The “tragic performance” that infatuated Nicolas Cage
There’s nobody who does acting quite like Nicolas Cage, but he wouldn’t have been able to develop his own distinctive approach to the art form were it not for the litany of greats who came before.
The young Nicolas Coppola didn’t set out with the intention of breaking free from the constraints of his famous surname by reinventing the craft of acting. However, he ultimately did just that, tearing up the rulebook and delivering performances unlike any before him.
Drawing his influences and inspirations from far and wide, Cage channelled everything from German expressionism and kabuki theatre to shamanistic rituals and the method technique to curate his own bespoke signatures, which has left many of his peers celebrating him as being on a similar tier to Marlon Brando in terms of how they’ve reinvented their craft.
That’s a lofty accolade but also an entirely fitting one when Brando was just one of many touchstones for Cage growing up as an avid cinephile. It may have been James Dean’s East of Eden that showed him just how powerful screen acting could be and opened his eyes to the malleability of the medium, but he had to get a Brando flick in there, too.
However, as he explained to Rotten Tomatoes, it wasn’t the iconic star who captivated him the most when he saw the classic A Streetcar Named Desire. “Yes, I admired Marlon Brando and I know that he influenced James Dean and he really kind of changed the world of film acting with his naturalistic style,” he said. “But it was because of Vivien Leigh’s performance as Blanche DuBois that I would put that as one of my favourite movies.”
Expanding further, Cage’s love of Elia Kazan’s stage adaptation was driven by many factors, not least of all the work of its leading lady, who won an Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’ as a result. “Because of her dialogue, the Tennessee Williams dialogue, the music, Kazan’s direction, and Vivien Leigh’s delivery of lines like – I’m paraphrasing – but when she says, ‘The human heart, how can that be straight?’, you know.”
Praising the legendary actor for her “powerfully vulnerable, tragic performance,” the only reason why A Streetcar Named Desire endures as one of Cage’s favourite-ever films is “because that movie held that performance.” That’s lofty praise, especially when Brando’s contributions have become so iconic in their own right, but the Oscar-winning maverick is happy to give Leigh her share of the praise.
The lion’s share of the legacy left behind by A Streetcar Named Desire tends to fall on Brando’s transformative shoulders, but Leigh more than holds her own against her heavyweight scene partner, something that wasn’t lost on Cage.
