7 - 13 March 2002
Issue No.576
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 March 2002 Issue No.576 |
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Limelight
Olé Toro!
The brave young "torero", eager and proud, yet weary and guarded, viewed his bold opponent. Nervously, the mighty bull gazed with brilliant piercing eyes, pounding chest, undaunted courage and unflinching defiance. His blood rushed to his head, his horns restless and anxious, his hooves beating the ground, ready to attack, ready to charge. He is that bull! He is Benicio del Toro. The viewing public eagerly awaits his every charge.
"How strangely and how quickly everything is happening" he thought. It has taken -- only a lifetime -- yet it feels as if it happened overnight. He smiled as he raced on the highway. He was on his way to the most important film festival in the U.S. There, he would receive the Piper Heidsieck award for "Significant Contribution to Independent Film". What an honour! He raced on to Sundance, Utah.
Every January the Sundance Film Institute holds its International Film Festival. 'Sundance' was established 20 years ago by actor/ director Robert Redford, and a group of colleagues and friends, in order to enhance the artistic vitality of the American film. Eager to support screenwriters and directors of vision, the festival has grown in prestige and stature to become the most sought after venue by all filmmakers. Redford's dream has come to full fruition. This year's honoree for 2001 is Puerto Rican-born actor, writer, director, Benicio del Toro. What a year it has been for Benicio. A string of honours, twenty in all, including the Oscar. "Papa refers to me now as his son, the actor" he laughed from his heart. But it was not always so. "Papa freaked out" when his youngest son announced his intentions to become an actor. The family could not understand! Mother, father, grandfathers, uncles and cousins were all lawyers. He always thought that he would be one too.
Beniciao del Toro -- the screen's new heartthrob
Benicio del Toro Monserrate Rafael Sanchez was born in Santruce, Puerto Rico in February 1967. His mother died when he was nine. Three years later his father moved the family to Southern Pennsylvania, in the U.S. Benicio attended the private academy of Mercersburg, then joined the University of San Diego. During his first year at USD he registered for an acting class. He was smitten. He moved to New York to study at New York's "Circle in the Square" Acting School. Four years later he joined acting guru Stella Adler in Los Angeles. His brooding intensity landed him several guest roles on television, which led ultimately to the role of the youngest ever "Bond" villain in Licence to Kill (1989). He was only 21. Though his performance was commendable, the film was a disappointment. The great break was to come 5 years and 10 films later in The Usual Suspects; with only a few minutes on camera he was awarded an "Independent Spirit Award" for best supporting actor. Hollywood stopped and noticed. His remarkably subtle work made him one of the fastest rising stars in the business. In 1996 he won another "Independent Spirit Award" for Basquiat, which he did without pay, as a favour to his friend, painter and first time director Julian Schnabel. His chameleon quality landed him a variety of roles giving him a range seldom available in Hollywood. He played a slow-witted Indian who flames out tragically in Sean Penn's The Pledge; a flashy Jewish jewel thief Franky Four Fingers in Guy Ritchie's Snatch; a low life kidnapper in The Way of the Gun; the drug crazed lawyer Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
His free bold spirit thrilled and amazed directors and fellow actors. Ed Harris, his co-star in China Moon was "blown away" by him: "Benicio has a wonderful mind. It's like firecrackers going off. He's got these great ideas that just explode!" He kept getting better. The viewing public began to notice, when his career caught fire in the role of con man Fred Fenster in Bryan Singer's stirring ensemble crime/ drama The Usual Suspects. Matt Damon's comment: "the guy just goes out and thinks. He's a genius."
Blessed with exotic good looks, a 6ft 2 frame, a full head of raven black hair highlighted with a few grey strands, Benicio possesses a burning fire from within, hidden by a pair of sleepy eyes entrenched within droopy eye-lids. With his ever so high cheekbones and protruding lips he is often called the "Spanish Brad Pitt". His sensitivity is more reminiscent of James Dean while his power evokes a young Marlon Brando. His Latin passion puts him in the same class as Al Pacino or Robert De Niro. Both realistic and romantic, he sees things and feels things unseen and unfelt by ordinary mortals. When Steven Soderbergh came knocking in 2001, Benicio was more than ready, after 20 films and 12 years of hard work. The role of Mexican policeman, Javier Ramirez in Traffic-- was custom--made for him. Together, actor and director, cultivated an intense friendship often spending up to three hours discussing the daily shoot. The actor says his relation with the director is "akin to a love affair. Like anyone in a great relationship, I need encouragement." He got all the encouragement he needed from his director. The effort paid off. They both won Oscars last year for Traffic. Obsessed with his work, he creates a buzz around him and turns one magic performance after another. "When I act, everything else ceases to exist". Incredibly talented, yet keen to learn "he draws the camera like a magnet because he keeps coming up with things that are dark, brooding, dangerous and sexy". He has made five films since Traffic and the praise comes pouring in from every direction. "As a director, you don't ask him where it comes from, you just capture it". Actor/ director Sean Penn is quoted as saying "He's like an acting animal, this guy who comes out of the forest to make movies better". Now, studio moguls, producers, directors, writers, critics, reporters and audiences all know and love the work of del Toro.
If you missed his portrayal of Fred Fenster in The Usual Suspects, you surely must have caught his performance as Ramirez in Traffic. If you have missed them both, and you value art at its finest, be on the lookout for the next marquee with the name 'Benicio del Toro'. He costars with Tommy Lee Jones in The Hunted scheduled for release this fall. With his explosive nature, his brilliant intellect, his animalistic instincts, each performance will surely be one to savour and relish. Voted one of the 50 most beautiful people by "People Magazine", as well as the most eligible bachelor, he now has his pick of independent and mainstream scripts. With the grace of a reindeer, the skill of a tiger, the doggedness of a bull, he will pounce at you again and again leaving his imprint on your innermost soul. The sky is the limit for this young talent. He will make you laugh, he will make you cry, he will make you stomp your feet. Rising from his heart is a poignant cry of both joy and sorrow, as primeval as an ancient mammoth, glorified by imagination and genius. Like everyone else, you too "shall be blown away".
Do it now, do it then, but when you view his art and resolve to toast this new great actor, I suggest you do it with style in the grand Castilian manner of his ancestors. Click your heels, raise your hat, and passionately salute him and cheer, in his native tongue, "Olé Toro"!
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