My Favourite Actor - Paul Muni
To me, Paul Muni was the consummate actor. Other actors are just so much themselves no matter what part they play or whom they depict. For example, IMO no matter what role actors like Gregory Peck, John Wayne, Woody Allen, are just the same people no matter what role they play, but Muni virtually BECOMES the person he is depicting, whether it be a gangster in Scarface, or Emile Zola in The Life of Emile Zola or Louis Pasteur in The Story of Louis Pasteur (the movie for which he won the best actor Oscar).
There is an absolutely AMAZING article about him, describes him to a "T" and is about his whole life that I wanted to post, but it is so guarded I could neither copy nor fetch it, but it is a "MUST READ" if you want to know all about him and why I consider him to be the best actor of all time. Here is a link to the article, which is entitled "Paul Muni: America's First Actor - Vanguard of Hollywood" LINK -> https://vanguardofhollywood.com/star-of-the-month-paul-muni/
Do you have a choice for best actor/actress of all time? If so, let's see who that is, but please explain why you think so.
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Paul Muni as Emile Zola
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Paul Muni as Louis Pasteur
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Paul Muni as Scarface
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Paul Muni as Wang Lung in The Good Earth
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Paul Muni at home with his dogs
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And finally, on Time Magazine's cover
I will name a few
Anthony Hopkins
Peter O Toole
Joanne Woodward
Meryl Streep
Katherine Hepburn
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Frances McDormand
A few years ago I watched the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge and when it was over I was thinking this is the greatest actress I've ever seen . It was a phenomenal performance. She plays a misanthropic woman who cant stop herself from criticiizing everyone and everything. Eventually her personality (and mental illness) truly ruins her life .
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My favorite actor is Paul Newman. He was not necessarily the greatest actor, but he was real good , got many Oscar nominations, and I dont think he was ever in a film that was boring.
Well, as I said, I consider Paul Muni to be not only the very best but also my favourite, but as you know everyone is going to make different choices. If we're also picking runners-up I too would add Meryl Streep but also Bette Davis, Marlon Brando, Sir Laurence Olivier and Charlie Chaplin.
Now, those I named as runners-up would be my choices for best actors/actresses, but if we're talking favourites that's a different story, cause there I would consider Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Sean Connery and Alec Guiness.
It can be argued that Newman stole every scene he was in, but I agree on Newman. As a matter of fact, I grade the 50's class of actors as the best. Brando, Newman and McQueen all were affected with the same affliction: the camera loved them.
I don't get the Paul Muni thing.
I can't even sit through Paul Muni as Scarface.
It was a different style of acting back then
Back then they were improvising. They did the best they could. The writing got much better later. I regard screen writing as crucial for both actor and story.
I don't know if they were improvising, but back in the 30s and to a little bit lesser extent in the 40s and on , a lot of the movies were historical dramas because they didn't have the number of screenwriters that could write original stories. So you had so much about Elizabeth 1st and Henry the 8th and the last of the mohicans and all that stuff. A lot of Paul Muni's parts were in these historical dramas.
Back then movie making was in its infancy. To borrow a phrase from Owney Madden: "We learn as we go."
Today acting is more of a science than an art form.
Lately I've been watching a lot of more recent movies and I find a lot of them so dark during a lot of the time I can hardly see what's happening, the actors mumble or speak so fast I can't understand what they're saying, and the NOISE in a lot of them is so deafening that the building management has visited more than once with complaints from my neighbours. So they can shove the science up their a***s, I prefer art.
You raise a good point. I didn't mean to diminish the early days of movies. There was an innocence about it that I liked as well. I love the ones that have stood the test of time. JR makes a good point in post 3.1.2. That lack of screenwriters led to a lot of moves being adapted from books. Some of those movies delivered the story faithfully.
I haven't seen a movie yet that can displace Casablanca from being my favourite movie.
I can't argue that. A great classic.
There are people who know every line to that movie.
I can recite a lot of them myself.
For me though, the best moviemaking was the point where the past met the future...right after the Second World War.
That 30-year post war period was best.
By the way, I'll be posting a new movie quiz about 12 hours from now.
I'll be ready.
3 hours to go. It will be the movies directed by Woody Allen / Clint Eastwood.
Is Scarface the only movie you've watched him in?
I'm afraid so.
Surely you know what that means, and I'm not calling you Shirley.
I think if you were to watch The Life of Emile Zola, The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Good Earth you would think differently.
Well Buzz, I finally have the time.
Okay, so go to it.
Chacun à son goût. Maybe The Life of Emile Zola will leave some impression.
In order to judge an actor's ability to act, one must watch them act in different moves in order to see how they adapt to the part they are playing rather than being themselves in every movie. A good example is Meryl Streep, who can be entirely different in every movie she's in - think of the different persons she is in Julie and Julia (wherein she is absolutely hilarious), Sophie's Choice (meek and pleading), and The Devil Wears Prada (a real bitch)..
This article reminds me of Granny Clampet on The Beverly Hillbillies and her admiration for silent movie stars Gloria Swanson and Norma Talmadge. Born in 1895 and died in 1967, Muni would be one hundred twenty eight!
Well, he died in 1967, when I was already 30 years old.