Jack Is No Dull Boy: Some Roles Suit Nicholson to a T

It’s amusing, even mildly perverse, that “Hoffa” is opening Christmas Day. The big star, Jack Nicholson, has to be the anti-Santa Claus. His screen persona is more suited to Halloween than this most polite of holidays.

Nicholson has always been a dysfunctional presence--even in his most sympathetic roles, cobra-eyed Jack has exposed a vaguely insidious streak, the counterpoint to any American ideal of harmony, steadfastness and, especially, conformity.

That was always refreshing, and he became a hero bold with contradictions, a metaphor for a contradictory era. People love Nicholson not because he’s easy to love, but because he’s compelling. And, as an actor, Nicholson is compelling because he’s not afraid to expose the personal, whether it’s a nasty ravenousness, a narcissism that borders on the crazed or an independence that is somehow political merely because of its refusal to be tamed.

Yep, he’s quite a guy. But times haven’t been so good lately for Nicholson the movie star. He gave what was, more or less, an extended walk-on, a real work of disinterest, in the terrible romantic comedy “Man Trouble,” and then there’s his self-parodying slow burn in “A Few Good Men,” another weak movie.

As Col. Jessep, the nutty Marine with lousy ethics, Nicholson blows up his own image and floats it above the picture like one of those giant balloons in the Thanksgiving Day parade. All the snarls, eyebrow action, sneers and eye pierces are like moves out of the manual of Nicholson cliches. But at least he’s more watchable than the puppy-dog agitations of Tom Cruise or the wooden performance by Demi Moore.

We can only hope that “Hoffa,” being touted as a real hard-core American epic, will restore Nicholson. Anyway, I’ve come to praise this first-rate actor and first-class celebrity, not to bury him, and the easiest way to do that is through a parade of some of his best roles. The accent is on “some”; restricting yourself to only a handful is a challenge. (Note: Most of these movies are available on video).

First, a perfunctory nod to “Easy Rider,” Nicholson’s breakthrough film in 1969, and “Five Easy Pieces” (1970), a rather disorganized but influential counterculture vehicle that gave us, perhaps, Nicholson’s most famous scene, involving defiance, a snooty waitress, her knees and a sandwich with everything on it.

The next year, Nicholson had one of the starring roles in “Carnal Knowledge” as a womanizing smoothie who ends up impotent (talk about retribution!). It’s a startling performance, not only for its frank implications about the male identity, but because it seems to stem so naturally from Nicholson’s own personality.

“The Last Detail” (1973) further distilled Nicholson’s screen essence. The sense of anarchy and distrust of authority is central to the character he plays, a sailor escorting another to the brig. He’s liberated when testing the limits, when making trouble for those that hate to have the rules tampered with, and that is elemental to Nicholson’s oeuvre.

He followed with “Chinatown” (1974), a huge piece in the puzzle. As Jake Gittes, Nicholson follows in a tradition set down by Humphrey Bogart and others, and he keeps step with the past. But he also expands the American detective archetype by following Robert Towne’s script into dark, tricky places where murder and corruption mingle with incest. It’s a wonderfully controlled performance, both dangerous and heroic. Great vibrations between Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, too.

Nicholson was busy in 1975, looking miscast in “Tommy”; appearing oblique and a little unsure of what was going on in “The Passenger” and giving a good but routine run-through in “The Fortune” (not on video).

But it was also the year that “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was released. Bingo! Nicholson approached the protagonist of Ken Kesey’s novel about revolution in a mental institution as if the role had been written just for him. It was ideal casting; nobody exhibits righteous disrespect quite like Nicholson.

In a recent Vanity Fair story, Nicholson confessed that sex has been one of the dominating factors in his life and career. Oh, that’s a surprise. Anyone who didn’t know that just has to look at “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” the 1981 remake based on James M. Cain’s steamy novel. It’s not a good film, an adaptation that is more turgid than provocative, but Nicholson is worth watching just for those few moments when he lets the beast out. Jessica Lange gets pretty foamy herself. They both have a good time on a table covered with flour.

One of the subtexts of “Terms of Endearment” (1983) has something to do with growing old gracefully, and Nicholson’s performance as a worn-out former astronaut showed him growing older gracefully as an actor. There were randy, rip-’em-up subtexts to the character, but also a sense of change that didn’t suggest resignation but more of acceptance.

“Prizzi’s Honor” came out in 1985, and it featured Nicholson playing a juicy character role that just happened to be the romantic lead, a Mafia hit man who falls in love with a Mafia hit woman. This black comedy directed by John Huston is one of the real sardonic pleasures of the ‘80s, in good part because of Nicholson’s hangdog style.

What’s startling is that you can imagine him leaving Kathleen Turner’s bed to go bump somebody off and you still find him, well, charming, in a hired killer-mensch kind of way.

I’ll close with “Ironweed,” a movie that came and went in 1987 without much critical acclaim.

Director Hector Babenco failed to consistently find the combination of delicate pathos and hard realism in William Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the homeless, but it had its moments.

Nicholson provided most of them with his well-scaled performance. No showy moves, just the angry but quiet, hopeless gestures of a bum with no way out.