The Wild Ways of Mr Sean Penn
Sean Penn is often admired as the greatest actor of his generation, endowed with a knack of longevity despite playing characters that are not particularly well-liked. This isn’t the same as the likes of Christopher Lee where recurring villainous roles fill a filmography out nicely, but rather that of espousing an acting ability so strong that an audience can get past his characters’ flaws, even be they rape and murder. This is not to say that audience likeability appears to bother Penn, and in fact, as an actor, he appears bothered that the audience is even part of his work. As he returns to directing however, the burden of the audience and the conveyance of a story would seem to rest much more on his shoulders, so what really is Sean Penn’s problem?
Penn doesn’t appear to be a media fan. He spends the entire conference we have sat cross-legged, with arms folded and speaks quickly and quietly, almost mumbling at points sending a worry around the room that nobody’s microphone would even pick it up. The only time he seems to have a real interest in the event is when he listens to star of his new film, Emile Hirsch, who is sat next to him, fit in a few words, breaking a smile like a proud father. This isn’t too big a surprise given the typical banality of these things compared with being on the set of his latest film, Into The Wild, carving out a gorgeous slice of old Americana, but you think he’d give us something to work with.
The impression that is given is one of love for his work, rather than the publicising of it, a standard for anyone with the credibility he has attained. His distaste for the media since his marriage to Madonna in the eighties seems to have stuck with him while she has simply turned to playing them like an eight year old girl manages Barbie dolls. But with a body of work like Penn’s, it is easy to understand why it is of more interest than how he’s living his personal life.
After a string of roles from the early eighties, he solidified his talent in the early nineties with Brian De Palma’s Carlito’s Way and then got the Academy talking with Tim Robbins’ Dead Man Walking by 1995. The latter performance saw him receive his first nod for playing a man on death row fighting for life with the help of a nun, Susan Sarandon, who walked away with her own statuette. From there, Penn moved into a different stream and in the early part of this century seemed to develop an interest in documentaries but still turned in outstanding performances in the likes of I Am Sam, 21 Grams and Mystic River, the latter of which secured him the Oscar. It is Sam however which offers possibly the best look at his range as an actor though, especially compared with River and Dead Man Walking, as his portrayal of an autistic father desperately trying to keep custody of his child (a young Dakota Fanning, before she became the token child in every film that required it) displays an innocence and character skills far removed from the violent personae of the other two.
Into The Wild doesn’t star Sean Penn however, it’s directed by him. The attempt at direction by stars can be a mixed bag though; for every Clint Eastwood success story (well, if success is judged on awards over integrity), there’s another handful who just thought that it looked too easy and were just hushed-up. Previous directorial efforts from Penn himself have received mixed response since his debut in the chair back in The Indian Runner (1991) and little known subsequent works, The Crossing Guard and The Pledge. With Into The Wild, Penn has certainly improved his talent as a storyteller along with his visual eye, but will it be sufficient to break free of the actor tag?
Here’s hoping so, for his sake, as Penn has a slightly surprising view of acting: “Most of why I acted in the last ten years was to steal film school time from these guys. Those were the choices I was making, looking at directors that I could learn from.” Whatever that says about the wider view actors hold of their profession, it’s surprising to hear such an opinion from someone near the top of the pile in terms of acting talent using it as a stepping stone. On direction he states: “If what you’re looking for is love and you’re looking for it every night in bars in Los Angeles, you’re lucky if once every five years you find what it is and then you’ll have affairs. In moviemaking, an affair with a piece of material is not going to cut it cause you gotta stay in love for years to get through it. I think I know more what I’m looking for in that love than before.”
It shouldn’t really come as such a surprise that Penn wants more than someone else’s words to work with. He’s had a very strong voice of his own in terms of politics, appearing quite publicly to denounce the Bush administration and their war in Iraq, so transposing that eloquence of opinion to a storytelling perspective would seem appealing. He certainly seems to display a real enthusiasm for accuracy in the detail he refers to in recreating the true story of Chris McCandless in this latest picture. Penn has had access to the greatest directing talent in Hollywood and beyond as he says, and it certainly seems he has plenty drive to focus his attentions on direction rather than acting. Could he be the next Clint Eastwood? Not if he wants to remain a rogue maverick.
