| I want to suggest why Mark
Ruffalo's portrayal of the prodigal brother Terry in the recent movie You Can Count on
Me is intensely engaging: Because, I dare say, we are watching an actor at work,
which is not to say we are watching the labor or effort of the work. We are seeing the
work being worked because we are seeing Ruffalo thinking. His thinking may come in flashes
as when he confronts Rudy, Sr., or it may settle into a moment of cogitation as when he
considers how to handle the priest. We see him thinking what Terry needs to do about the
immediate situation, whatever it is, in which he finds himself. It is this quality of
transparency that engages us. Benicio Del Toro seems to have it in Traffic.
Marlon Brando has it in everything. Laura Linney, Ruffalo's costar in You Can Count on
Me, does not have it. What she has is an estimable capacity for experiencing the role
-- and Sammy is a difficult, psychologically split role -- but we don't see her working.
We see the result of decisions she has already made, rather than see her deciding. Her
responses were figured out before the cameras began rolling. Ruffalo, however, is still
figuring things out before our eyes -- not the plot or the objective of the scene or the
psychological nature of the character -- but the situation. Time and again Ruffalo
is discovering, sometimes in an instant, how to live as Terry in Terry's situation. He is
figuring out what to do about where he is, when he is, and with whom he is, which defines
a live character succinctly: Someone who has been put into given circumstances to which he
or she must respond. Ruffalo is thinking, not pretending to think, and we see it in his
eyes. Ruffalo reveals the mind of the character. As Terry, he tells his girlfriend,
"I love you," and for an infinitesimal second glances away. In answer to a
question he shakes his head up and down and says, "No." He is served a salad in
a restaurant and removes some lettuce. Notice how he drives his sister Sammy's car,
looking up and over the wheel, actually seeing the road, actually driving, while harboring
concern for his nephew beside him. He shelters a cigarette inside the palm of his hand and
holds beer inside his cheeks before swallowing. When he climbs the hill to the cemetery
where his parents are buried, he keeps one hand hitched in his back pocket. His responses
to Terry's situation are more creative than logical, more poetic than naturalistic. His
way of acting is not literal. It is indirect, thoughtful, and engaging.
I haven't experienced Ruffalo's other acting ventures (except getting excoriated by
Stella Adler on the PBS video, if that beleaguered student actor is in fact Ruffalo). I
don't know if he possesses a range, with the ability to play a variety of types. I don't
know if he has the skill not to repeat himself. I'm eager to see what he will bring to his
next performance. I want to know that his work in You Can Count on Me is not a
fluke but is the herald of an actor well born. |
