{"id":1572,"date":"2024-07-23T09:25:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T09:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/?p=1572"},"modified":"2024-07-23T09:25:40","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T09:25:40","slug":"a-gary-oldman-appreciation-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/?p=1572","title":{"rendered":"A Gary Oldman Appreciation Post"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I recently finished watching the third season of Slow Horses<\/em>, so I thought I\u2019d give a shout out to my favourite film actor of all time. A few of his finest performances are highlighted below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Slow Horses<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The art of the fart is a fine, uh…art. Generally, breaking wind on the big screen is crude and unnecessary, often played for laughs. And when Oldman\u2019s bedraggled Jackson Lamb lets off the stinky steam, it\u2019s certainly crude. Indeed, the former Cold War M15 agent is introduced by a fart when he is awoken by his own substantial flatulence in the series\u2019 first episode. Lamb isn\u2019t a big fan of exercise, either. He smokes a lot, and it\u2019s fair to say he\u2019s a bit of a hefty lad. Apparently that fat is all real, too, since Oldman didn\u2019t don a fat suit like he did for Churchill biopic\u00a0The Darkest Hour<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that reminds me of that funny anecdote where a fairly chunkified Christian Bale, who was still in full Method physique after playing Dick Chaney in Vice, complimented Oldman on his own weight gain, only to learn that Oldman had just been wearing a fat suit. Here in Slow Horses<\/em> though, that bulk\u2019s the real deal. Impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It was the war,<\/em> Connie\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve watched this absolute gem many, many times, and I should be able to recite most of the screenplay by this point. Anyway, the above quote, spoken by Oldman\u2019s George Smiley, is my mum\u2019s favourite quote, and one the family likes to quote a fair bit in similarly grave tones. Every scene in this film is absolute genius, whether it involves Roy Bland providing me with minor heart palpitations when he lets Peter Guillam know he\u2019s onto him with a few lines of song or Ricki Tarr being…Ricki Tarr. Definitely one of Tom Hardy\u2019s best roles to date. And it\u2019s got one of the best ending montage scenes in cinema, which helps. But it\u2019s Oldman\u2019s minimalist performance \u2013 the one that should\u2019ve bagged him the Best Actor Oscar, imo \u2013 which really bolsters the film, expressing more with tired facial expressions than any amount of indulgent dialogue could convey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Fifth Element<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with Silent Running<\/em>, Luc Besson The Fifth Element<\/em> was key in nurturing my early love of science fiction, and Oldman\u2019s OTT baddie Zorg \u2013 or Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg, to give him his full name \u2013 was a big part of that. Sure, you could argue he\u2019s a cheesy villain on one level (and sometimes cheese is good. That\u2019s what made him my favourite part of Leon<\/em>, a Besson film which I otherwise didn\u2019t particularly appreciate), but his speech about chaos is pretty nifty, and may well have had a bit of influence on Mr Smith\u2019s great monologue about viruses. Maybe, maybe not. But what could have been a fairly two-dimensional bad guy performance is given gravitas and style by Oldman, whose exaggerated southern US twang probably provided the groundwork for upcoming British born Benoit Blancs too. Oldman himself described the inspiration for the character as a combo of Bugs Bunny and U.S. presidential candidate Ross Perot. The more you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dark Knight Trilogy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just about my favourite film trilogy of all time, and Oldman pops up in every one. Although Christian Bale plays the caped crusader, he\u2019s usually one upped by the villains, whether it\u2019s the Joker, Bane or Cillian Murphy\u2019s deep blue eyes. Uh, I mean Cillian Murphy. Oldman\u2019s Lieutenant Gordon remains a stalwart presence in every entry, providing a human touch to the narrative as a man in charge of a knowingly corrupt police department. He gets a decent amount of character development throughout, particularly in Dark Knight Rises, and like Batman (and general Christopher Nolan) regular, he\u2019s a welcome presence in every entry, a warm light of hope in the chaotic darkness of Gotham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Firm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nara is a lovely place. A peaceful area in Japan with loads of docile deer that love biscuits. Everything\u2019s calm. So it seemed appropriate that when my brother and myself stayed here, we decided to watch an absolutely brutal film that didn\u2019t vibe with the atmosphere at all. Don\u2019t get me wrong,\u00a0The Firm<\/em>\u2019s great, it\u2019s just super intense. Great to watch one, but difficult to view again. That scene where Gary Oldman\u2019s baby son finds one of his knives on the floor and…uh, yeah. That\u2019s some disturbing stuff. Gotta admire Oldman\u2019s dedication to his craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Harry Potter Films<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oldman starred as Sirius Black in Prisoner of Azkaban<\/em>, Goblet of Fire<\/em> and Order of the Phoenix<\/em>, which happen to comprise my top 3 Potter films. He\u2019s probably a big part of that fact. His ascension from framed villain to unabashed hero is thoughtfully rendered, and even though he has more minor roles in the fourth and fifth roles, he still makes a big impact with minimal screen time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oldman\u2019s exhibited fantastic performances in a variety of films, I just thought I\u2019d go into more detail about a few of my absolute highlights. Other shoutouts include: Nasty grumpy President Truman in Oppenheimer, whacky Drexl in True Romance, ott Dracula in, uh, Dracula, gangster dude in Lawless, and Russian dude in Child 44. There\u2019s still a few GO films I need to see, but he\u2019s the GOAT, IMO.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently finished watching the third season of Slow Horses, so I thought I\u2019d give a shout out to my favourite film actor of all time. A few of his finest performances are highlighted below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1573,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions\/1573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}