JCVD
Posted on March 29, 2009 1 Comment
JCVD is a strange yet endearing movie. French/Belgian in it’s characterization, awkwardness, conflict and style, the film is Jean-Claude Van Damme playing . . . Jean-Claude Van Damme. The film trashes his the real Jean Claude’s name as the JCVD character is mistakenly blamed for holding up a Brussels Post, loses his daughter in a custody battle (she is humiliated for having a washed up action star father), shot, and ultimately jailed for extortion.
The opening scene is a several-minute single-take action shot that includes every single 90′s action movie cliché all rolled into one fantastically awesome fight scene.
As we move between multiple viewpoints of the film – Jean Claude enters a bank to retrieve a cash wire and is caught up in a robbery & hostage situation and mistaken by some of his own fans as the perpetrator. Police, family and fans alike join in the standoff.
But the centerpiece of the film is a strange reverie where JCVD rises on a lift to the rack lights on the soundstage and delivers a single-shot gut-wrenching monologue. He tearfully details his own rise and fall as a Hollywood action star, his failures, custody battle, failing career, near bankruptcy and drug addiction. He pleads to be taken seriously again – after all, he is just a man, an actor.
It’s the most convincing scene in the film, perfectly acted, emotional. JCVD is torn apart as an invincible Hollywood action star but rebuilt as a pitiable, even likeable person . . . yet he is impersonating himself. An actor playing a caricature of himself. Charlie Kaufman would be proud.
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About this Blog
Variegating
1. Having streaks, marks, or patches of a different color or colors; varicolored; mottled; dappled
2. Distinguished or characterized by variety; diversified.
Drew Pickard is a graphic designer employed at Pop in Seattle WA. He is an amateur photographer, a collector of Galactic Heroes, big-picture obsessor and has a lot of opinions about stuff.
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I gotta see this.