not limited to, three Oscars for Best Actor and 12 nominations. After such an illustrious career, he established himself as a salient performance artist in American films.

Over the years, as I became more familiar with his work, I often wondered what made his acting so compelling. Among other great American actors, I felt that he was unique. I’ve lately contemplated a couple of questions that possibly might illustrate well his acting greatness. First question, what differentiated Jack Nicholson’s acting from a plethora of other Hollywood luminaries, such as Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas, and others? Second, how was his acting performance different from his contemporaries? For my own sake, I needed to find an answer to those two questions. We will see later.

Let’s take for now a brief detour and make a cursory review of the acting craft, which may help formulate a working hypothesis about the superiority of his craft and the uniqueness of his delivery.

The Encyclopedia Brittanica defined Acting as “the performing art in which movement, gesture, and intonation are used to realize a fictional character for the stage, for motion pictures, or for television”. It further clarified that “Acting is generally agreed to be a matter less of mimicry, exhibitionism, or imitation than of the ability to react to imaginary stimuli”.  It is proclaimed that a consecrated actor must have “an extreme sensibility and a profound intelligence.”  Further explained it as follows:” Sensibility that allows an actor to mark his face with the emotions of the character he is playing and to convey the intentions of the playwright, the implications of the text, and the movements of the “soul” of the character”.  Intelligence, defined as “the understanding of the workings of the human personality”, and the faculty that brings to life the idiosyncrasies of the characters to be portrayed.

From antiquity, the first recorded case of a performing actor occurred in 534 BC, by Thespis, but possibly at an earlier time. Over the centuries with the evolutions of the performing art, two rival traditions of acting can be discerned, -one stressing the externals of voice, speech, and gesture and the other looking to the actual emotional processes of the actor-. As freely quoted online, four main schools of acting techniques emerged over the centuries:

 Classical acting is a philosophy of acting that integrates the expression of the body, voice, imagination, personalizing, improvisation, external stimuli, and script analysis. It is based on the theories and systems of select classical actors and directors including Konstantin Stanislavski and Michel Saint-Denis.

In Stanislavski’s system, also known as Stanislavski’s method, actors draw upon their own feelings and experiences to convey the “truth” of the character they portray. Actors put themselves in the mindset of the character, finding things in common to give a more genuine portrayal of the character.

Method acting, as formulated by Lee Strasberg, is an acting technique whereby the actor would develop “emotional and cognitive understanding of their roles” and adding their own subjective identification with its subjects.

Meisner technique requires the actor to focus totally on the other actor as though they are real, and they only exist in that moment. This is a method that makes the actors in the scene seem more authentic to the audience. It is based on the principle that acting finds its expression in people’s response to other people and circumstances.

After reading the defining characteristics of these techniques, it became evident to me, based on the complexities of the roles that he performed and the diversity of the characters he portrayed in his extensive and fruitful career, that Jack Nicholson fell in the category of “Method actor”. He was able to profoundly delve into the emotional life and dark mental spaces of his characters. He literately breathed life into them. In fact, in his early formative years as an actor, he recognized in himself the imprint of a “Method actor”. On more than several occasions, he expressed his admiration for another luminary of the American cinema, Marlon Brando, whom he felt tremendously influenced by. Marlon Brando was a consummate “Method actor”. Honoring Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson was known to have said that watched more than 40 times Marlo Brando’s “On the Waterfront”. Such was the intensity of his devotion to this art.

Often during his career, others with no too clear intentions neglected to recognize his “Method” acting technique. About the dismissal, he was quoted saying in an interview: “I consider it an accomplishment because there’s probably no one who understands Method acting better academically than I do, or actually uses it more in his work”. His subsequent career and roles rendered the neglectful, or the doubtful, with no other choice but to recognize and praise his working technique. I am glad that they were all wrong. He was without a doubt, like Marlon Brando, a consummate “Method Actor”.

One salient difference between Jack Nicholson and most actors of his generation was his versatility. In his lengthy filmography, he intentionally played the widest range of characters, especially very difficult ones, and delivered each time credible representations of the inner lives of these individuals. As a matter of example, one cannot see Jack Torrance in “The Shining” and fail to see the inner workings of a deranged man; or see Mr. Udall, in “As Good as it Gets”, and not appreciate in Nicholson’s performance the prison that obsessive-compulsive disorder encircles a person with.

Also, in the “One That Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, one sees from his admission to the hospital, Randy McMurphy as played by Nicholson, displaying the carefree joy of a clearly antisocial, irreverent, non-rule abider individual. Nicholson then went on to masterfully portray the transformation of McMurphy’s persona into a zombie-like human, after brutal courses of Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT).

In “A Few Good Men”, additionally, Jack Nicholson embodied Colonel Nathan Jessep, an archetypal, self-assured, hyper-ambitious, power-drunk who convinced of his superiority, believed the law did not apply to him. Jack Nicholson let us see in Colonel Jessup’s behavior, the entitlement, arrogance, and sense of omnipotence and infallibility of some individuals in positions of power. The following monologue showed a masterful representation of such behavioral phenomenon:  

“Son, you have the luxury of not knowing what I know. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide. I’d prefer you just to say thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to.” Colonel Jessep marked his territory and established his superiority over his interlocutors, whom he outranked. He had his sense of morality and his superior place in the pecking order. He was convinced of his grandiosity, and the supreme importance of his work, and bluntly dismissed Daniel Kaffee as irrelevant: “My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives…I have greater responsibility than you can fathom”.

Later in the movie, during the trial, after Daniel Kaffe, played by Tom Cruise, challenged him, he depicted a supreme characterization of grandiosity and omnipotence: “You want the truth?” he blurted when pressed by the reckless Daniel Kaffee. “You can’t handle the truth!”. In Colonel Jessup’s mind, the truth belongs to very few individuals holding the reigns of the realm. Daniel Kaffee was certainly not one of them. And such was the power of Jack Nicholson’s performance!

The power and menacing presence of Colonel Jessep was felt by the audience at a very profound level. Jack Nicholson’s performances made you experience first-hand situations that possibly one might have never encountered in our lives. In the process, he made you see it, believe it, and feel it. In “a Few Good Men”, you had no choice but to either be overpowered or repulsed by Colonel Jessup, or sympathetic to the reckless Daniel Kaffee. Your choice!

Another way to explore the greatness of his acting would be based on technical analysis, which is out of the scope of this piece and out of the range of my expertise. Thus, I am resorting simply to comparing him with other renowned practitioners of the art of acting. An immediate comparison would be with Marlon Brando, given Brando’s acting style and the multiplicity of characters that he played. However, that would not help appreciate Nicholson’s performance genius, given his proximity in style and the admiration that he professed for Marlon Brando. He admitted to being profoundly influenced by him. Instead, I propose to compare him with other stars contemporaneous to him, such as Deniro, Al Pacino, and Dustin Hoffman, and then find some contrasts.

Starting with Robert DeNiro, they both had lengthy careers and played similarly unhinged, deranged characters that left indelible marks in popular culture. For example, Travis Bickler’s “Are You Talking to Me?”, in Deniro’s “Taxi Driver” (1976) or Al Pacino playing Tony Montana’s, “Say Hello to my little friend” in “Scarface” (1983), became part of the culture at large. In both instances, the actors, Deniro and Pacino, masterfully depicted the emotional descent of these characters into madness. However, that’s where all similarities stop.

Nicholson’s Jake Gitte in “Chinatown” (1974), Jack Torrance in “The Shining” (1980), Randy McMurphy in “One Flew the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975) and Melvin Udall in “As Good as it gets” (1997), became all stellar characters that defined an era. His performance in each of these films stretched the limits of sanity, bordering on the insane. One can’t witness Jack Torrance saying, “Here comes Johnny”, and not experience a chill in one’s spine after seeing his facial expression, the grimace of a rabid dog, and psychotic eyes. His portrait of Jack Torrance’s descent into madness is short of genius. Not a half-qualified psychiatrist can but to be mesmerized by such a masterful depiction of madness. The same goes for Randy McMurphy’s flippant, irreverent attitude toward his involuntary commitment and Jack Nicholson’s depiction of the character’s Sisyphean antisocial, rule-breaking behaviors. -These films, along with “The Shinning”, “Taxi Driver”, “Vertigo”, and “The Sling Blade”, among others, ought to be part of the curriculum of Psychiatric Residency Training programs-.

In my non-expert opinion, with the subjectivity of an admiring fan, two key elements of Nicholson’s art of acting gave his performances an extraordinary quality, setting him far apart and ahead of his cohort. The one being the visceral display of the soul of his characters, the second being the supreme versatility of his performances. It’s a known fact in testimony to the seriousness of his craft, that he intentionally sought out dissimilar roles, with opposed characters, to avoid being pigeonholed. Back to the comparison and contrast.

In most of the characters that he played during his career; one is hard-pressed to find the remnants of previous ones. I’ll explain. Despite his devilish grin, which perhaps became his signature, the facial expressions and emotional discharge that he gave to each character became theirs, unique to their inner turmoil. And that is what he did best. He brought life into his characters and made them relatable, and verisimilar. The same cannot be said about Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino. The former, even in a comedy performance, such as “Meet the Parents” (2000), while playing a paranoid, former CIA agent, Jack Byrnes, one cannot find him a relatable, stand-along character, like Mr. Udal in “As good as it gets” (1997). One has seen many Mr. Udall in life but very few, if any, Jack Byrnes. His “I’m watching you”, for example, had a strong whiff of the meanness, or underline aggression, seen in previous characters, e.g. Travis Bickle, in “Taxi Driver”.

Following the same observations, I would challenge the audience to find any resemblance, be it in facial expression, voice, or emotional tone, between the character in the “Shinning”, “a few good men”, “Chinatown” etcetera. Each character, e.g.. Jack Torrance, Melvin Udall, Jake Gitte, were stand-on-his-own men and in no way resembling or reminded you of any previous character, or more importantly, the actor. Each time I watched Al Pacino’s work, I could not avoid observing the same facial displays, glances, and mannerisms of previous performances.

In ultimate analysis, the success of an actor -or an actress- depends on his or her innate ability to breathe life into a character, making the audience identify with the character, suffer with the character, despise the character, or simply recognize others in the character. Whether Jack Torrance, Randy McMurphy, Melvin Udall, Don Vito Corleone, Stanley, Colonel Kurz, Travis Bickle, or Jake LaMotta, they were all born out of the alchemy of these magicians of the ultimate art form. Cinema. They all came to life in those magical 90 minutes when we sat in the dark, as silent travelers to the virgin land of the imagination.

We Cinephiles will forever be indebted to these actors and actresses who have made possible the magic of the movies and in the process, make us dream, rendering our lives and leisurely time more enjoyable. Among all of them, I salute Jack Nicholson.

P.R. Thompson