Characters Legendary...

Back to blogging after a long time! Have decided to kick-start this again and probably reinvent it. Seems that the monies earned by movies are not that fun to read about. Except maybe for the studios that make these movies. And since they are the ones who declare the figures, they will probably not be checking it up on my blog. So keeping the bucks away for the time being, figured to write on something that probably is easily the most debated and never easily accepted topics of all: The Greatest Characters of Hollywood! Goodness me, aren't there thousands of cool, grand, charismatic, witty, splendid characters that Hollywood has created or featured? And so the toughest job is to figure out the ones which would make to your top five list. Here is mine, like it or not.

5.  Dr. Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins): Thomas Harris created Dr. Lecter in his book series but it was Anthony Hopkins who really gave him life. Star of the 1991 classic The Silence of the Lambs, Anthony Hopkins made his first appearance as Dr. Hannibal Lecter in a phenomenal role that won him an Academy for Best Actor despite have a screen time of only 16 minutes. Now that is how you leave an impression! A brilliant psychiatrist, who is also a cannibal and a serial killer, Dr. Hannibal Lecter has been one of the strangest protagonists to appear on the large screen. He is not the good guy, mind you, for eating other people cannot be termed as ‘good’, but he is not the antagonist in the movie as well. Dr. Hannibal Lecter in fact plays an important part in the chase of another serial killer while at the same time scheming his own escape from the cell he has been put in. While one would shudder at the very thought of being near him (the way he hisses with his tongue while speaking to Clarice, remember?), one cannot but admire the brilliance of the mind that runs within this man. This duality is probably what made the character so intriguing. And for the brilliance of Anthony Hopkins, Dr. Hannibal Lecter would go down as one of the greatest roles enacted in cinematic history. (PS: A television series currently under-production called Hannibal too!)

4. The Joker (played by Heath Ledger): “Why so serious?” Words that would never fade from memory. A performance that would never fade with time. Heath Ledger gave the most outstanding performance of his career, and probably one of the greatest performances in cinema as Joker in The Dark Knight that rightly won him the Academy for Best Supporting Actor. While the script was water-tight, the dialogues were exceptionally well-written and Heath Ledger had lots of literature to fall back upon to understand the character he was about to play, he managed to weave everything so beautifully so as to carve out a niche performance that made Joker of The Dark Knight simply his own. The true nemesis of Batman, the Joker has always been the scariest of them all, relying on trickery and delusions rather than brute force. While the name is misleading, Joker is no fool, posing problems for Batman that brings out the best from Gotham’s saviour. “You complete me!” is what Heath Ledger’s Joker says to Batman towards the end. And that is how he played this character, the missing piece of the jigsaw, a perfect adversary to Batman, focused on destroying everything that Batman stood for. A character famous amongst all comic fans, a character that will now forever bring to the minds of one and all Heath Ledger’s extraordinary performance. R.I.P. Heath!  

3. Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando): As the legendary story goes, Francis Ford Copolla had to work hard to convince Marlon Brando for undergoing a make-up test to play the role of Vito Corleone, and for which Brando filled his mouth with cotton balls so as to give what is now the legendary puffed-up cheeks look. And thus came to life the famous and unforgettable character of Don Corleone from the pages of Mario Puzo's ambitious novel, The Godfather. Strangely enough, Don Corleone too demonstrates the grey patches that lie between right and wrong. A Mafia Don, a criminal mastermind with people on the streets ready to kill for him, and yet he serves justice in his own way. He fights for his family and his people, he bends rules where he thinks they need to be reworked, he does favours for his men, expects loyalty in return. His code book punishes treachery with death. And who is to say he is wrong? An eye for an eye, when needed. But business is simply business, in other times. Marlon Brando brought these qualities of Vito Corleone with ease and finesse, an elegance that made you understand the character better, and rejoice with him in the good times while grieve with him during the dark ones. Awarded the Academy for Best Actor for this classic film of 1972, Don Corleone is a character that will never age with time.

2. T-800 Terminator (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger): For teens, many will say! Well if you were a teenager when this epic sc-fi action packed film rolled out in 1991, or if you were not but seen it for the first time as a teenager, it will never ever leave your psyche. That cool black leather jacket, the grunting bike, the dark shades and the 'I'll be back' line, these would continue to linger and never lose their touch. Terminator 2 impacted popular culture, defined sci-fi once again, made one-liners the coolest thing in town. It was not just an action movie, but held a deeper message talking control and power and the potential of its misuse, of the naivety of handing over of power by man to machine and its impact that one fails to see. With limited dialogues and expressions, the character of Terminator needed an actor who would grab the attention of the audience simply by his presence. And no one could have done this better than the former Mr. Olympia, Arnie! Do what he may, the tag of Terminator would never leave him. Such has been his impact in the franchise that they modelled a brief cameo of a younger version of him in the latest instalment, just to fill in that void. The iconic theme of the Terminator plays repeatedly in my head as I relive once again the Terminator clad in all-black roll over in his bike and step down with a handgun in his hand. Ah, what a way to begin the 90s!

1. Darth Vader: Power, style, hunger and greed, a red lightsaber, ability to move objects and bend people's minds, the greatest character for me to have ever graced the cinematic world has these all. And he would too ask the same question of what exactly is good and what is coined as evil. The antagonist of the original Star Wars trilogy, Darth Vader or Anakin Skywalker turns out to the protagonist of the prequels. George Lucas has, in this epic saga, mapped out the journey of Skywalker, a young Jedi, who grows up believing in the teachings of his masters, in the good within the world, but eventually gets drawn to the dark side of the Force, lured in order to save his loved ones. It is a journey each one of us would engage in during our lives, when in the toughest of times you start questioning all that you ever believed in and are forced to choose between the paths of the Jedi or the Sith (maybe not that dramatic, but you get the point). Played by Hayden Christiansen as the younger version, Darth Vader would be more remembered for the voice of James Earl Jones in the original trilogy and especially the loud breaths that Vader would take, sending a shiver through many a spines. Vader would be remembered for his dark skull-like mask, for his flowing black cape. Vader would be remembered not only as the Jedi who turned against his masters, but the father who still loved, a husband who cared, and a Jedi who eventually realised that there was still some good left in him after all. A lesson to take, from the greatest movie character to have ruled this galaxy or any... far far away...