Jack Nicholson, the lion of American cinema

jack Nicholson and Los Angeles. Mulholland Drive it is a winding road, all curves up and down, which separates the Hollywood hills from the San Fernando Valley, and crosses the Santa Monica Mountains. AND the Los Angeles immortalized by David Lynch, that of postcards with fiery sunsets and tourist buses in search of the homes of the stars. I really like driving there; in the background I see the infinite expanse of the city, downtown with its skyscrapers and, far away, signifying everything, the Pacific Ocean.

I get close to Coldwater Canyona little further to the west, I slow down and look around: this is where you can breathe above all the air of old Hollywood. In this very canyon, hidden among bushes and palm trees, there are the mansions of the glorious lions of American cinema, and Jack Nicholson has lived there for more than half a centuryin the same house with the avenue that once shared with Marlon Brando, not far from the friend’s property Warren Beatty.

“You see, as a kid I didn’t have much interest in sentimental films. Suddenly Marlon appeared on the scene, I was in high school then, and it was a real revolution, he was our man, our Elvis. I saw Harbor front at least fifty times, maybe more, without even knowing that one day I would work in the cinema».

At the time of The Departed – Good and Evilthe 1996 Martin Scorsese film with Nicholson, Leonardo Dicaprio and Matt Damon, DiCaprio told me: «You never know how to react, how to prepare yourself for a scene with Jack. Martin loves doing long rehearsals, discussing every detail, and with him you immerse yourself in endless conversations about the tone of the film, the language… Then Jack arrives and decides his character isn’t menacing enough and that I – during the interrogation – appear very little terrified. So the next day he arrives on set with his hair disheveled, he mutters incomprehensible phrases, he has a fire extinguisher, a bottle of whisky, matches and a gun in his hands, and I stand there dumbfounded and displaced. Suddenly Jack pours the liquor on the table, sets it on fire, and points the gun at my face completely changing the dynamics of the scene. Jack is like this: he forces you to react as an actor, to take risks. In short, he embodies the idea that you already had of him, the pinnacle of cool».

By 1996 Nicholson had long been the most admired actor of his era, being courted by the studios (with Batman Warner Bros. had grossed $412 million in 1989; Nicholson took home 90), by intellectual and European filmmakers (Antonioni, Milos Forman, Polanski), studied and imitated by every young actor, and with a private and sentimental life worthy of a feuilleton. She had a marriage behind her, a long relationship with Anjelica Huston And six children by different women.

With his free and nonconformist spirit, his troubled and deluded characters and his films, he brought us a different kind of masculinity, and shown like no other the aggressive complexity of the modern American man. “After the generation of James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda and Humphrey Bogart who else is there but Jack Nicholson?” exclaimed Mike Nichols who had directed him in such memorable films as Carnal knowledge And Heartburn/Affairs of the heart. To the monochromatic and moral solidity of Tracy and Bogart the protagonist of Carnal knowledge it contrasted an existential restlessness, a conflict of genres and the reality of a generation – Marlon Brando and James Dean had been the forerunners – who rebelled against the social rules of the 1950s. To these he added his typical ironic and parodic taste which made even the most uncomfortable and provocative realities tasty.

Jack Nicholson, born to play writers

Today Nicholson has 86 years old, and lives as a recluse among his paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Soutine, books by Marshall McLuhan (the Canadian sociological philosopher, author of the famous thesis: the medium is the message) – he often mentioned them in our conversations – those of the masters of the “Method” – Stanislavski and Lee Strasberg – and the collection of nouvelle vague films, together with westerns by John Ford.

Cultured self-taught, refined cinephile, with a voracious curiosity, actor, director, writer (wrote for Roger Corman, Bob Rafelson and played the writer in four films, Profession: reporter, Shining, Reds And Heartburn), his works marked and represented an era: Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Shining, Terms of Endearment, Prizzi’s Honoreven Batman by Tim Burton with his unsurpassed Joker.

Each film, each character, reflects a personal spirit that is never conformist or predictable. Then, like Greta Garbo, one day he disappeared from the scene; since 2010 she hasn’t made a film, locked himself in his Mulholland Drive home and only hung out with friends and family. Recently, in May, it is finally reappeared at a Lakers basketball game – always the team of the heart. There he was welcomed as a beloved emperor, as well as honored by LeBron James and his companions who all bowed to him. Jack was no longer in great shape, he had a long beard. But what does it matter.

Stanley Kubrick was fascinated by it

I remember him with his blue blazer and tweed jackets, dark glasses, impeccable manners in those interviews where you had to show all your self-control to prevent admiration from verging on the ridiculous. Sometimes I got lost in the wit, in the irony with which he overturned our predictable questions and transformed them into existential questions or literary dissertations: he played with us and often closed the topic with a surprising joke. Stanley Kubrick said he was fascinated by her extraordinary intelligenceand gave as an example the way he prepared for his role, how he built the character: for Jack Torrance – the protagonist of Shining – had immersed himself in reading and in the images of theHell of Dante illustrated by Gustave Doré, to understand the tormented soul of the sinners of the last circle: he had thus become the fallen angel, the devil.

Jack was raised in an unconventional family, at 37 he had discovered that the woman he thought was his sister was actually his mother, and his parents were instead the grandparents; the alcoholic father, then, maybe he wasn’t the real father. He told me his genealogical/personal data picture as if it were a Feydeau farceand underlined the twists and turns of a life that was never banal.

I also well remember the conversations that preceded his latest works. He was now the father of six children, grandfather to Sean and Duke, born to his eldest daughter Jennifer. I report here in no particular order some of his answers during the interview for How do you know itwritten and directed by James Brooks in 2010, our last meeting in three decades.

The love

Serious psychological studies report that the infatuation phase lasts 18 months, and you instantly think: “So it’s proven that nothing has changed since we were monkeys!” (laughs). I am aware of these cycles, but unfortunately the experience has not helped me much. In the first two years of a relationship, things happen that are beyond your control, they are kind of programmed, we get overexcited, and then… Meryl Streep wanted to shoot me when I supported my scientific theories on procreation in an interviewand he will never forgive me. And then what I want most is not to love, but to be loved.

On children and grandchildren, eternal life

You are hostage to your children from the moment they are born. It is one of those clichés that are said just to say, but in reality they are true. As for wanting to live forever, I don’t believe anyone who says “I’m not afraid to die”; deep down we all want to live forever. But then you think: do you want to live forever on the shoulders of your children? This is the real question about immortality and it had never crossed my mind until my 50-60s: Life brings with it the need to die (laughs)…Otherwise, don’t you think? there would be serious problems. But I stress: real problems. (laughs)

About happiness

What makes me happy? It’s always difficult to answer certain questions: I could give you a funny answer, or prepare a standard phrase to use with journalists which will then be bounced from one newspaper to another. I’ve tried all these years to practice the art of answering, using syntax and grammar that make sense, but you see… I’m here to talk about my film, just for that (huge smile). I can only fall silent and move on to something else.

Years go by, even for a star like Jack

At this point in my life I feel the same sense of rebellion that I had when I was a kid. I don’t want to read some scripts where they talk about age, and they say: Jack Nicholson is 70 years old. It’s not age that determines who I am, and this doesn’t just apply to me…. It’s stupid, I read so many boring, repetitive stories, family, wife, children, and old friends who meet one day in Las Vegas or New York.

I don’t want to be critical of writers these days, but that’s what I read… Now I want to do something cool, I’ve always wanted to do that. And since I don’t necessarily have to work and I like to break the rules, I’m happy anyway: I don’t feel like reading screenplays and I prefer to read books.

What is your relationship with yourself today?

I love myself (laughs). I love myself. I am a solid being. I’m one of those boring old boys who tell you: “carpe diem”. Life is what it is, and there is no other (laughs). And you know?, I find it magnificent! I’m fine with that.

Jack Nicholson, what makes you furious. What are you passionate about?

I’m furious with all these ridiculous procedures, problems and loopholes to legalize marijuana. I’m passionate about social issues: no one, for example, wants to seriously address the problem of the explosion of gangs in America, or that (since the days of prohibition) of illegal financing; of these funds, which then end up supporting terrorism, people know nothing.

Special enthusiasms

There are also things that excite me, such as seeing a friend’s work recognized and appreciated (as happened to Jerzy Skolimowski, in Venice, years ago), or being amazed by something special that my children do. To be happy you must have passion, authenticity and integrity; to these I would add that a nice wardrobe doesn’t hurt! (and he grins, raising his epic right eyebrow).

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