A series of connections:
Director Mary Harron, on working with Christian Bale to develop the character of Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho":
"We talked about how Martian-like Patrick Bateman was, how he was looking at the world like somebody from another planet, watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave. And then one day he called me and he had been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy."
(Also see: "Dexter" for a similar sociopathic study.)
Miles Fisher as Tom Cruise in "Superhero Movie":
Miles Fisher as a post-Princeton dope dealer in a recent episode of "Mad Men" ("My Old Kentucky Home"):
(tip: Andrew Sullivan)
Love this. Strange coincidences on all sorts of levels!
- The Norman Bates in "Psycho" was an observant character i
- All the men mentioned, even David Byrne, resemble each other. (There's also the link to Ronald Reagan that "American Psycho" makes... And he looks alike also. I once saw a made-for-TV doc about Helen Thomas, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents Association. She was there from Kennedy to when she resigned in the Bush era... She said Reagan was the enigmatic President. She felt all the others she came to understand but he, despite his polite manners and sociability, had a guard up, was hiding. She once asked him for his honest thoughts on an issue and he said something along the lines of: "I would love to tell you what I really think about that but you see all those men in suits and ties over there? They won't let me." To which she responded, "But *you're* the President!")
- I watched "Eyes Wide Shut" for the first time *last night*, just to see how Kubrick used Cruise because I remembered *Jim* writing somewhere that it was the only time Cruise's grim determination, creepy (hinting at unstable emotions) happiness, cocky sureness and shallow-if-not-completely-superficial friendliness was utilized appropriately, with Cruise the butt of the joke. (And I agree! Kubrick nailed it!)
- Bale then worked with Katie Holmes on "Batman Begins"... I wonder if that was awkward? When Cruise attended the premiere with Holmes, was he even aware Bale spoofed him in "American Psycho"?
- All this was before the mainstream public caught on to Cruise being a weirdo... And then a few years later Bale has his nut-case temper-tantrum. (To be fair, I don't see Christian as Cruise-crazy. I think he's slightly psycho in how obsessed he becomes when acting, a sometimes overly driven actor he might be. But to play the variety roles he has the way he has, he clearly has much more going on upstairs than Cruise... He had a very bad, much publicized day of prima donna meltdown, which even he has admitted afterwards. And Brando was a man of antics too.)
- Both Bale and Cruise are born in the year of the Tiger. Tiger's Western counterpart is Aquarius, the outsiders of the zodiac. (Also the sign of Reagan as I try to bring this full circle! Cue the X-Files theme!) Aquarius' supposed dark side include such charming traits as perversity, egoism, impractical and 'out there' ideas, randomness and uncontrollability, eccentric outbursts, swinging to the exact opposite polarity when they have a goal that *must* be achieved, brooding when met with opposition, unemotional demeanor and detachment. (And we're living in the age of! Have fun with that comforting thought!)
Make of all these coincidences what you will. (And don't ask me how I know these things.)
Miles Fisher's Cruise impression is wonderfully observant of each and every little wacky tic Cruise has. And the funniest cuckoo line: "What is this place? Seriously, what - why are there no clocks in here?" This is up there with Fey's Palin. I like how his music video gets under the skin of so many smiley, empty-headed pop stars... and their materialistic videos in which they are merely a glorified prop used by an exec's marketing team to sell an album.
Phew. For a second there, I thought those symbols in your blog title were to indicate "greater than." Any equation in which Tom Cruise > Mad Men cries out for refuting.
Let me see if I got this straight: the song was by Talking Heads, the video of a cover of which spoofed Cruise, and the aspect that was spoofed in the video was used by Bale and Cruise was spoofed differently by the same guy (this is where your arrow configuration got really confusing) who was in a show called 'Mad Men'.
I'm a grad student at USC, and all the big donors came to tour the facilities when the new building opened. I was editing in the lab, and tour guides would bring the celebrities around to look at us working. We were specifically instructed not to speak to, or even look at, any of the donors for any reason. I missed Haskell Wexler, but saw Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. He seemed very polite and cheerful. It was interesting because it was a situation in which everyone was instructed specifically NOT to look at him, so one would think he would be relaxed and able to be himself. At the same time, he might be even more inclined to perform for the tour guide in an attempt to show that his persona is the reality. In any case, he seemed pleasant. Katie Holmes not so much.
So you struck a chord... How befitting to link American Psycho with Mad Men (an idea I've batted around) via Tom Cruise's wide-eyed incorrigibility... Anyway, this proceeded to remind me of the line from Wayne's World:
"Dick York, Dick Sargeant... Sargeant York!"
That song deserves a lot better.
The US should recognize a national Tom Cruise Does Not Actually Exist Day. That would teach him.
Who is this Miles Fisher guy and where did he come from? He did an uncanny Cruise, and he somehow manages to look eerily like Bale-as-Bateman in the video. Amazing.
I'm a grad student at USC, and all the big donors came to tour the new building when it opened. I was editing in the lab, and tour guides would bring people in to look at us working and explain picture/sound editing. We were specifically told over and over that we were not to approach, speak to, or even look at the donors. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes came in, and Cruise seemed very interested, pleasant, and, yes, energetic. What's interesting is that it was a situation in which everyone was specifically told not to look at thim, so one could think that he wouldn't be putting on a show. On the other hand, he might be even more likely to put on a show, if only for the tour guide, in order to give the impression that his persona is his real personality. Katie Holmes wasn't putting on any show, she was clearly not very interested.
The only uncanny connection I see in your litany is Christian Bale's performance in "American Psycho" and Tom Cruise's public persona. I confess that I have not watched Mad Men (shame on me, I know), so I cannot comment on its relevance.
But I would never describe David Byrne or his music as vacant and materialistic. "Stop Making Sense" is one of the most dynamic movie concerts ever filmed, and both Talking Heads and Byrne's solo endeavors exhibit immense depth -- instrumentally and lyrically. And in every interview I've seen of Byrne, he comes across as grounded and pleasant.
Also, Tom Cruise (creepy and uninhabited a man as he appears to be in interviews) has delivered some undeniably multi-dimensional performances. "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Magnolia" come to mind. And his execution in "Eyes Wide Shut" was quiet, albeit calculated. I think an unsuspecting audience was the butt of the joke -- that Cruise can act. Not to mention his inspired turn in "Tropic Thunder."
But perhaps the point of this analysis is lost on me.
I think the point is that Miles Fisher, who can do uncanny impersonations of both Bale's Patrick Bateman and Tom Cruise, reveals the similarity in the vacant, alien-like approaches to life that both share. That Christian Bale cited Cruise as an influence on his performance adds to the overall creepiness and seeming lack of humanity behind Tom Cruise in real life -- or at least in the real life he shows in interviews.
Beyond TC, I've seen that intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes in other people, and it never fails to send a shiver up the spine.
Not totally sure about the song (other than Miles using it for the video), but these words jump out:
I feel numb - born with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun
I'm just an animal looking for a home
Share the same space for a minute or two
Anyway, I thought the video was really well-done, especially the Paul Allen tape-blood, and the Dragonfly clip was pretty spot-on.
JE: If you've seen Talking Heads do this song (particularly in Jonathan Demme's "Stop Making Sense"), you know that's an entirely different experience than what Fisher does with it here. If you filter the song through "American Psycho" I think "I feel numb... I guess I must be having fun" would probably be the key lines. I added a reference to "Dexter" that isn't in the headline because the opening credits (which I'd written about before) show a sociopath putting himself together to appear "normal." I've written quite a bit about this "uncanny valley" effect in Cruise's work before, too. It has always struck me that he's focusing on mimicking human behavior without knowing how humans behave -- the blankness behind the eyes. It reads more like the impersonation of an alien (a body-snatcher pod person?!?!) than an actor, and I was intrigued to discover that Bale had seen the same thing I see, and had put it to use.
personally i've enjoyed the work of Bale and Crusie. The weirdness everyone talks about just adds to their personna and makes them more interesting. Think of it. How many people would watch or listen to a story about someone who was hardworking dependable steady as you go kinda fella. Most people today would find that boring althought it doesnt bore me. But then I kinda like Jimmy Stewart too.