I found another meme floating about the film blogs that I read and couldn't resist its call during my lunch break. The challenge is to compile a list of your ten favorite cinematic characters. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and the final list is probably more a list of ten of my favorite characters and not my all time favorites.
Without further ado, here's my list, alphabetized by film title and complete with photographs presented in dazzling WarnerColor! (I'm joking about the WarnerColor.)
Julia Lambert from Being Julia (2004)
Julia is not only a bitch - she's a theater bitch which is much, much worse. She lives as if she were on stage and treats friends and family like minor characters in one of her plays. Yet to me she's lovable and endearing. Perhaps it's cathartic to see someone who can behave badly, get away with it, and still maintain authenticity in their thoughts and feelings.
Matthew Harrison Brady from Inherit the Wind (1960)
Apparently, I like showboats. Brady descends on a small town courthouse with an amiable air and the fire of God. His aim is not to prosecute the teacher but to keep Darwinism out of the school. His amiability gives way to fire-and-brimstone passion as he rails science and sin. However, his behind the scenes reasoning isn't against science at all but against stripping away faith from those who need it. Though his passion and hubris are his undoing, you get the feeling that he grasps the bigger picture more than Henry Drummond.
Joey from Interiors (1978)
Joey (far right) is the most damaged and least accomplished of her family. She's not the pretty one nor is she the smart one. She's not the favorite of either of her parents. Due to insecurities and a general artistic ineptitude, she has no idea what to do with any of her bitter feelings or aimless aspirations.
Frank Ginsberg from Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Apparently, I also like failures. Frank does act like a person who just tried to commit suicide or lost his unrequited lover to his academic rival or just got fired from his university job. He seems merely melancholic. When he describes the failed life of Proust, there's more than a hint of respect. You have to wonder if perhaps he patterned his life's mistakes after the author's.
Linda Partridge from Magnolia (1999)
Linda Partridge, like all the film's characters, is having a bad day. However, I get the feeling that most of the characters have generally mundane days while Linda exists in a cloud of angsty drama. She's the woman who always drinks too much, says the exact wrong thing, and displays all the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Adding insult to injury, Linda's horrendously bad day is her errand day. She goes to the doctor to get her husband's prescription, the lawyer's office to go over her husband's will, and then to the pharmacy all while having an increasingly desperate mental breakdown. Fortunately, she's the toughest character in the film, surviving a suicide attempt and an overturned ambulance.
Nina "Ninotchka" Ivanoff from Ninotchka (1939)
As an unfeeling communist, Ninotchka fills her days surveying Russian endeavors and studying architecture and political infrastructure. As a woman in love, she dances and drinks uninhibited; she laughs. After finally finding that existence doesn't have to be bleak, she straddles the line be Communism and Capitalism and shows that the best mode of living is a compromise.
Max Bialystock from The Producers (1968, 2005)
Max is oily and scrupulous as he circumvents the law and seduces a string of elderly women, and yet I always root for him. He's had his fifteen minutes and just won't let it go, won't see that perhaps he was never very good at his job. I'm pretty sure that he's much more theatrical than any of the plays he produced.
Coalhouse Walker, Jr. from Ragtime (1981)
Coalhouse is an embodiment of ragtime, and there's a cool confidence about him when he first encounters the white family caring for his lover and child. However, just when he begins to find happiness and build a life, he's the victim of petty racism that thrusts him and all of his acquaintances onto a path to ruin. His principles are the kind that can't exist in his world. Though his quest for justice and validation takes erratic, grandiose turns, he never seems ridiculous or even unreasonable.
Jack Gurney the 14th Earl of Gurney from The Ruling Class (1972)
Jack has the misfortune of being born into the ruling class and has spent most of his time in a discreet asylum. When he unexpectedly becomes the fourteenth earl and returns home, he believes that he is Jesus Christ and begins a zany campaign to spread peace and goodwill. His quest to usher in an era of happiness is thwarted by friends and family who can't stand his delusion or its results. A man with a hijacked identity, he remains largely unaware of the animosity the surrounds him.
George from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)
George is a disappointment trapped in a disappointing life and clinging to a shell of dignity. He braves the insults and taunting from his wife with a stiff drink and a series of sneering quips. His resolve to have a dismal evening and worse morning almost never wavers, and it's interesting to watch a man with no purpose be so driven.
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