Warren Beatty: lady killer or strategic construction? Post 4

Warren Beatty’s performance in Shampoo is undeniably sexual, but the question lies in whether this film is believable because of Beatty’s impeccable acting and strategic star construction, or whether it is true, as Edgar Morin says in King’s essay, that “ The cinema does not merely de-theatricalise the actor’s performance. It tends to atrophy it.” In films like Splendor in the Grass, Beatty played a character remarkably similar to himself, and again he was criticized for taking on an unchallenging stud role in Shampoo, but despite the typical notion that to play a character similar to oneself is somehow unskilled, is this really an accurate criterion for discounting an actor’s performance? And more importantly, why do we seem to think that we know who Warren Beatty actually is?

In this case, perhaps Warren Beatty is himself a victim of his own good looks. As Bozzola discusses, before Beatty even set foot on screen, his reputation as a lady-killer preceded him. Though he began acting on the stage, he quickly transitioned to film, and his type was clear from the beginning: a leading man. He satisfies to a T the characteristics listed by King as being pressing for this sort of role, and fulfills them seamlessly, though often self-consciously.

Clearly, despite an amazing performance, a star’s persona, and their physical attributes play a distinct part in how they come across in the film. King discusses the rigidity of physical types in casting films due especially to the use of close-ups in film, and the way that simple physical attributes rather than even expressions come to hold symbolic importance.

What separates Beatty from typical actors, and particularly leading men, is his staying power, and the amount of control he has over his films. Though Beatty has certainly been cast many a time in that leading man role, he has embodied many types of masculinity, all notably precarious. Throughout Shampoo, Beatty’s character is bombarded by women, and not in the usual sense where the man remains in control of the sexual power. Instead, we get the sense that Beatty himself is being used and objectified in what seems to be a traditionally feminine way. The strength of Shampoo, and Beatty himself is the ability to manipulate to both gain female spectatorship, and question ideas of what modern masculinity really is.

1) Does playing a role similar to a star’s persona undermine the skill involved in the performance?

2) In what ways does Beatty’s performance in Shampoo challenge modern masculinity?

3) In what ways does Beatty’s brand of masculinity differ from John Wayne’s?