Dahorror of Dentures
It’s impossible to focus on just one aspect of Willem Dafoe right now because SO MUCH IS HAPPENING. Our guy has been everywhere promoting Poor Things, with engagement after engagement. If there’s one thing people say about Dafoe, it’s that he has energy. Some people get tired of the endless demands of the movie promotional machine; not Willem. He’s having a great time wherever he goes. So without further ado, here’s what Willem’s been up to.
Willem’s been… getting his Walk of Fame star
Thanks to all my little birds for alerting me to this development. Dafoe was honored with speeches from Patricia Arquette (“He always delivers”) and Pedro Pascal (“He redefines the concept of rebel and originality by making it about generosity, integrity, kindness, and fun. Willem is a good time and an amazing friend.”)
In his speech, Dafoe gave a shoutout to his fellow son of Appleton, WI, Harry Houdini. After thanking everyone who’s there, he finishes by honoring his wife, filmmaker Giada Colagrande. “[She] teaches me gratitude and reminds me not to spit on my luck.”
Willem’s been… visiting the Criterion closet
Since I just subscribed to the Criterion Channel this month, I was thrilled to see Willem step into the closet to pick out some DVDs. Maybe I’ll watch a few before the newsletter, I thought.
But nope, because the excited Dafoe selects twelve movies. Sorry, baby, that’s too many! Most people pick six or seven, but Dafoe’s just excited to get in there, putting on glasses and stepping on chairs to see everything. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve only seen three of his picks (The Piano Teacher, 8 1/2, and Life Aquatic.)
There are a lot of things celebs are forced to endure in the promotional content machine. The Criterion Closet is the only one I would ever personally aspire to enjoy.
Willem’s been… explaining why nobody watches art films
Dafoe made headlines with comments about nobody watching “challenging” movies at home. While it sounds a little elitist in headline form, I’ll start by saying he’s not wrong.
“...the kind of attention that people give at home isn’t the same. More difficult movies, more challenging movies can not do as well, when you don’t have an audience that’s really paying attention. That’s a big thing. I miss the social thing of where movies fit in the world. You go see a movie, you go out to dinner, you talk about it later, and that spreads out. People now go home, they say, ‘Hey, honey, let’s watch something stupid tonight,’ and they flip through and they watch five minutes of 10 movies, and they say, forget it, let’s go to bed. Where’s that discourse found?”
He’s right! He said the exact words my mom used to my father and now my husband uses to me. And let she who has never sat through six hours of Love Island Australia throw the first stone. That said, let’s prove ourselves to Willem. If you’ve come this far, commit to watching one “difficult” movie this month. Phone down. Maybe one from Dafoe’s list.
Willem’s been… owning an alpaca
Mark Ruffalo made headlines earlier this summer when he posted photos of him hanging out with buddy Dafoe and an alpaca. But now we know, that alpaca has a daddy, and that daddy IS Dafoe. At home in Italy, Dafoe dabbles as a “gentleman farmer,” caring for chicken, turkeys, sheep, and yes, alpacas.
“Each one is very distinct,” Dafoe said of alpacas. “With sheep and goats, some you know well, some have names and they really stick, but some are just sheep and goats. But every alpaca, you have a whole particular relationship with, and you know their character.”
Unrelated: I met some elderly retired llama farmers at a retirement community over the holidays. I had a lot of questions about llamas, and they reported that llamas are like big cats. The couple often took their llamas to other retirement communities before they moved into one, and they swore to me that a llama would never pee inside. Too smart.
Anyway, let’s get to the feature.
Wild at Heart: The movie with teeth
First thing’s first: it ain’t streaming. I had to buy a blu-ray of this movie, but I’ll loan it out to whoever wants to watch, because I think it’s worth it.
Wild at Heart follows Laura Dern (as sexy baby sweetheart Lula) and Nicolas Cage (as Elvis-obsessed bad boy Sailor) as they road trip across America to escape her controlling, murderous mother (Diane Ladd, Dern’s real life mother.)
As you might expect from director David Lynch, the movie is sexy, violent, theatrical, weird, and slippery. It alludes frequently to The Wizard of Oz, though I’m not sure if you can say it’s an allusion if you’re saying the name of the movie, name checking the yellow brick road, and dressing up Diane Ladd as the Wicked Witch of the West, complete with cackle. The pacing in the second act was a little limp, but it’s the first film featured in this newsletter that I unabashedly love.
Reasonable people disagree. Wild at Heart won the Palme D’Or in 1990; the announcement was met with mixed boos and cheers, with fellow Midwesterner Roger Ebert leading the boos. Early edits of the film saw dozens of people filing out of their screenings during violent scenes. Wild at Heart has built up more goodwill with critics in the decades since its release, but it’s still divisive.
But you’re not here for the critics. You’re here for Willem, and you’ll have to wait a good long time for him to slither onscreen. Despite being billed third, Dafoe’s role is small, though certainly memorable. He plays lowlife criminal Bobby Peru, who sexually harasses Lula and manipulates Sailor into committing a robbery.
People say Dafoe can play creepy. But they don’t know creepy from Bobby Peru. Dafoe is a slimy little guttersnipe with a Gomez Addams pencil stache, black cowboy clothes, and stubby little horror teeth. God, those haunting cobblestone teeth. And when he pulls a nude stocking over his face, oh baby, we’re in nightmare city.
But Dafoe says the teeth were the character. The dentures from his costume wouldn’t allow him to close his mouth, which led Dafoe to the body language and expressions of the character. “I was able to tap into a kind of lasciviousness,” he explained. “All of a sudden you start sitting differently, you know, you start feeling differently … It shows that actors sometimes left to their own devices put limitations on themselves, because I never would have thought of that.”
That’s classic Dafoe method: go ahead, be lazy. Let the costumes, props, and settings do the work for you. Take what you’re given and interpret from there. Let the objects become actions and actions become the character.
However he did it, he’s fantastic as Bobby Peru. He makes me hate him, even though I love him so.
But you can put away those Blu-Ray players for next month, cause we’re watching the Neflix-available The Florida Project.
Unanswered questions
Is Willem Dafoe a cheesehead?
Does Willem Dafoe believe in astrology?
Has Willem Dafoe listened to Lana Del Rey, and did he like it?
Is Willem Dafoe good at responding to texts?
Does Willem Dafoe still take the subway?
Anyway
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