Denzel Washington’s Enduring Stardom – The Atlantic
The list of actors who won three Oscars is gone. Walter Brennan (Hollywood golden age actor), Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis are the only men to do so, with Meryl Streep, Katherine Hepburn (who won four) and Ingrid Bergman the only women. The award season can be inconstant, sometimes commemorating films and performances that do not linger in the eyes of the public, but several victories are rare enough to generally cement the emblematic status of an actor in the industry. This year’s Oscars are a mainly decided matter, with La la Land should sweep the main categories, but there is a first -rate price that always seems in the air: the best actor, for which Denzel Washington is nominated.
For months, the obvious precursor of the trophy for best actor was Casey Affleck, whose work Manchester by the sea Drew Raves and a series of criticism prices. Washington, the director and star of the August adaptation Wilson Fencesseemed to be overshadowed by his co-star Viola Davis (still to win for the best support actress). But the momentum changed after Washington won the Screen Actors Guild Award to make it more. With each Oscar race comes a story, and for Denzel, it’s simple – a third trophy would be a recognition not only of her competence as an actor, but from the omnipresence of his celebrity, which lasted longer and went to more fascinating directions, than almost any of his peers.
The proof of this celebrity is the simple fact that Washington did FencesA project that has long been ignored by Hollywood because its author, August Wilson, had always insisted on hiring an African-American director to adapt his award-winning Pulitzer piece to the cinema. In 1991, THE New York Times reported Wilson’s efforts to convince Paramount Pictures to hire someone like Spike Lee, Gordon Parks or Charles Burnett – legendary names in the industry – and the studio intransigence on the issue, despite the involvement of A -Lister Eddie Murphy.
During the 25 years that followed, the scenario rebounded in the industry and was reworked by Wilson before his death in 2005. In 2009, producer Scott Rudin offered him to Washington, who agreed but wanted to mount it first in Broadway. Even after Broadway’s short duration of the play in 2010, it took years in Washington (which had made two other films, Antwone Fisher And The big debaters) To make the film, and what he produced is respectful and intimate. Fences is a piece of sacred dramatic, and the film radiates respect for Wilson’s words, eliminating almost everything (sets developed in the movements of the camera) to live in its long monologues and shocking and dense, dense of exhibition and intrigue.
Fences He sometimes feels like a showcase – a preservation of the most famous work of Wilson which is the most true to his vision, rather than that of its director. But it is also a showcase for Washington as an actor, a chance for him to channel his incredible charisma in a part that makes it slyly. Troy Maxson, the protagonist of Fencesis a charming Motormouth which spends a large part of the film holding a court on various subjects, some trivial, others not. His magnetism denies his malice. Troy is an apparently installed and stable family man, but he bubbles with resentment, real and imagined, on the wandering path of his life and the athletic achievements of his son, who fears to overshadow his own past as a baseball perspective.
There are not many actors who could do what Washington tries Fences– to make a deeply unconcinerated scripted film in many ways and which is based strongly on its performance. Not much to hide in Washington. It would be so easy for the film to feel inauthentic, like a museum piece in which monologues are delivered directly to the camera just for archive purposes. But Fences Feels like a work of living and breathable character, a granular examination of the passions and insecurity of a man, and, especially since she rushes to her conclusion, the story of a woman (the woman of Troy Rose, played by Davis) who finally begins to recognize and repel the stifling defects of her husband.
Fences It simply could not be produced without the swaying of Washington, but more importantly, it is a successful film (and was nominated for the best image scenario and adapted with its tracks) because of the understanding and management of Washington for the equipment. In recent years, his appearances in the cinema had largely focused on action films and thrillers, a genre in which he has always excelled – projects like The equalizer, the seven magnificentAnd 2 guns. Fences was a departure only in that it was the first serious work without kind that he had taken since Flight In 2012 (which led to his last appointment to the Oscars).
But Washington adopted this bifurcated approach – calculation roles in gender films and heavier films – for most of his career, after having broken out on television St. elsewhere And obtain his first native nomination for playing the anti-apartheid Steve Biko activist in the 1987s Freedom. He won the best Oscar support actor for Glory In 1990, and filmed his first of the four collaborations with Spike Lee (Mo ‘Better Blues) the same year. He started working with great directors like Lee, Jonathan Demme (Philadelphia), Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala), and Norman Jewison (Hurricane) while also using successful action films like Crimson tide,, Out of timeAnd Man on fire.
Unlike most of the greatest actors today, who are often propelled to the success of a franchise, Washington has never even appeared in a suite. He obtained a series of success at the long-term box office only on the back of his presence on the screen. FencesWho won a formidable $ 55 million at the box office (more than double his budget) can mark a new stage in his career – one where he uses his weight to adapt less commercial work, such as the Pittsburgh cycle to 10 Wilson players, which he works in HBO. This influence is part of what the Academy will honor a third Oscar on Sunday evening. If Washington wins, its trophy would be a recognition of its rare and durable star power.
