Cellars of IMDb: Cary Elwes is the Best Damn Robin Hood You'll Ever See
Last week we left off with Dave Chappelle's feature film debut, 1993's Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which, I assume no one read since there were no comments. Today we'll look at the greatest Robin Hood ever to grace the silver screen, Cary Elwes.



Why is Cary Elwes the greatest Robin Hood ever to grace the silver screen? Unlike some Robin Hoods, he can speak with an English accent. Sheer talent also played something of a part in his triumph as the prince of thieves. Certainly Errol Flynn may have a somewhat more storied career, but honestly, the man spent twenty-five years playing himself before keeling over. Like Elwes, however, those classic looks went a long way towards establishing his career.



For Cary Elwes the story begins in London. A young man by the name of Ivan Simon Cary-Elwes is born to a family tree containing a number of prominent clergymen and is even an altar boy for a time. Somehow he managed to escape that upbringing and ended up at Sarah Lawrence in New York, where he studied acting and cinema for a time. He never graduated, instead leaving to pursue a career in the pictures. Strangely enough this seems to have worked out in his favor. From the very first step his career seemed a steady progression toward greatness. Each acclaimed role led to another.

His first true role* was in the acclaimed Another Country.



Another Country is the story of Guy Bennet (Rupert Everett), an unapologetic homosexual trying to get by in a 1930's British public school. Bennet is based on a real character, Guy Burgess, who goes on to become a Soviet spy with a fantastic degree of success before eventually escaping to the Soviet Union where he would live out the rest of his days. Colin Firth, in his film debut, plays Guy's mentor in Marxism and fellow outcast of the British public school system. Interestingly both men (and Daniel Day-Lewis) played the role of Bennet in stage productions of Another Country. Cary Elwes takes on the part of James Harcourt, the object of Bennet's passionate love.



On the strength of that performance, Trevor Nunn, director of the Royal Shakespeare Company for nearly twenty years, selected him to be Guilford Dudley, the male lead in 1986's Lady Jane.



The film, now all but forgotten, brought Cary and his costar, the ever unattractive Helena Bonham Carter, rave reviews. Another historically based story, Lady Jane presents a rather contrived romance blossoming between Guilford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey, two exceedingly well-connected youths (children really, Dudley is spoiled playboy, Grey is fifteen years old and acts it) arranged into marriage. Their parents had hoped their machinations would put the young couple on the throne, but this is British history: it's apt to end in blood. Though there is little evidence to suggest that the couple actually fell in love (it's not particularly likely that they even consummated the marriage), Elwes and Carter are passionate and wholly convincing.

So convincing that director Rob Reiner immediately cast him in The Princess Bride, released the next year.



His first shot at comedy, Elwes is a resounding success. The Princess Bride is that rare movie that is really and truly impossible for anyone to dislike. At once a swashbuckling fantasy adventure, a paean to true love, an entertaining comedy, a cute family picture, and all the gradations between. In light of this it is truly remarkable that Cary Elwes manages to make a hugely lasting impression as what could have been something of a generic love interest.



Robin Wright makes little to no lasting impression as his one true love, Buttercup, although Buttercup is admittedly a far less juicy character. The problem with these central roles is that they often find themselves standing back as the character come out to play as comic relief and steal the limelight away for good. Veteran performers Wallace Shawn and Billy Crystal both turn in unforgettable performances, while the professional wrestler Andre the Giant served as the film's heart, and singer Mandy Patinkin is now inextricably bound to the most famous line of the film, "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Surrounded by the strength of these actors having the time of their lives it is simplicity itself to recede into nothing but a pretty straight man. Elwes plays farmboy Westley with style and panache and perfect comic timing. Even in his darkest moments Westley is engaging and a pleasure to watch.



If you see one of this week's movies make it this one, make it this one. This is Cary Elwes' finest moment and it stands up to Reiner's previous shining moments, the original mockumentary This is Spinal Tap and the previously featured Stand by Me.

After The Princess Bride we don't see many more leading roles. Sure, the success of that film led directly to his appearance in the aforementioned Robin Hood: Men in Tights, but instead, for the most part, Elwes found himself far more in demand for roles of varying degrees of villainy. For the most part, Elwes' roles in the nineties have played on his charming accent and boyish good looks in one way or another.

Quite frequently he shows up as "the competition," either in straight-up testosterone-fueled dick-waving in Hot Shots



Or as romantic competition (the leads of these films tend to be lacking in the boyish good looks and charming accent departments).


Twister



Liar, Liar



The rest of the time his looks and his accent served as counterpoint to his nefarious character. It showed up innocently enough in the mediocre Comic Book Villains and the wildly popular Ella Enchanted.



He played undeniable villains in these films, but they were of the charming, somewhat bumbling sort.





Likewise his character in Saw was no villain, but a character of questionable appeal nonetheless.**



Far more often he has been seen pairing his innocent face with truly loathsome personalities. From a petty gang leader in Leather Jackets to bigoted officers in Glory and The Jungle Book to truly monstrous characters in The Riverman and Kiss the Girls.





There is another theme running through Cary Elwes' career completely independent of the roles. Elwes' love of history is the thread that binds his career together. Looking back over his career we see a profusion of period pieces (some historical some less so) primarily dealing with the medieval period, but stretching well up into the twentieth century (he's slated to play the young Pope John Paul II in the the upcoming biopic). Having studied film in college, he has also shown a predilection for portraying historical filmmakers; he's stepped behind the camera while on camera in four separate films, most notably Shadow of the Vampire as Fritz Wagner. Shadow of the Vampire is presented as a look behind the scenes at the production of the classic horror film Nosferatu. The film supposes that Max Schreck, the mysterious dancehall actor hired to play the title role, was so haunting acting as a vampire because he was not, in fact, acting. It is difficult to imagine just how overjoyed Elwes, a student of the German Expressionist movement in film, must have been to work on this particular project, though his performance is all but forgotten in the wake of Willem Dafoe's Oscar-nominated performance as the literally blood-thirsty Max Schreck.

And that concludes another Cellars of IMDb and another week here at Lemon Party. If you have any ideas as to which actors to look into in the future feel free to comment. Or if you simply enjoyed this series or this particular update I'll be glad to hear from you. I'm not expecting much, though. I know it's hard for you guys to take the thirty seconds to leave a message.


And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.


*He and his brother appeared briefly in Yesterday's Hero

**I'd like to take a moment to discuss Saw, which is the sort of film that got very sharp reactions, whether they were positive or negative. In truth the film is deserving of both reactions. For a film produced in eighteen days (filmed in six) on a shoestring budget, it is a truly fantastic film. That's obviously a cop-out though. Taken at face value the movie has some problems.



Actually it has one problem, the final reel. Saw is a horror-thriller with, you guessed it, a twist at the end. The problem is that twist doesn't actually make any sense when you stop to think about it. In the last five minutes most of the plot comes tumbling down like a house of cards. Some of the problems are merely of implausibility, which certainly detract from the experience but can be dealt with. Plenty of impossible things happen as well, and this yet another movie where the cops through common sense and procedure out the window for plot purposes. The acting is also frequently called out as well, which is unsurprising considering that the majority of the scenes were filmed in a single take. Actually the acting is more than acceptable. Every choice is made very consciously and often what seems like poor acting is on the part of the character rather than the actor. The problem with the acting is, in a certain sense, a problem of acting too well. Cary Elwes in particular portrays his character in a way that, while technically realistic and entirely possible, is at moments so aggressively different from the way the audience becomes accustomed to seeing him that it becomes ludicrous.



The film has also been derided for certain plot similarities to numerous other films, most notably, Se7en. Yes, Saw is a film about a psychotic serial killer. Yes, that topic has been covered before. Yes, there are plot similarities to Se7en. All these things are true, but Saw takes a new spin on archetype that I myself have never seen before. Jigsaw, the killer, is a far more remarkable sort of villain than Se7en's John Doe, although Se7en really is a much better picture. It's tempting to go into greater detail here, but Saw is a film worth watching. The premise is entertaining and mildly thought-provoking, the story is paced well and develops excellently into an explosive climax of just the right sort: there are enough clues along the way that you could have figured the twist out, but still you succumbed to the picture's grasp. A moment or two later you'll look back the implications of that twist and cringe, but for most of the ride one ought to be satisfied.
- posted by Odovaucer @ 12:01 AM