Lecture 09: Stars

1
Lecture 09Stars

• Professor Aaron Baker

2
Previous Lecture

• Stage and Movie Acting
• Robert De Niro as Star Actor
• De Niros Performance in Raging Bull (1980)

3
This Lecture

• Movie Stars, Their Images
• What They Are
• Why They Matter to Us
• George Clooney

4
Stars and Their Images
Joan Crawford
Lesson 10 Part I
5
Richard Dyer

• Three Aspects of Film
• Stardom
• The polished public appearance s/he presents.
• The work required to create that appearance.
• The physical person who is the star.

6
What defines a movie star?

• A film star is
• a featured performer in a film but also,
• an image that generates interest beyond
  individual films.

7
Star Image

• Film Roles
• Journalistic Profiles
• Interviews
• Gossip Columns
• TV Talk and Tabloid Shows

8
Paparazzi

• Access to Private Life of Star
• Personal Style
• Leisure Interests
• Love and Family Life

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck at a Red Sox game
9
Why are we interested?

• Dyer
• Stars intrigue us because they offer models of
  individual identity.

10
They Endorse Values

• About
• Work
• Gender
• Social Responsibility

DeNiros dedication to research and physical
preparation for roles emphasizes the importance
of work.
11
How to Be a Man

• John Wayne
• represented a
• traditional notion of
• masculinity based on
• self sufficiency
• toughness
• physical dominance.

12
Paul Newman

• Political Involvement
• Charitable Work
• Used his wealth, popularity to help others.
• Gave away 250 million earned by Newmans Own
  Products company.

13
Typecast

• Sometimes a star image becomes so fixed that
  even when he or she tries to break it by doing
  roles directly opposed to that image, the public
  ignores such deviations and continues to support
  the original image. (Lehman and Luhr, p.150).

14
E.g. Sylvester Stallone

• tried to move beyond his action hero image with
  comedies like Oscar 1991.
• The box office failure of these films forced him
  back into action roles.

15
The Contender

• In 2005 he returned indirectly to the role that
  defined his image more than any other, Rocky, by
  producing and starring in the TV show about
  boxing The Contender.

16
Action Hero

• Stallones 2010 film The Expendables reaffirms
  his star image as an action hero.

17
Stars

• George Clooneys Paydays
• Oceans Thirteen (2007) 15,000,000
• Intolerable Cruelty (2003) 15,000,000
• Ocean's Eleven (2001) 20,000,000
• The Perfect Storm (2000) 8,000,000
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000 ) 1,000,000
• Three Kings (1999) 5,000,000
• Out of Sight (1998) 10,000,000
• Batman Robin (1997) 10,000,000

• earn the biggest salaries in a films budget.

18
Big Part of Film Budget

• Geoff King
• Star costs often account for disproportionately
  large percentages
• of film budgets.
• The escalation of star salaries has been one
  of the major factors driving up the cost of
  production in recent decades. 162

19
Big Paydays

• In 2008
• Will Smith made 80 million.
• Johnny Depp earned 72 million.
• Source Forbes.com

20
Why Pay Stars So Much?

• The film industry assumes they draw viewers.
• A stars Q Score measures stars
• familiarity and appeal with audiences.
• Will Smiths last eight films have made over 100
  million each.
• The three Pirates of the Caribbean films have
  earned 2.76 billion worldwide.

21
Geoff King on the Value of Stars Recognition

• Hollywood generally assumes star names to be
  among the best guarantors of box-office success.
  159
• Stars offer that one ingredient deemed so
  important. . . The audience recognition factor,
  the ability to open a film, to give it presence
  in the crowded marketplace. 160

22
The Star System

• For the first 15 years of commerical cinema
  (1895-1910) there were no stars.
• Early producers worried if actors were
  publicized, they would ask for big salaries.
• Other producers introduced the concept of movie
  stars because they believed audiences would pay
  to see them.

23
Classic Hollywood 1930-1950

• Saw the creation and control of stars by
  studios.
• Stars were under exclusive contract.
• Studios built their images by selecting film
  roles and publicity campaigns.

24
Independent Producers

• As the studio system declined in the 1950s and
  60s, major stars became independent producers.
• This is still the a common practice today.

25
Stars and Race

• Before the 1960s very few Hollywood stars were
  African American.
• Sidney Pottier broke this barrier in the late
  1950s and 1960s.

26
Stars and Race

• Will Smith and Denzel Washington Now A List Stars
• Yet Overall Still Few African American or Non
  White Stars

27
Linear Analysis

• While typecasting is a challenge for some stars,
  as with directors and genres, star images can
  also be analyzed in terms of how they develop and
  change.

28
George Clooney
Lesson 09 Part II
29
TV Star

• Clooney got his first big role in a TV series, ER
  1994-99.
• His character, Dr. Doug Ross was attractive,
  charming, talentedbut a rebel.

30
Geoff King

• As Dr. Ross in ER,
• Clooney was a sometimes
• prickly,awkward,rebellious,
• womanizing, but essentially
• decent and caring
• pediatrician . . .prepared to
• break the rules in his
• treatment of children. 148

31
Charming Outsider

• Clooney has maintained this attractive rebel
  image in numerous roles.
• He has played thieves in six films.
• Clip 1 Clooneys thief character introduced in
  Out of Sight (1998)

32
Star Image in From Dawn to Dusk (1996)

• Clooney as Seth Gecko
• Geoff King a nasty piece of work
• Violent, Menacing
• Kidnapping killing with brother Richard (Quentin
  Tarentino)

33
King Clooney Against Type

• familiar Clooney associations continue to
  resonate beneath the surface of Seth Gecko 37
• Clooney Star Image (good outsider) Maintains
  Audience Identification
• Clip 2 Warning violence and strong language

34
Personification vs. Impersonation

• Barry King
• Personification offers the attractiveness of the
  star. What s/he is as a person.
• Impersonation asks the performer to create the
  character in the story.
• Impersonation for King defines good acting.

35
Expanded Range

• Modified his leading man image
• Self-deprecating comic roles
• O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000), Welcome to
  Collinwood (2002),
• Intolerable Cruelty (2003), and Burn After
  Reading (2008).

36
Clooney and Comedy

• Clooney as Divorce Lawyer
• Comic Self Absorption, Overconfident
• Meets His Match in Catherine Zeta-Jones
  Character
• Clip 3

37
Offscreen

• Clooneys image has been that of a
• fun loving batchelor.
• Voted Sexist Man Alive by People Magazine
• Bet Michele Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman 10,000 he
  wouldnt be father before forty.
• Bought a villa on Italys Lake Como

38
Like many stars,

• Clooney downplays the idea of stardom as
  mainly a commercial phenomenon
• Its not about the opening weekend, Its about
  career, building a set of films youre proud of.
  Period.

39
Hollywood Gives Audiences What Want

• Central to appeal of stars, genre films remakes,
  happy endings is Hollywoods strategy of selling
  audiences what they have bought and liked in the
  past.
• Yet successful stars often want to avoid
  typecasting, grow creatively, make meaningful
  films.

40
Politics

• Produced the HBO series on Washington lobbyists,
  K Street.
• In 2004 Clooney supported his father, Nicks,
  candidacy for a congressional seat in Kentucky.
• Addressed the U.S. Congress about war in Dafur.

41
Three Kings 1999

• War Film
• Stars Clooney, Mark Wahlbergh, Ice Cube
• Action
• But also
• First Iraq War, Politics

42
Clip 4

• As you watch the following scene from
• Three Kings, look the political dimension this
  role added to Clooneys attractive rebel star
  image.

43
Several of His Recent Films

• have emphasized Clooneys liberal political
  views
• -Up in the Air 2009
• -Michael Clayton 2007
• -The Good German 2006
• -Syriana 2005

44
End of Lecture 9
45
Next Time Film Theory