Wednesday 1 February 2012

Best Supporting Actor 1995: Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys

Brad Pitt received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys.

12 Monkeys depicts a time traveler James Cole (Bruce Willis) from the  post apocalyptic future who tries to find out about the apocalypse virus in the past.

Brad Pitt portrays the deranged Jeffrey Goines who Cole first meets Goines in a mental institution where he even has a cartoon sound effect for when his head pops out of his shirt letting us now from the very first instance that this is not going to be a subtle performance from Brad Pitt. Although to be fair Pitt's performance only seems to fit the film sometimes rather insane style. Also Pitt is suppose to be portraying a totally insane character, so for him to go rather over the top is rather understandable.

The only problem is there is portraying crazy with the utmost realism, and than there is portraying crazy like you are just obviously "ACTING" with all the capital letters being needed. Pitt's performance work s sort of at first with me as he goes on his long rants at the mental hospital, about his insane idea and theories. Though Pitt never really feels like he is really a mental patient, and it does always feel like a performer performing. Pitt does manage to bring a manic energy to his part in these early scenes which is fairly effective to help set the mood.

Later on though Pitt's whole shtick just seems to get old pretty fast it works in those first scenes where he is a effective, later on though it just starts to become tiresome. Every time he shows up he does his same exact insane thing that really never develops to anything especially considering what happens with his character in the end. He never tries anything else with Goines just keeps with same insane act for the whole film, that almost feels to become even more actory as the film goes on.

Pitt's performance ends up not being particularly special past his first scenes which are fine, but a little of him goes a long way. Frankly I would have just liked his performance if we never saw him again past the insane asylum, but the way he is used in the film his performance just becomes strangely sort of dull because we know exactly what to expect from his. He simply becomes less and less intense, and interesting as he continues to reappear.

6 comments:

dinasztie said...

I expected you not to like him. I wasn't very impressed by him, either. He was way too mannered and obvious in his acting.

Mythical Monkey said...

I happened to see 12 Monkeys in the theater the day after I had re-watched Apocalypse Now on tape and it stuck me that Brad Pitt was simply doing an imitation of Dennis Hopper's crazy photojournalist. Watch both roles back to back sometime and you'll see what I mean.

Anonymous said...

I hate to say it because I like Brad Pitt, but I immediately recognized Pitt's performance as identical to that of Hopper's in Appocolipse.

Anonymous said...

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they can hear, and see what your visually thinking
this is the absolute complete truth, THIS IS NO JOKE!!!!!

The reason a lot of Asians have completely expressionless faces, segregate from everybody else-only associate with Asians and don’t associate with non Asians that much, and are very unfriendly in general is to avoid accidentally revealing that they can read minds. If all over a billion Asians where to show facial expressions all the time just as much as non Asians, integrate and associate with non Asians much more, and be much more friendly and talkative, then a lot of them might accidentally reveal that they can read minds by accidentally showing a facial expression or dirty look when someone thinks, or visually pictures something in their mind they don’t like, find astonishing, or funny etc because those people might see that and really wonder what that was that just happened there and see the connection, and they might accidentally say something similar to what the person was just thinking and going to say. If they all associated with non Asians a lot more then there would be a lot more people around for them to accidentally show facial expressions when those people think things they don’t like etc, so they segregate and only associate with Asians so there won’t be anyone around for them to see that and have any accidents happen in the first place.

I know this may sound crazy, impossible and unbelievable, BUT IT ISN’T CRAZY WHEN IT’S TRUE

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JamDenTel said...

It's also annoying when you consider that his character could technically be removed or greatly minimized with virtually no impact to the film itself.

Although, to be fair, his best moment is his last one:

"You're crazy."
(pause)
"No, I'm not."

Anonymous said...

Yes, Pitt on 12 Monkeys imitated the character of a manic freelance photographer performed by Dennis Hopper on the classic movie "Apocalypse Now" => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5JXrP8yv8o. The nutty man shows somewhere near the end of that long film. Hopper was under influence (stoned) while acting => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up6VjILdz3o