Jeff Bridges

Q: Is Jeff Bridges the greatest American film actor of the past 40 years?

A: Quite possibly.

A quick glance at the results of this year's Golden Globes, which either do or do not offer a reliable preview of the Academy Awards, which do not offer a reliable view of the year's greatest films, performances, soundtracks etc, shows that Jeff Bridges has picked up the gong for best actor in a lead role, for his turn as a boozy country and western singer in the upcoming (in the UK at least) release, Crazy Heart. The part sounds like the stuff of cliche, but you pretty much know that it won't be ordinary, or at least not in a bad, dull way. The wonder is that this is the first major acting award that he has won which like so many other instances, proves how absurd the whole business of awards is, weirdly compelling but absurd. He has had a great career, working in and around the mainstream of Hollywood films - sometimes right at its heart - but at his most interesting when more on the margins, working with Peter Bogdanovich, early in his career, with Cimino (twice) before and just after he went a bit loopy, with the Coens, in quite a few directors' first films. He is always good, sometimes better than his material, he's been in his fare share of financial duds, a few duffers (but only a few), can play everything from the deeply sympathetic to the chillingly nasty, and always or almost always with his distinctive understated style. Perhaps to win awards you have to show how much you're doing - there are dozens of instances of Oscar-winning performances in which the effort that went into the performance is there for all of us to see - whereas Bridges is happy to make it look effortless and true. If you cast your mind back over as many of his 60-plus feature performances as you can recall it is hard to think of him ever doing anything flashy or doing anything you didn't believe, even in Against All Odds or King Kong. Few actors would make one relish the prospect of seeing a film about a washed up country singer, but Bridges does and this is all enough to restore a little of one's faith in the idea of these awards.

Question: what connects Jeff Bridges, Warren Oates and John Wayne?

The answer to the question in the last posting was that both are examples of apocryphal film quotations, Cary Grant having never knowingly said "Judy, Judy, Judy" and likewise James Cagney having never said on screen "You dirty rat" (although he did get close to saying it), but both were used as stock phrases by impressionists of two of Hollywood's most impersonated stars.