A PRIVILEGE TO WATCH
Pete Postlethwaite had perhaps the best face in the movie business. Whatever mood or emotion was needed to set the feel of a scene in a film, Pete provided it instantly, with just a quick and penetrating glare of that ever-ready, ever-rugged face that didn’t carry a movie, but sure provided the texture and grit that made a movie more than that, his presence made it a film.
His face was a Stonehengeof realism and truth, and always played well against the leads, whether male or female, as they were usually handsome or beautiful, and his craggy visage was a counterpoint that made his scenes bigger than they were written. He has been with us for at least twenty-five years, but he never aged. Yet his face gave us the picture of a man who had survived hard times, and they had scarred him.
Postlethwaite, however, could use that face to make us believe he was handsome, with pain behind the smile, or mean, brutal, and violent, and at
times even gentle before the lens.
I remember him first, I believe, from “In the Name of the Father”, the true-life story of the Guidford Four, where men were wrongfully arrested and imprisoned in Belfast in the 70’s, where he was Guiseppe Conlon, the clean, law-abiding, hard working father of Gerry Conlon, played by Daniel Day-Lewis who gets wrongfully arrested for the Guiford pub bombings. Guiseppe gets arrested, too, as he tried to rescue his son.
Postlethwaite was nominated for an Oscar for that role, most likely for the scene in which Gerry finds his father in the same prison, and there is so much anguish when he sees the prison guards humiliating his father, Postlethwaite, and covering him with powder used for ridding lice. Postlethwaite’s face is ghostlike, and the impression will ever be with you. It was a commanding performance of a heartbreaking figure who died in the prison before his son was released.
The role he played was so powerful it forced many on both sides of the Irish violence to take a look at compromise, and led to the Good Friday agreement that ended the violence.
In his last film, he played Fergie Colm, in Ben Affleck’s stunning film, “The Town”, a perfect villain, a role so tough the film spun on his reaction to anything.
Of course, Postlethwaite reached the status of cult figure, nourished and loved, for his role as the menacing and mysterious Mr. Kobayashi in “The Usual Suspects”, Bryan Singer’s dark crime drama. The plot flipped and turned and dazzled and twisted all over the world and left us gasping for air, not knowing who to believe or trust. And Mr. Kobayashi, the sinister representative of the world’s evil monster, Keyser Soze, appeared to provide by his look, questions, fear, mystery, so many things, specially given by someone so different from anyone else.
Every director wanted to work with him, and when Steven Spielberg produced “Amistad” in 1997, the true story of a slave mutiny, Postlethwaite played another villain, the attorney without a soul, William S. Holabird, who tried to suppress evidence of illegal slave trading that would free the mutiny organizer, Cinque ( the name taken by the leader of the Symbionese Liberation Army leader, Donald Freese) and his fellow slaves. Spielberg was awed by his command, and seemed bewitched by his character. Spielberg labeled him as “the best actor in the world.” But of course, Postlewaite was also humble, and said that Spielberg must have said that “he thinks that he’s the best actor in the world.”
He played many roles, and through his amazing work in them, he became one of the most loved and admired, revered and studied, and of course, in-demand actors on the planet.
Postlethwaite’s appearance was so austere and real, and his acting pure brilliance. He was a treasure of measure, a man who deserved so much recognition, and any movie he was in notched a bit higher just because of his presence.
Goodbye, Pete Postlethwaite, we will all miss you. Dearly.
