Christopher Plummer on Beginners.
Photo: Qlympus Pictures / Kobal / Shutterstock
Because Christopher Plummer was famously the star of The sound of music (a movie he hated), and at the end of his career winning Oscars and box office hits, the idea arose that his career was just a straight line pointing to more and more stardom and success. But that is not what happened. Plummer ran away from his character in The sound of music, and, for some decades, that escape from what he was best known cost him: in the 1980s, he did mostly (much praised) stage work, TV movies and some off-screen voices. He seemed happy with that, but it should be noted that the ordinary viewer knew him as Captain von Trapp … and that was it.
That changed in the 90s, when he was in his 60s, as he became more gray and aged. The directors he worked with in that decade are Who’s Who with top talent: Spike Lee, Mike Nichols, Terry Gilliam and, most notably, Michael Mann, who directed one of Plummer’s best performances in The informant. (Although it did not end with an Oscar nomination.)
Plummer’s work in recent decades, including his Oscar-winning performance in Mike Mills Beginners, it polished his reputation and helped him become the revered actor we now consider. Sometimes it seems that we have always honored him, but only recently have we begun to appreciate the greatness that has always existed.
Plummer was almost 30 years old, with half a decade of Tony-nominated performances on Broadway and Serious Shakespearean Work already on his resume, when he finally made his film debut. It was also amazing to play a playwright who gets involved with a great Broadway producer (Henry Fonda) and a naive (Susan Strasberg, daughter of Lee Strasberg, who was raised to be the next big hit, but … it wasn’t) who is looking for her big chance, however, she can get it. Sidney Lumet (who was following his debut success, 12 furious men) cast Plummer for his Broadway bona fides, but he was a natural talent for cinema: Even so, at first, something about him shone and overshadowed his much more acclaimed co-stars. (Available for purchase on Amazon.)
It is always fun when an actor who is part of a beloved classic is openly hostile to that classic. (Part of what makes the original Star Wars the trilogy is to think about the fact that Harrison Ford never thought much about Han Solo and all the absurdity of space opera.) Enter Plummer, who spent decades telling people this The sound of music is bad. “These sentimental things are the most difficult to play, especially since I was trained vocally and physically for Shakespeare,” he said in 1982. “To play a bad role as von Trapp, you have to use all the tricks you know to fill the carcass. empty of paper. But although Plummer has returned to the film in recent years, the winner of Best Film remains, well, not a great art, but an enduring favorite. And part of it has to do with his sincere portrait of the captain, a noble and swept individual who falls in love with the melodious Maria (Julie Andrews). The actual bearing he brought to the sentimental material is what makes it so exciting – he elevates the procedures through the strength of his commitment. The sound of music it was far from his best work, but his decency is what made viewers pass out for von Trapp for generations. (Available to watch on Disney +.)
Who did you cast to play Rudyard Kipling, the celebrated witty writer of, among other things, a story about two adventurers looking for treasures in a foreign land – only to discover that they are lost? In John Huston’s elegant adaptation of The man who would be king, the author becomes a character within the film, and Plummer proves to be a very good Kipling, suggesting the man’s intelligence and sophistication in just a few scenes. (After all, the film belongs to Sean Connery and Michael Caine as the artful ex-soldiers.) This is Plummer in character-actor mode, supporting the film’s stars while bringing enough personality and seriousness that when Kipling finally finds out the horrible truth what happened to them in Kafiristan, their silent and shocked look proves to be Kingculminating moment of. (Available to watch on HBO Max.)
Hey, Generation X kids: remember when that TV miniseries made your mom cry for about a week? The ten-hour miniseries about an Irish priest (Richard Chamberlain) and his tragic doomed love affair with a woman (Rachel Ward) that he has known since she was a child is, uh, a little more disgusting today than it was in 1983, but at that time, it was the second most watched miniseries in television history, behind Roots. Plummer had done a great job in his career, but when it came out, his role as mentor and friend of the priest (but also a man with his own priorities and ambitions) was without a doubt the greatest thing he has done since The sound of music. He’s great at this, strong enough to raise the stakes, but with a wink that lets you know you shouldn’t take any of this also seriously. This may have been an underestimated key point for Plummer: he seems to be enjoying himself, and the Italian accent he uses is delicious. (Available for purchase on Amazon.)
Oh, you forgot that he’s in Malcolm X? He is, and he is fantastic in his brief role as a prison chaplain who tries to convert Malcolm from Denzel Washington (then Malcolm Little) to Christianity and then finds out that Malcolm, after his conversion to Islam, will resist more than the chaplain was ready for . Plummer is delightfully clueless as Malcolm interrogates him about the race of Jesus and the disciples. Plummer’s ability to play both hypocritical and self-confident serves him splendidly here; his insistence that “God is white” and the speed with which it disintegrates under Malcolm’s logic is really something to see. Plummer’s career had reached an obstacle when Spike Lee climbed it. You can clearly see here the next act is coming. (Available to watch on HBO Max.)
Michael Mann didn’t bother to make Plummer look like Mike Wallace, the convinced 60 minutes correspondent who anchored the overthrow of the Big Tobacco program in the 1990s. Instead, Plummer simply incorporated the essence of Wallace – the casual air of authority he projects into any room he enters – and is crucial to The informant, which is a smart procedure and an occasional showcase for fireworks. Plummer hits Wallace’s blunt interview style, but it also suggests the journalist’s anxiety about the fate of his legacy, as CBS threatens to torpedo the story. Wallace was a shameless showboat and Plummer honors the diva aspect of his character with real panache. (Available to rent on Amazon.)
Plummer had a long career in voice acting and animation: he had been the emotional strength of An American tail two decades earlier. But Pixar fit in perfectly and Plummer investigates that royalty and villainy as Charles Muntz, the explorer that Carl Fredricksen idolized before he realized he was lost – and even became dangerous. Plummer sells Muntz’s bitterness and hatred for himself and helps to contrast them with Carl’s ability to remember what inspired him to be an explorer in the first place. He’s such a good villain that Pixar had a hard time finding a suitable farewell. He found one. (Available to watch on Disney +.)
Based on filmmaker Mike Mills’ own father, who appeared late in life, Beginners is an extremely gentle and warm drama in which a bereaved son (Ewan McGregor) reflects on his dead father, Hal, and the discovery that he was gay. Plummer plays the decadent patriarch with such grace that you feel like a sick man who has nothing more to hide and no excuse to do. Even while facing cancer, Hal seems excited about the chance to finally be himself – now that his wife is gone, there is no more reason to live a lie – and Plummer makes this act of discovery constantly charming and moving. Actors usually win an Oscar for the wrong roles. His win for Best Supporting Actor was not one of those cases. (Available to watch on HBO Max.)
Famously appointed at the last minute so that Ridley Scott could replace the bastard Kevin Spacey, Plummer is all winter master as oil magnate J. Paul Getty, who desperately wants his kidnapped grandson to return safely. This was the kind of role that Plummer played a lot in his later years – he is also excellent as the sarcastic patriarch in David Fincher’s remake of The girl with the dragon tattoo – but at the time, Scott’s shock that he was remaking part of his film to replace Spacey couldn’t help but seem a little strange. The Academy saw beyond that, however, by giving Plummer his final Oscar nomination. The performance is a portrait of the power that infiltrates sadness – this Getty is isolated from the world, buried in his money – and Plummer makes him burn. (Available to rent on Amazon.)
Plummer’s latest film is a classic Plummer role: Harlan Thrombey, the brilliant police novelist who invites the whole family to an 85th birthday party and ends up dead. Whodunit? Rian Johnson’s cheeky thriller is a love note to the murder mystery, and Harlan has to be a victim and smarter than everyone else in the film. This fits Plummer perfectly; he’s wise to everyone, with a twinkle in his eye that suggests he may have always seen it all coming. It’s a fitting ending: even in a cast of stars, that’s what everyone ends up talking about. He definitely closed the book with a flourish. (Available to watch on Amazon.)
Grierson and Leitch write about films regularly and are presenters a podcast in the movie. follow them Twitter or visit their website.
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