George Clooney (40 page)

Authors: Mark Browning

He seems to have taken from his collaborations with the Coen brothers and Soderbergh the notion that a film set should be a place where actors want to come and do good work; a relaxed environment where it is positive to laugh and joke. In a sense, the serious business is at the casting stage, and once actors have been selected, Clooney prefers to give individuals sufficient respect for their own professionalism so that they do not need to be badgered and hectored to produce their best work.
Perhaps a key factor in Clooney's development is that his break in movies came relatively late, when he was already 35 (and looked older) so that placing him in an ultra-hip contemporary setting, surrounded by other actors of the 16â34 demographic, would not work. The process of ageing possibly holds fewer threats for his image than for other actors and less of a mind shift for audiences to accept him in more mature roles. We have already seen him on screen as a middle-aged man who refuses to wear makeup on camera, so we do not have to wonder how he will cope with gray hair and a few more wrinkles.

He could have remained stuck as a romantic lead (
One Fine Day
), as an action hero (
The Peacemaker
), or as part of a single franchise (
Batman
), but he decided to shift between the young guns of the indie world (Tarantino, Russell), the innovative, politically engaged face of nonlinear narratives (Gaghan, Gilroy), the quirky but ever-more-mainstream (Coen brothers), and occasional personal pet projects with friends (Heslov). Soderbergh's own career has huge peaks and troughs, and Clooney seems to have chosen to collaborate on the more successful ventures (possibly making them so).
Solaris
showed that he was secure enough to take a financial loss, a major one, and still survive as a star and a filmmaker.

Clooney's belief that real figures should not be played by big stars reflects an assumption about what a star is. For the most part his theory holds true, but there are a small group of actors who can transcend their stardom and inhabit a role rather than just carry their star persona from film to film, even when portraying figures in the real worldâfor example, Meryl Streep as Julia Child in
Julie and Julia
(Nora Ephron, 2009) or Margaret Thatcher in
The Iron Lady
(Phyllida Lloyd, 2012); or
Invictus
(Clint Eastwood, 2009), which is fronted by two examples of such performances: Matt Damon as South African rugby captain Francois Pienaar, and Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. David Strathairn's competition for the Best Actor Oscar of 2005 included Philip Seymour Hoffman in
Capote
(Bennett Miller) and Joaquin Phoenix in
Walk the Line
(James Mangold), both playing real famous figures. Playing known figures from the real world is exceedingly difficult but not impossible. The fact that Michael Sheen has credibly played David Frost (
Frost/Nixon
, Ron Howard, 2008), Tony Blair (
The Queen
, Stephen Frears, 2006), and Brian Clough (
The Damned United
, Tom Hooper, 2009) within a few years of each other underlines the point (although one might debate at what point Sheen has moved from a character actor to a star).

The films of George Clooney might be seen to convey values of the American Dream, where his character strives to succeed and eventually
does (
O Brother
), where his character has a certain raffish charm, suggesting that women wish to be treated courteously (
One Fine Day
), that not all problems can be solved with physical force but some can (
From Dusk Till Dawn
and
The Peacemaker
), and that wit and charm can be of greater value (
Out of Sight
and the
Ocean's
series). At the same time, his persona can suggest that it is acceptable for a hero to feel and look vulnerable (
Solaris
), that the values of a liberal democracy that questions authority are important (
Good Night, and Good Luck
), and that an intellectual engagement with a complex world in which the United States is no longer always the most powerful player is essential (
Syriana
). As the strongest cinematic icon of his age group and with the ear of the president, he is probably the most famous face of liberal America.

Now into his 50s, Clooney still rides motorbikes, likes a drink (in moderation), and enjoys the company of beautiful women. As a fantasy bachelor and as an American, he is still living the dream. Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in Las Vegas has a model of Clooney, all dressed in tuxedo, that visitors can pose next to in a wedding dress as a fantasy wedding photo.

In
Confessions
, the visual gag of newlyweds Barris and Penny coming out of the front of the church, just as a coffin is entering by a side door, may be how Clooney sees marriage, but the popular press will undoubtedly keep linking anything he says or does in the direction of a news narrative that would interest their readers. A rarity in the Clooney canon (until
Up in the Air
), we see him pursuing a woman with a proposal of marriage, with the quick downward glances and self-deprecating knowing smiles more visible in
One Fine Day
.

In his overtly romantic roles (like
One Fine Day
or
Up in the Air
), he is mostly paired opposite a prime female antagonist (Michelle Pfeiffer or Vera Parminga, respectively), but most of his film roles place him in an ensemble cast, often in a predominantly male environment. He is often head of a team, which might be work related (
The Perfect Storm
) but is more often military (
The Men Who Stare at Goats
) or criminal (the
Ocean's
series) or a mixture of all three (
Three Kings
). Clooney is nearly always a figure of authority: captain in
The Perfect Storm
, a major in
Three Kings
, mastermind of the escape in
O Brother
(although the others in his group are hardly leadership material), a colonel in
The Peacemaker
, and the eponymous superhero in
Batman and Robin
. Only rarely (
Syriana
and
Michael Clayton
) has Clooney played a role involving a family and more particularly children (in both cases with relationships that are distant or strained). The predominantly male groups that he leads act in a sense as a surrogate family with him as a paternal figure
(in
O Brother
,
Three Kings
, and
The Perfect Storm
, for example). Very little of his brief cameo in
The Thin Red Line
(Terrence Malick, 1998) survived the cutting room floor, but as Clooney's character, Captain Bosche, states, addressing a group of raw recruits: “We are a family. I'm the father.” As he ages, it may be that future roles, such as
The Descendants
, extend this aspect of his on-screen persona, and like Ryan Bingham in
Up in the Air
, that his character is brought into greater contact with family members.

He is often portrayed as just on the wrong side of the law (
Out of Sight
,
Collinwood
, or
O Brother
) but usually with a fair degree of incompetence. Only in the overt caper movies of the
Ocean's
series does he show more confident criminal ability. In more mature films he plays isolated, introspective loners at a distance, not just from a romantic partner but from humankind itself (
Solaris
,
Michael Clayton
, and
The American
). It is in these latter, more elegiac roles that Clooney has had the chance to show a darker side to his persona, which has actually always been there since
Red Surf
and
From Dusk Till Dawn
but now seems to carry serious conviction. Through these latter films, there is an increasing use of moments of silence, especially in
The American
but even present in less obviously contemplative work like
Leatherheads
, such as when the huge boy from high school sits down in the train, Dodge opens his mouth to speak but then stays silent.

In Clooney's movies, memory is equated with film. In
Three Kings
, Gates replays mental images of the first entrance to the square (in slow motion) and realizes the boot-wearing figures around the well were soldiers in disguise.
Leatherheads
uses the motif of a camera tracking across black-and-white or sepia-toned photos capturing iconic moments from a past, thus given a hazy tone of nostalgia, a feature of films as diverse as
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
(George Roy Hill, 1969) through to the credit sequence for
Cheers
(NBC, 1982â93). Often the past that is evoked in Clooney's films is openly reminiscent of, and even nostalgic for, the period 1965â75, in particular the so-called American New Wave, dramatizing criminality and corruption but in which journalism is seen as moral, crusading, and principled before the advent of 24-hour celebrity-driven media.

There are very few films in which he dies.
The Perfect Storm
underlines its credentials as a true story and to have Bobby survive would undermine the elegiac tone of the whole film; and in
Red Surf
and
The American
, he plays a character that cannot be morally reintegrated into society. Both at least allow the dignity of a death off-screen. Exactly whether he dies at the end of
Solaris
is open to question, depending on your reading of
the final scenes where his spacecraft plunges into the planet's surface; and in
Confessions
, his character may be no more than a delusion of the hero.

If there is a threat to his image, it may lie in reaction to his public announcements. This may even come from previous collaborators. In
South Park
, season 10, episode 2 (2006), Trey Parker and Matt Stone parody attitudes to hybrid vehicles but also tap into some residual audience hostility toward apparent smugness in Clooney's Oscar acceptance speech for
Syriana
. A so-called “Smug cloud” appears over the town and threatens to create “a perfect storm of self-satisfaction.”

Is Clooney the greatest male actor of his generation? Probably while Philip Seymour Hoffman, Daniel Day-Lewis, or Sean Penn are active, such a title would be hotly contested. In terms of Clooney's work as a director, while
Leatherheads
may seem clunky as a screwball comedy it is thoughtful in its evocation of an era,
Confessions
is remarkable for its ambition, and
Good Night, and Good Luck
powerful in its claustrophobic sense of theater. Kimberly Potts terms him “the last great movie star,” which may be a little disrespectful to figures like Clint Eastwood, who has had an amazing resurgence in the latter part of his career. What makes Clooney distinctive is his unmatched ability to blend unequalled leading man credibility with an on-screen wit, extending from comedy to action and hybrid forms between the two (the heist move especially). With astute decisions about whom to work with and accepting only literate, and sometimes literary, scripts, he has carved a niche for himself blending art-house sensibility with commercial potential. Except perhaps in
Syriana
, he is instantly recognizable as George Clooney, so unlike Hoffman, Lewis, or Penn, he cannot easily disappear completely into a role. What he does instead is expand the dramatic possibilities, the range of contexts in which audiences will accept him, blurring generic boundaries and bringing politics into the mainstream. Even in his caper movies, there is an element of liberal politics at play. As Danny Ocean he is directing an operation to redistribute capital and exact revenge against richer, more powerful individuals; and in
Three Kings
, his robbery plan is diverted into funding resistance against Saddam Hussein's regime and saving a specific group of dissidents trying to cross the border. Positions of authority no longer allow his character to remain aloof from criticism of the bodies of which he is part.
Up in the Air
portrays America undergoing painful downsizing, of which Ryan is initially the agent but eventually also its victim, and as Governor Mike Morris in
The Ides of March
, he represents a political system that leads Meyers from optimism to power-brokering cynicism.

Perhaps Clooney is still searching for a single career-defining role, but as he disappears further into characters and expands generic and dramatic
possibilities, it becomes increasingly harder to predict what a George Clooney movie might look like. Stars of previous eras were tied much more closely to specific genres, but Clooney has extended the life of his career by diversifying his brand and not tying his colors to any one particular generic mast. In a sense, Clooney's roles have moved from the exception to the rule; from Superman to Everyman. He began his film career as a fantasy gangster (Seth Gecko), fantasy action figure (Thomas Devoe), and literal fantasy cartoon figure (Batman). A decade later, he is a legal “janitor” (
Michael Clayton
), an intelligence operative (
Syriana
), and a failed husband facing divorce (
Burn after Reading
). So far, Clooney has had to play an on-screen role to attract finance and be part of the marketing of a film (even if this distorts the design of promotional material, as in
The Magic Bubble
and to a lesser extent in
Collinwood
). Perhaps the next benchmark in his career is when he can disappear behind the camera completely.