So true so true..I feel the same way about the performance in easy pieces..
I think King Of Marvin Gardens should be mentioned, also for fun I love watching him Pysch Out.
In Easy Rider he steals the movie! I love him in that movie.
The Border
The Fortune
A Safe Place
The Pledge
The Passenger
I have not seen Carnal Knowledge =(
are alll goood
What no batman fans out there? His Joker is pure Jack.
sorry but that’s exactly why the character doesn’t work. oh and that god awful prince song
The Terror with Boris Karloff
Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? His performance works perfectly. Jack has also been quoted to say that Joker was one his favorite performances’. Also on the subject of Roger Corman/ Jack films I always loved The Raven
Prizzi’s Honor
Five Easy Pieces, The King Of Marvin Gardens, The Last Detail and Chinatown are essential IMO to knowing just how great he could be.
I think the most unexpected of those is King Of Marvin Gardens – it’s a flawed film in a lot of ways, but Nicholson gets a very atypical role (a very cerebral, self-made intellectual) and really delivers one of his most outstanding performances. The film develops some narrative issues towards the end, and it’s a relentless downer (visually, the grimness is perfect, if claustrophobic – a sleazoid New Jersey I’m sure most Jerseyites would rather forget), but the remainder of the cast is fantastic (Ellen Burstyn and Scatman Carothers are both nearly as memorable as Nicholson).
Likewise Hal Ashby’s Last Detail is a must-see. Nicholson, in some ways, is of a piece with Bud Cort, Warren Beatty and Peter Sellers’ respective characters in Harold & Maude, Shampoo and Being There – all four are misfits (of a few very specific types) at a loss to figure out the world, and again Nicholson does it very well.
The first post mentioned Nicholson’s deliberate underplaying of the Dupea character in Five Easy Pieces – it’s an extraordinary film, with a lot of disturbing moral ambiguities. Nicholson’s subtle performance is breathtaking, and even better is his handling of the shift in tone about 1/3 of the way in, which Rafelson deserves credit for as well – just as you think you have this character’s identity pegged, he turns out to be something quite unexpected, which definitely gives a viewer some odd insights into their own stereotypical ‘readings’ of a film.
Regarding the Karen Black observation – I think she may (or may not) be the wrong kind of woman for this character. There are some very brief moments where here character lets it be known that she’s got him all figured out, in ways that he knows but will not accept, and that he’s only going to continue to be a fugitive from his own true nature until he can accept this. In other words, her character is as dumb as she needs to be – or wants to be – but is far smarter than she lets on.
1. Five Easy Pieces
2. Last Detail
3. Carnal Knowledge
One of my favorite things about Jack Nicholson is when I go to watch some old B-movie and he suddenly pops up as a tertiary character. I’m all like “Whoa! Is that Jack Nicholson? Awesome!”
Check out “Hoffa”. He’s brilliant.
The Pledge is his best recent work for me. His performance in that film was heartbreaking and a reminder that for all the leering, eyebrow-wagging “Jack” stuff he’s done in recent years he can still be an astonishingly powerful actor when he gives a damn.
The Passenger!
Recently watched the so-called “European cut,” but I’m not sure the two missing scenes added much — in fact, Locke’s visit to his London duplex struck me as odd within the context of the story, both a dangerous act for the character and without much dramatic purpose. (We do get a look at Locke’s newspaper obituary, with the unlikey detail that Nicholson is supposed to be playing an Englishman, educated at Columbia.)
In some ways I found the picutre to be less than I remembered it, and yet even finer in others — on balance, still a great film. I’d forgotten how much time and attention goes into the opening African sequences, and deservedly so. The Hotel de la Gloria sequence, on the other hand, loses a little something with familairty (though not much). The “blindman story” (probably the longest piece of dialogue in the film) strikes the one false note of the entire picture. Maria Schneider’s limitations as an actress become more and more obvious with each viewing, yet I’m now convinced that she is indeed Mrs. Robertson.
Then watched it again, this time with Nicholson’s running commentary — most entertaining and highly recommended. Early on he says, “For Antonioni, actors are not the most important thing … they’re sort of moving space.” And toward the end, as we see Locke walking alone, Nicholson will say, in his best Shinning-voice, “Here comes Moving Space.”
And earlier, as Locke is moving Robertson’s body to his own room, Jack says, with a laugh, “No cuts … no cuts … you’ve got to pick the guy up and put him in bed in an Antonioni picture.”
At one point during the hotel tracking shot a tall figure in red and black running togs passes through the scene and I was startled: had I noticed this before? I don’t think so. When the runner appreas in the Nicholson voice-over he will laugh and say, “A jogger … possibly from Burbank.”
I see everyone forgot his all-too-brief cameo in Tommy. Jack singing, it’s actually not…well just see it.
CARNAL KNOWLEDGE… enough said
I cant believe I forgot Hoffa!
Glad you guys are all bringing up films I have forgotten or not seen. It’s been way too long since I saw the Passenger to comment on it. I have been doing a bit of an Antonioni retro, and will include this for re-seeing. I did hear Jack reading from Antonioni’s own writings about actors and film on a extra track on Criterion’s L’Avventura. Jack also has a little to say about working with Antonioni on the Passenger – confirming what MMorre says above. Antonioni didn’t have much use for actors, unless they were Monica Vitti, of course. It would have been wonderful to have been on the set when these two greats were working. Jack has done a lot of films I need to now see or see again. Thanks.
Roger Corman’s ‘Little Shop of Horrors’.
I think ‘The Last Detail’ might be his best. At least for best quotes it is.
- “Well kid, there’s more things in this life than you can possibly imagine. I knew a whore once in Wilmington. She had a glass eye… used to take it out and wink people off for a dollar.”
-“Heineken? Why it’s the finest beer in the world! President Kennedy used to drink it!”
His character and dialogue in Easy Rider was by far his best, but was cut too short. Five Easy Pieces and The shining are a tie. Cuckoo’s Nest is the most enjoyable to watch of them all though i think, he’s so lovable in it.
His character and dialogue in Easy Rider was by far his best, but was cut too short. Five Easy Pieces and The shining are a tie. Cuckoo’s Nest is the most enjoyable to watch of them all though i think, he’s so lovable in it.
pyche out is a great jack nicholson film!
As I have admitted many,many times, my love for Five Easy Pieces and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest knows no bounds.
But allow me to suggest another title in which Jack played a supporting, yet significant role — Warren Beatty’s Reds. Jack plays a young Eugene O’Neill to Beatty’s Jack Reed and Diane Keaton’s Louise Bryant. While a small role, it is nvertheless one of the best he’s ever done. A real gem in a film full of them.
Every film already mentioned plus Batman.
Five Easy Pieces
The King of Marvin Gardens
The Last Detail
Chinatown
The Passenger
I have seen four films with Jack Nicholson. I would recommend One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the Witches of Eastwick. I’ve seen Chinatown which was praised by Ebert but it’s not one of my favorite films. I would probably be happier with Five Easy Pieces, Reds, or The Passenger which all sound like good films. :-)
if you cut off Jack Nicholson’s eyebrows he’d never be able to act. I really never understood why he is well liked.
Nicholson’s best role, imo, was in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” followed by “The Last Detail.” “Five Easy Pieces” and then “Chinatown.”
ooh…Chinatown is probably his best overall film. Cuckoo’s Nest is very good, and essential just because he won the Oscar and its probably the one everybody knows the best. Don’t know enough of his 80s work, certainly the Shining would be up there. About Schmidt doesn’t seem to get enough love, and i think its one of this best performances. then, for fun, go back and look at his REALLY early shit, like his pre-Easy Rider biker films (which i haven’t even seen yet, so maybe i shouldn’t recomend) and Little Shop of Horrors, if anything to get some prespective.
In Back Door to Hell he out shined the rest of the cast. But Chinatown is a terrible film !! Cuckoo’s Nest was a fine film but in most films he just seems out of place. Yes you remember him in the films but not for being good.
I really dug the Hellman westerns, Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting. The Mulholland Man even picked up a writing credit for Whirlwind.
Bob Stutsman
As a site that is mainly devoted to directors, the auteurs, I think it important also to consider important actors, who help to shape the films they are in by their mere presence. Certainly, we can all agree that such an actor is Jack Nicholson, arguably the most important American actor to emerge since Marlon Brando. I first discovered him as the wonderful, eccentric scene-stealer in Easy Rider. He had been around doing mostly B movies, or lamentable efforts, such as The Trip, before this break-through role. What, though, are his essential films? My list would include these:
Easy Rider
Last Detail
The Passenger
Five Easy Pieces
Chinatown
The Shining
Terms of Endearment
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
About Schmidt
My personal favourite would be Five Easy Pieces. In it, Nicholson does NOT parody his own persona, as he can at times in other roles. He can over play in his films the role of the curmudgeon or the lecherous, leering, rather repulsive character. I loved him in this movie, because he plays an intellectual, an artist, so naturally and convincingly – without relying on his usual sneer or bad school-boy grin. He completely underplays the role, demonstrating the complexity and innate vulnerability of his character. It is a brilliantly conceived part and Nicholson shines in every scene with authenticity – without ever over doing it. Karen Black is very helpful, as the exact wrong woman for him. So many classic scenes in this film make this a standout in my mind. What are your favourties? I didn’t see him in the forum ‘talent’ list, so thought I should add him.