A very big presence
'Big Fish' star Albert Finney has long been a man of great character
Albert Finney has held the high ground in the celluloid landscape for 40 years. We have watched him pass from beautiful youth to handsome man and, more recently, beefy elder. We have followed his movements across the screen -- graceful then solid then lumbering, as called for in Tim Burton's new film, "Big Fish."
While Finney's performance as a bombastic southern fabulist is good, it does not begin to unlock the richness of the man's career. Many, perhaps most, people who see him in the flaky "Big Fish" haven't a clue about his body of work over the years. Not to worry. That's why they invented video stores.
Begin with his dazzle in Tony Richardson's grand "Tom Jones" -- released four decades ago last year -- followed by his great pas de deux with Audrey Hepburn in "Two for the Road" and the starring riff in "Charlie Bubbles," his memorable directorial debut.
Consider his Hercule Poirot in "Murder on the Orient Express," his George Dunlap in "Shoot the Moon," his Sir in "The Dresser," his Geoffrey Firmin in "Under the Volcano." Or his murderous Leo in "Miller's Crossing," his stolid Constable Hegarty in "The Playboys," his Ed Masry in "Erin Brockovich," and his surprisingly vulnerable Churchill in "The Gathering Storm," the exceptional HBO entry about that lion of Albion.
There are scads of other roles on stage, film, and television along the way. And from the beginning, before he acted in 1960 with Laurence Olivier in "The Entertainer" and Rachel Roberts in the coruscating "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning," there was theater, Shakespeare in particular. (He was Olivier's understudy at Stratford-on-Avon at one point.)
In the ensuing decades, he has maintained a distinguished stage presence on both sides of the Atlantic. This devotion is a far cry from today's Hollywood conceit, where Gwyneth Paltrow types hit the West End boards for gravitas.
Albert Finney has been a man of the theater ever since he made his electrifying debut on the London stage in "Billy Liar" in 1960.
In one sense, time has not been kind to him. Finney grew thick early with food and drink. His staggering looks as the eponymous hero of "Tom Jones" are long gone. He hasn't carried a movie in ages. But that's beside the point. Beginning in the '70s, he opted for character roles, leavened by the occasional leading part, and the stage. Five Oscar nominations and a fistful of awards later, he is still cruising. At 67, the man is of a fabled thespian breed -- the British long-distance runner. He has the durability of the yew, the wood used in the bows with which English archers defeated the French at Agincourt.
Finney is no Alec Guinness, but he's a strong actor whose versatility and humility in a host of roles speak to England's repertory tradition, where you play whatever you're told to and learn humility rather fast.
None of us watching the big screen take Finney for granted. We do something better. We make assumptions about him: that he will inject superior value to whatever film he's in, that his approach to craft trumps his need for stardom. (We were delighted to learn recently that, unlike Elton John, he rejected a knighthood.) We say such things about Michael Caine, too, but they're really not true. Finney is a far better actor whose craving for tinsel has not sullied him, whose standards never left him wallowing in the likes of "Jaws: The Revenge."
Finney hit the British screen in the early '60s with a group of astonishing-looking male actors -- Peter O'Toole and Terence Stamp, to name two -- and even better ones without matinee looks, such as Tom Courtenay.
Finney made his mark with "Tom Jones," which remains a must-view. It is Fielding's 18th-century England in all its layers -- stuffy at the top, coarse at the bottom, and sublime all over. Finney infuses his character with natural, irrepressible male heat and humor. Along with Hugh Griffith as Squire Western and Susannah York as Western's daughter Sophie, he led a stellar cast of actors in one of the screen's greatest romps. The eclat of that performance made him an instant international star.
The actor famously turned down the role of T.E. Lawrence in "Lawrence of Arabia" that made O'Toole a film icon. (In truth, we can imagine no one else in that role after O'Toole inhabited it.) If Finney's hard living thickened him, O'Toole's constant toots eventually rendered him cadaverous. Only Stamp, with his predator's eyes, has kept his looks. (See "The Limey.")
There are other films that can't be ignored. "Two for the Road," from 1967, is the classic Finney-Hepburn vehicle in which they play lovers and then spouses whose marriage is nearly destroyed over the years by his philandering and attention to career at her expense. Hepburn shows more than her usual winsomeness here. Color this one timeless.
"Charlie Bubbles," released the same year, remains close to the heart of many a Finney fan. In it, he plays a successful novelist, up from the working class, who suffers the exhaustion and ennui of fame and wealth. There's a lovey food fight in a posh London eatery with an old friend, a return to the grimy northern city of his birth before visiting his ex-wife and son in the country, and a grand ending. Billie Whitelaw is superb as the ex-wife.
Finally, one cannot discuss Finney without mentioning his pairings with Courtenay. In "The Dresser" (1983), Finney is an aging repertory lion who has been knighted for his work in regional theater. An impossible egotist, he is ministered to by his dresser, Courtenay, who attends to his every need. Finney's roar and Courtenay's mannered prissiness produce beautiful music.
The two appeared together again in 1999 in an award-winning British television production that arrived on public TV here called "A Rather English Marriage." In it, each man is a new widower. Finney, a blustering former RAF pilot during the Battle of Britain, is in the weeds facing life alone in his comfy digs, and Courtenay, a meek, retired milkman, thrives on providing care. Courtenay moves in. These are two pros at the top of their games who shower us with heartbreak and nuanced humor as they glide past cliches.
Albert Finney is no acquired taste. He was as accessible an actor 40 years ago as he is today. In "Big Fish," he plays a congenital fabricator, a larder of outrageous tales about his own life. His southern accent is sketchy, but he floats his balloons of fabulosity with charm and ease.You don't read about him much. He doesn't leave you speechless. He just continues to lose himself before our eyes to our delight and appreciation. He is, after all, a long distance runner.
Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com.
