MOVIES : COMMENTARY : Paul, This Isn’t You : ‘Mr. and Mrs. Bridge’ is an example of what can happen when an actor tries to ‘stretch’ in a role that’s unsuited for him

We live, heaven help us, in an age of self-improvement. Bookstores bulge with books that promise scullery maids that they can be Cinderellas, tireless motivational speakers extol the virtues of grabbing for all the gusto, and even the U.S. Army, for pity’s sake, feels impelled to sell itself as a place where you can “Be All That You Can Be.” Is it any wonder that movie stars, poor souls that they are, have succumbed to that siren call, that Paul Newman in “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge,” to cite but the latest example, should delude himself into thinking he is expanding his art when in fact he is merely hiding his light under a basket?

It wasn’t always like this. Movie stars didn’t always feel the need to “stretch,” as if acting were some especially demanding form of aerobics. First on the stage, and later on the screen, actors had signature roles, ways the audience liked to see them, and if they were wise, the actors were happy enough to comply. Did John Wayne ever think eagerly of “The Importance of Being Ernest?” Did Humphrey Bogart attempt “Macbeth”? Of course not. They knew that an unspoken fairy tale bargain existed between a star and his or her audience: all the good things of the world will be yours, just stay the way you are.

But, as in all fairy tales, one of the partners in the bargain got restless. Stars, especially once the unforgiving restraints of the studio system were loosened, allowed themselves to get bored. They cast covetous eyes at the character actors, the chameleons who could assume more personalities than Lon Chaney had faces. “Why,” they pouted like disaffected children, “can’t I do that, too?”

So, as if movie audiences didn’t have enough problems, what with towering admission prices and a flood of teenocentric features, they have been forced to suffer through wave after wave of stars with identity crises. Al Pacino wasn’t happy playing tough New York cop types, he wanted to be seen as a suave Grand Prix driver, a sophisticated playwright, even a foot soldier in the War of Independence, and moviegoers had to tolerate “Bobby Deerfield,” “Author! Author!” and “Revolution” before Pacino returned to his senses (and to Manhattan) to make the deservedly well-received “Sea of Love.”

Clint Eastwood, whose finely honed “Make my day” voice had thrilled billions, felt an uncontrollable urge to talk like John Huston, of all people, and foisted “White Hunter, Black Heart” on the world. Mel Gibson, a major heartthrob, decided that “Hamlet” was just his cup of tea. Even Sylvester Stallone, the action star of his generation, is now working on, yes, a light comedy. Sic transit gloria mundi, as we used to say back in Brooklyn.

Over the past few years, Paul Newman has been a prime victim of this disease. In “Blaze,” he was bound and determined to shackle his charisma and cackle and wheeze his way through the part of the ex-governor of Louisiana, though, perhaps fortunately, he didn’t feel it necessary to add the considerable pot belly that was Earl Long’s trademark. And now, he and his wife Joanne Woodward have taken on “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.”

Adapted from two almost revered novels by Evan Connell, “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge” delicately takes us through a quarter of a century in the life of Walter and India Bridge, pillars of Kansas City society before the war. Made with the taste, discretion, civility (and occasional lassitude) that marks almost all the collaborations between producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhablava, “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge” is probably none the worse for Newman’s appearance. In fact, as Ivory has said, “Once Paul said he was going to do the film, he attracted the money.” It’s just that we who sit through it have to endure the tiresome spectacle of a great talent doing what he is distinctly unfitted to do.

With his spiffy wardrobe, steely hair and glasses rims to match, Paul Newman certainly can make himself look the part of a Midwestern banker, but once he opens his mouth, the jig is up. True, Walter Bridge, far from being a fun guy, is in fact very much of a prig, but even his patrician tones come all too stiffly from Newman’s lips. The man’s deliberation is too deliberate, and his performance, though full of technically correct gestures and carefully thought out head and hand movements, is all done without even a trace of naturalness. Watching Newman so obviously trying to act is painful, like observing some Golem-like statue come creakily to quasi-life. We can see all the wires, and the camera, pitiless toward all forms of falsehood, does not take kindly to the sight.

And not only does Newman have to share screen time with Simon Callow, one of today’s premier chameleons, whose bon vivant psychiatrist is every bit as convincing as his low budget film director was in “Postcards From The Edge” or his the Revered Mr. Beebe in Merchant/Ivory’s more successful “A Room With a View.” Newman also has to endure comparison with his wife.

Woodward, fortunately for audiences, does precisely the kind of work that her husband aspires to. Like Jeremy Irons in “Reversal of Fortune” or Robert Duvall in almost anything, she disappears inside of a role, in some primeval way simply becoming the person she plays.

With India Bridge, that disappearing act is made even more difficult by the fact that on some level the woman she plays is so bland, so unswervingly devoted to a man who claims that “I have not been proved wrong on any significant occasion” that she risks death by tornado rather than disobey his words.

Yet, calling on a lifetime of this type of work, Woodward breaths shining life into Mrs. Bridge, the eternal mom, ever helpful and hopeful even when the situation should have her choked with despair. She can make lines as trite as “My stars!” work for her, as well as wear a series of ridiculous hats with casual aplomb. The authority she brings to her performance is not the forced one her husband must use, but a natural, inbred kind, that enables her to make the emotions of everyday life seem more real than we’ve ever experienced them.

What makes an actor like Paul Newman so successful (in roles from “The Hustler” to “The Verdict”) when he stays close to the way audiences like to see him, make us suffer through misguided attempts to broaden himself? More than boredom is involved here, more even than that perhaps understandable desire to self-improvement, a great deal more. For the sad fact is that our society in general, and the critical establishment in particular, has done actors like Newman the greatest disservice any performer can be done: they’ve devalued his art.

Because where is it written that actors who work out of their personalities, stars if you will, are involved in a lesser form of creativity than those who can handle a panoply of roles. To delve into the essence of yourself and project it in such a way that millions can feel what you’re feeling, this is no small thing, yet we continue to devalue that mysterious, sublime process with words like “star turn.”

Instead of reveling in what they’ve accomplished, stars have to continually justify their existence, to respond to charges that they’re merely “playing themselves,” or, even worse, that what they’re doing is not “real acting.” Instead of feeling separate but equal with those more elastic types, instead of being comfortable in the knowledge that what they do merely uses a different, not inferior, set of acting muscles, stars try instead to do what they’re not fitted to do. They’re driven to fruitlessly prove their merit in ways that are fated to be unsatisfying to audiences, and, quite probably, even to themselves.

As for Paul Newman, should he truly feel the need to do something to expand his creative horizons, he should concentrate on directing, an area where, judging by his success with the greatly underrated “The Glass Menagerie,” he has real skill and potential and he is not forced to go against his own best instincts. Because when it comes to doing the kind of performing his wife handles so easily, Newman would be well-advised to leave well enough alone.