Earlier today I was informed by a friend that this was not just any ordinary Monday, March 31 2008 is also the day that Christopher Walken turns 65! Being the official age of retirement here in Sweden, mr Walken shows no sign of slowing down. Turning out more than five new movies a year at an agerage, Walken only seems to get more productive as he ages. So a big "Hep Hep Hooray" is in order to the king of hairstyles!
I've always had the theory that to sucessfully portrait a antagonist in a movie, the key is more than often the hair! To fulfill the criteria of true villainy, our antagonist must spot a really crazy hair-do to truly distance himself and his wicked ways from the viewing audience, filling them with discomfort or even fear for what that mad man and his hairdoo will do next.
This phenomena does'nt just apply to movie villains, it would seem that "the walken" hair phenomenon can be applied to much of creative (indie) hollywood as a whole, Christopher Walken is just the top of the iceberg, following (or leading) in a great American hair tradition of other creatives such as Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Cosmo Kramer and David Cronenberg. 'Big Walken Hair >= Creative Genius', seems to be an equation that holds atleast some truth to it.
Interestingly enough, this seems to be solely an American phenomenon, you rarely if ever see this kind of hairstyle in Europe, I sure as hell would wanna be able to spot this kind of hairdoo, having tried and failed in the past. Finish indie king Aki Kaurismaki also dabbled around with a style of 'doo in the 80s, but later gave up for a more traditional haircut as he never quite got it right. Is this kind of hair genetically predisposed to the American population, is it something in the food, I honestly don't know, but it baffles and filles me with envy on a daily basis.
Well, this hypothetical theory had to be tried out, using utmost sofisticated scientifical thinking, I present you with a theorem that will baffle critical philosophers for eons: THE SINISTER HAIR THEORY:
The Deer Hunter(1978) - Nick
Walken starts off with a fairly regular haircut (if somewhat ungroomed), being a fairly normal person back in rural america, but as the events unfold in the Vietnam POW camp ending in Walken playing russian roulette for kicks, Walken digresses further and further into insanity, and so does his haircut. Not a crazy haircut per se, just a very unwashed short 'do, crowned with a giant red (kinda crazy looking) bandana. The final verdict on sinisterness v.s. veird harcut is
Weird Hairness - 5 out of ten (actually a three, and that is only in the last part of the movie, but a colored bandana automatically adds two points of craziness to all scores)
Evilness - well, not really crazy evil, but highly deluded at the end and as so, a danger to the general public so a three is in order.
The Prophecy(1995) - Gabriel
In the Prophecy, Walken portraits the archangel Gabriel, who comes to Earth to collect a soul which will end the stalemated war in Heaven (to the "bad sides" favour). Yeah, you guessed it, playing Gabriel and doing the work of satan (Viggo Mortensen) doesn't get you any points for being a nice guy. Plus, walken is spotting a real crazy backslick that looks glued on! Final sinisterness v.s. veird harcutness is a booming:
Weird Hairness - 9 out of ten, Rocking a toupé that looks glued on is - if not the height of weirdness, at least aspiring to the throne!
General Evilness - Doing the work of satan, a solid 10 out of 10, which makes it an almost perfect correlation between hair vs evil!
A View To A Kill(1985) - Max Zorin
Max Zorin, supervillain of the James Bond movie A View To A Kill was the result of Nazi medical experimentation during World War II, in which pregnant women were injected with massive quantities of steroids in an attempt to create "super-children." Most of the pregnancies failed but the few surviving babies grew to become extraordinarily intelligent—but also psychopathic.
Hair Weirdness - Dyed White, an extra high backslick that works wonders in combination with Walkens already high hairline, giving it a very aristocratic coneheadish appearance. Not Lyle lovett crazy hair in any sense, but it has a nice toned-down calculating weirdness to it - a solid 7 out of ten!
Evilness - Superintelligent nazi-baby, KGB affiliation, tries to destroy his competition in Silicon Valley by triggering a massive earthquake, causing the valley to flood - not a danger to man kind as a whole but still, pretty fucking evil! a 6 out of ten!
The Dead Zone(1983) - Johnny Smith
In the 1983 movie The Dead Zone (Directed by fellow excentric hairperson David Chronenberg) Walken starrs as a New England schoolteacher, who after a car accident that sends him into a coma wakes up after five years only to finds out he has the ability to see into the future.
Hair Weirdness - Not any actually, Walken opted for a lot of mousse and hairdrying in this early role, the consequence of course being the character turns out to be our storys hero.
Evilness of character- Quite the oposite, Walkens character prevents a nuclear holocaust, presumably saving all of civilization, possibly thanks to his very normal 'do, hence the sinister hair theorem holds true!
Balls of Fury(2007) - Feng
Ping-Pong comedy (Eat your heart out pingpong Kingen), starring Walken as master criminal Fong, hosting a "sudden death" Ping Pong tournament – everyone who loses is shot with a poisoned dart and dies.
Hair-craziness: Not so much as one might believe.. Yes, Walkens hairdo's are clearly over-the-top, but the genius of Walkens weird hairdo's lies not in general hair volume but in the small details of it. Doing a Luis XIV and adding a bigass braid does'nt make a Walken hairdo. Walken generally does not let the hardo wear him, but the other way around.. Not so in this movie, a weak 2!
General sinisterness: Yes, Walken trades in arms, and yes, he kills people with poisenous darts for the pure fun of it. One can not help but to feel that under this hard shell lies the heart of a young ping-pong loving boy, beautifully portrayed in Walkens low key acting as the fragile Fong. A 1 (out of 10) in wickedness!
A Blast From The Past(1999) - Calvin Webber
Walken portrais a eccentric and paranoid nuclear physicist. His extreme fear of a nuclear holocaust leads him to build an enormous self-sustaining fallout shelter beneath his Los Angeles home. A jet plane crashed in the proximity of his house leaving Walken to think he and his family are the sole survivors of a nuclear war. They subsecuently lock themself into the shelter for 35 years.
Hair Weirdness - This is classic Walken crazyness - a classic crewcut style with just that small, small hint of fluff going on in selected places. The kind of hairdo Robert DeNiro probably lusted over for his cast when making the Good Shepard, but of course never perfected. A hairstyle that wispers of eccentricism, paranoia and madness, perfected only by one man! A solid 10 out of ten, what else?
Evilness of character - On the surface, Walken portraits a scholar and a scientist, i.e. a well educated man with a family. It's pretty hard to believe he is oblivious to that there isn't any war going on outside his bunker, which leaves us to believe he is holding his family captive in the underground shelter just for the pure evil of it. A charachter much in the line with Buffalo Bill, John Wayne Gacy, and other unplesant people, resulting in a whoppering 10 out of ten for Evilness. Once again, perfect correlation and hence our theorem once again holds true!
*Edit
Other Walken Hair-Classics are The Hessian Horseman in Sleepy Hollow (10/10 in both wickedness and harweirdness), Vincenzo Coccotti in True Romance (7/7, sporting a classic crazy mafioso harstyle tortureing Dennis Hopper), Colonel Cutten in Antz (8/9 , Quite clearly a very unpleasant faschist ant with weird ant hair).. Theorem still holds...
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar