Making up for yesterday's festival of bad acting, here are two of the greatest, Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers, in a classic scene from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Kubrick is easily my all-time favorite filmmaker, and Sellers my favorite actor, bar none. Strangelove, oddly enough, isn't my favorite work from either man--though of course, Sellers gives three separate, equally brilliant comic performances in the film--but it showcases this absolutely astonishing work from Hayden.
If the movie works at all, it's because of his performance. The premise is deliberately absurd, the characters cartoonish buffoons. But Hayden plays his character for real. There's anger and disbelief in his voice as he stresses "Children's ice cream," uncomprehending pain as he details his "denial of essence," stubborn, misplaced pride and an unyielding belief that he is doing the right thing.
There is also, of course, the superb writing (it's still open to debate whether Kubrick or Terry Southern wrote this particular sequence), Kubrick's masterful sense of how long to hold a shot, and Sellers' marvelous reaction, the work of a great actor who knew when to yield the floor. But this scene, this wonderful perfect scene, is owned by Sterling Hayden, as fine an actor as ever lived.
