Denzel Washington is one of my favorite actors, it's not because he's black but because of the kind of roles he plays. It's easy to tell this because as I start listing my other favorite actors, a clear pattern emerges. Tell me if you see it: Bruce Willis, Gene Hackman, Ricky Jay, Jason Statham, Ed Harris. Hmm. Men with large foreheads?
Still, nobody can deny the effect that DW has had in American imagination for the standup black man. There is nobody in American film history who has been such a widely accepted black authority figure, and man of action & integrity. Denzel Washington is a heroic leading man, and that's everything a lot of us have been hungering for in film for a long time. We never seem to get enough. Then, I suppose I part company. Washington has indeed been something of a race man, I wish he would quit. In some ways I think he's wandered some degrees off that plantation, but not completely.
Mark Anthony Neal writes:
In his collaborations with director Spike Lee, Washington complicated the race-man ethos. No longer defined solely by their willingness to stand up for their race, characters such as Bleek Gilliam ("Mo' Better Blues"), Jake Shuttlesworth ("He Got Game") and Detective Keith Frazier ("Inside Man") represented the new race man, whose main emphasis was on being manly. These characters were self-absorbed and selfish and demanded the respect they thought they deserved. Still, many black audiences embraced them, if only because Washington had earned their trust, especially after his signature collaboration with Lee on the film "Malcolm X."
But that trust began to erode with Washington's portrayal of Alonzo in "Training Day." When he finally won the coveted Best Actor Oscar for that role, on the same night that Halle Berry won Best Actress, much was made of their being rewarded for portraying characters who demeaned African Americans. And yet it was easy to give Washington a pass, because the Motion Picture Academy had ignored his more celebrated roles as Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and Malcolm X.
Those are Spike Lee movies which are bigger than Denzel, and rightly so. You ask me my favorite Denzel Washington movies, they are as follows:
- Fallen
- The Siege
- Man on Fire
- Devil in a Blue Dress
- Crimson Tide
I am tempted to write an ode to each of these films as they represent to me the best of Denzel's acting in a different way. Fallen, probably the worst performing film of the bunch showed Washington at his most tender. He may have topped it in John Q, but I never saw that one. To me, his role as caring for his retarded brother in Fallen was one of the most touching roles he has ever done. It showed him as genuinely confused and forced to believe something that defies reason - the Denzel you almost never see.
I have yet to see American Gangster for a number of trivial reasons, but I have been wanting to see Denzel break out of his goody role for a long time. He has played dicey characters, but never completely let go of the the soul of integrity. In 'Virtuosity', he played a convict with some badass perfection which he finally fully realized in 'Training Day'. Now once again opposite Russell Crowe, as in Virtuosity, he's also a bad guy. So part of me cannot wait to see it. And yet I still have the sense that he is going to go down swinging either right or wrong, Washington has yet to play a broken man. The closest he comes to that is in 'Man on Fire' which I would probably say is his best role ever. A broken man redeemed by a child yet doomed to die.
It's almost impossible to distinguish Denzel from his work in Hollywood and his place in black American and American imagination. There is always speculation about how much he gets to decide the details of how he is portrayed in the movies. There has always been a rumor that in his contracts he has made it clear that he will not fall for a white woman. This was a big controversy in his role in John Grisham's "The Pelican Brief" in which he starred opposite Julia Roberts. Everyone knows that Denzel has a large faithful audience in African America, and there is no reason to break their hearts. As Neal writes, there's no reason to believe that a black backlash won't hurt Washington.
My desire to see Denzel play against his history is based not so much on his role as a race man in Hollywood as his range as an actor. But because of this impossibility, I can only guess, but I suspect that it is Washington that is holding Washington back. He is already a monstrous success in Hollywood, and can do whatever he wants. There are plenty of roles that are offered to black men that he might have considered, and of course he could have one written for him if he so desired. I think of those Larry Fishburne has played - way closer to the edge of madness than Denzel has ever wandered. The same is true of Forrest Whitaker, . As he ages, there are classes of roles I expect he will need to play, I hope
I could see how Denzel might have played in the role done by Mel Gibson in 'The Man Without a Face'. Or perhaps in the role done by Tom Hanks in 'The Terminal'. Has Denzel ever done a 'fish out of water' film?
I say that the jury is out on Denzel. He will have, uniquely, a very long career for us to look at him in a variety of roles. The older Denzel will be the key. In that regard, I am prepared to compare him to Harrison Ford with regard to how his early career doesn't define his later one. Looking at him as Han Solo does not compare to him in Air Force One or more recently in Firewall, or back in The Mosquito Coast. I happen to think that Denzel is a finer actor than Harrison, as is Bruce Willis. But the three of them are somewhat constrained by the fact that, as leading men, they are going to be cast as archetypal American men. In that way, Denzel's acting ability is often overshadowed by who he represents. The same was the case with John Wayne, and with the phenomenon that was James Dean. It is my opinion that Denzel represents American manhood more than he plays the role of a race man. That does constrain the way we look at him and changes how we perceive his talent but I don't think he's carrying racial baggage the way that Sidney Poitier did before.
Rather, I look at Denzel in the same way I look at Michael Jordan. He's dominant in his element and yes blackfolks take a lot of pride in him and he doesn't disappoint. But he's not being manipulated into being a symbol for the sake of a racial idea, he's bigger than that. He is representing American manhood, and there's really no way around that reality.
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