Simple dialectics
Who knows if he was really acting or not, but Dennis Hopper’s performance in Apocalypse Now is one of my very favorite performances in film. I hear so many things these days that remind me of this nonsense about how you can’t land on a fraction.
May 29, 2010 2:46 pm
Posted in: Open Thread, Other
14 Comments
14 Responses
Cain - May 29, 2010 | 2:51 pm · Link
Couldn’t you have made it an open thread?
BTW RIP Gary Coleman.
cain
licensed to kill time - May 29, 2010 | 2:53 pm · Link
Now why ever would a mathematician choose this particular clip? ;-)
The sad thing about Dennis Hopper is that he seemed to be stuck playing this whacked out philosophical crazy guy in every subsequent role . Anybody watch Crash, the TV series?
bago - May 29, 2010 | 3:01 pm · Link
Mario finally won.
de stijl - May 29, 2010 | 3:08 pm · Link
Were Hopper’s monologues in Apocalypse Now scripted or ad libbed?
Mark S. - May 29, 2010 | 3:27 pm · Link
OT-Coates on some post Lanny Davis vomited up for the Daily Caller:
From what I can tell, Davis decided the Libertarian platform was identical to Rand Paul’s views. The Daily Caller is barely journalism, but this deserves some Pulitzer for Sloppiness.
superfly - May 29, 2010 | 3:31 pm · Link
@de stijl: Both, i.e. loosely scripted, with plenty of ad lib, much of it riffing on various poems by T.S Eliot and Kipling (per imdb, though unclear if those exact lines were scripted, ad-libbed or both).
flounder - May 29, 2010 | 6:33 pm · Link
I loved him in the River’s Edge, which was a movie about my teenage years in many respects. Hopper was the creepy old guy who sold a little weed to the town stoners if you were willing to go hang out and pretend to be his friend for a couple hours. I totally knew this dude…except instead of having a blow up doll as a friend like Hopper does, he had 18 cats.
debbie - May 29, 2010 | 6:40 pm · Link
Crispin Glover certainly outcreeped Hopper in that movie, which I hadn’t thought possible.
flounder - May 29, 2010 | 8:01 pm · Link
Glover was a nihilistic, dangerous creepy, Hopper was a leave everyone alone and hide out with his blow up doll and weed creepy. Totally underrated teen angst movie imho, and definitely one of Keeanu Reeves best performances:
“The only reason you stay here is so you can fuck my mother and eat her food. MOTHERFUCKER. FOOD EATER.”
fucen tarmal - May 29, 2010 | 9:26 pm · Link
“carried away”
essential hopper.
jaxtra - May 29, 2010 | 11:16 pm · Link
boo effing hoo. everybody dies, some sooner than they should, others, not so much. good actor? sure, i agree. p.o.s repuglicant?, without a doubt an oscar winner. good riddance i say.
mclaren - May 30, 2010 | 1:02 am · Link
That clip is a presidential press conference circa 2021.
jimmy jazz - May 30, 2010 | 2:40 pm · Link
If you watch the Apocalypse documentary Hearts of Darkness, Coppola hated Hopper. There’s a wonderful exchange about not being able to forget lines unless you’ve actually learned them in the first place.
lumpenprole - May 30, 2010 | 5:35 pm · Link
His scene in True Romance with Christopher Walken is a gem.