John Malkovich has a fascinating screen presence that has as much to do with the roles he plays as the looks and voice God gave him. Like Marlon Brando, both possess oddly contrasting features -- strong brows and dead eyes, winning chins and lisps. It is qualities like these that allow their characters' their powers of ambiguity.
In Stephen Frear's Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Malkovich plays an 18th century aristocrat and sexual predator, and that should be enough (Malkovich recently played a Harvey Weinstein-like character in David Mamet's Bitter Wheat, 2019), but there's more. Check out Roger Ebert's review. Ebert writes like he's read the DL source book and seen its stage adaptation. For more on Malkovich, here's a recent lockdown-era profile in The Guardian.
After watching DL the other night I awoke the next morning from the dream it inspired. For there I was, my ten-year-old self drawn once again to the energy of the paper shack, those 6'x8' pitch-roofed British Racing Green painted huts on skids that the Vancouver Sun dumped in back alleys, where paperboys gathered after school to collect and fold their papers. The shack I remember best was in the dusty alley behind the Big Scoop at West 41st and Balsam. Among the older paperboys was a mincing, drippy bully who dominated the scene while at the same time appeared indifferent to it. I wonder who, what and where he is today?
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