Why You Love The Fassbender
Am I getting ahead of myself? Do you even know The Fassbender? If you do, then you know why this column is worth your time. If you do not, let’s begin with a down-and-dirty orientation.
Plainly put, Michael Fassbender is the next big thing. GQ just put him on its cover as 2010′s Breakout Star, and it’s no joke: this guy was all over the place, but in the very best of ways.
After toiling for many years on the periphery of visibility, Fassbender’s big break came in the form of Steve McQueen’s Hunger, in which he plays the lead role of an IRA hunger striker. The film won the Camera d’Or at Cannes, and both McQueen and Fassbender were suddenly very visible. (Link to disturbing image of Fassbender’s emaciation here).
Fassbender followed Hunger with Fish Tank, a totally awesome and under-seen (in the United States, at least) film about a British teenager and the, uh, unique relationship between her and her mother’s boyfriend. Lots of film festival awards, Jury Prize at Cannes, BAFTA for Best British Film. But Fassbender didn’t become truly visible to American eyes until Inglourious Basterds, in which he plays a British spy (in one of the tensest moments of the film, and that’s saying something).
Basterds led to Jonah Hex, which was primed to be a big blockbuster. All the pieces were in place: big lead stars (Josh Brolin, John Malkovich), sexy girl-on-the-side (Megan Fox), pre-sold comic book franchise….but the film was a STINKBOMB. Panned across the board (12% Rotten Tomatoes score!) and made back only $10 million of its $47 million budget. But Fassbender was already off and filming what would become his gangbuster 2011: Rochester in Jane Eyre, Young Magneto in the rebooted X-Men, Carl Jung in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, repaired with Steve McQueen as a sex addict in Shame, some sort of secret agentness in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire (Winter 2012), and the male lead (android) in Ridley Scott’s new sci-fi film Prometheus (Summer 2012).
We’re right in the middle of that list right now: both A Dangerous Method and Shame are in limited release right now, with Oscar Buzz slowly accumulating around Fassbender’s performance in the later.
Add in the fact that Fassbender is spectacularly, unequivocally, viscerally handsome.
But handsomeness does not make a star. And it certainly does not make a cult of fandom, the way that The Fassbender has recently inspired (if you follow the blog’s feed on Facebook, you know what exactly what I’m talking about).
[Quick Clarifying Note: When I title a post using the "second person," insinuating I magically know Why You Love The Fassbender (or, before, The Goz -- who knows, maybe this will become a regular column?), I'm not so much suggesting that I know why you, specifically, find him endearing/attractive/compelling so much as why society/Hollywood has found him endearing/attractive/compelling, a grouping of which the magic 'you' are obviously a part. Perhaps that much is obvious].
So here’s the big (somewhat obviously) revelation: You love The Fassbender because He’s a Method Actor. That seems obvious and facile, so let’s break it down:
1.) THE PRETTY FACE + THE TALENT
First and foremost. Pretty face is one thing, pretty face that can act — and act astoundingly well, in myriad and diverse parts, is like taking “pretty face” and squaring it. It makes the hotness level go off the charts. Pretty face without talent is two dimensional eye candy — a model in a fashion magazine, not someone with whom you’d actually want (or be able) to interact. Pretty face with talent = three-dimensional. Suddenly you can imagine having a discussion. Touching his face. It’s not just because he’s acting, three-dimensionally, on the screen, but because he seems less like a pin-up and more like a person. That’s what skill does to people: it makes them interesting.
And Fassbender isn’t just a decent actor. In all the articles I read preparing for this post, I saw him compared to Daniel Day-Lewis at least a dozen times. That sort of praise is not fucking around. You can nonchalantly compare someone to, say, Brad Pitt, or George Clooney — underlining the way he matches charisma with skill, etc. etc. But Day-Lewis is the contemporary actor par excellence. He is our moment’s Method Actor.
The comparison between Fassbender and Day-Lewis stems from two qualities: Fassbender’s devotion to specific characters, and the diversity of characters to which he has devoted himself. Profiles love to retell the methods of “The Method” — how he holed up and fasted for weeks to emaciate himself for Hunger, subsisting on sardines and nuts. For the famous 17-minute unbroken take in the film, he and his co-star moved in together, practicing the scene twelve times a day. CRAZYTIME. When A Dangerous Method screened at the Venice Film Festival, Fassbender had so effectively become Jung (and not “Fassbender”) that he had to introduce himself and his character when he went on stage afterwards.
Cronenberg calls him a “working class actor,” by which he means that Fassbender works for each role, spends hours devoting himself to the script and losing himself within the character. According to one interview, “To prepare for a role, he’ll read a screenplay as many as 300 times in daily shifts of seven hours.” He’s best known for his performances in minor keys: moody sad-sacks with little way out. Rochester, his character in Shame, Magneto. But his character in Fish Tank is a marvel to behold, all smiles and sun-kissed charisma. Cronenberg calls him a shape-shifter, a chameleon.
From Fish Tank (2009)
In some ways, a chameleon is frightening: you never know which Fassbender you’ll get onscreen, whether he’ll terrify or seduce you. But that chance is also extremely beguiling, and the talent it takes to affect that sort of transformation is, on a meta-level, extremely attractive.
As Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method
2.) THE INTELLIGENCE.
Or, more specifically, the intelligence that stems from Method Acting.
Here, for example, is Fassbender’s take on Rochester:
“[Rochester is]….A Byronic character burnt by experience, arrogant but also eloquent and introspective. He’s world-weary and jaded, sensual, selfdestructive, yet there’s a good sense of humor in there, and at the end of the day a good heart. He sees the freshness and beauty in Jane when everybody else looks past her.”
As Rochester in Jane Eyre
I don’t think Fassbender is smart about everything, but he has evidenced himself to be extremely intelligent about people - and he’s done so not only in the way he speaks about characters (who are, in fact, people) but in the way his performances underline a deep understanding of the diversity of human experience. To be a method actor is to be capable of understanding how other people work, and embodying that understanding with your performance. Fassbender is thus intelligent in the way that all method actors are intelligent. Consider our current crop of method actors: Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Sean Penn. We associate each of these mena nd women with intelligence. (Poor choices sometimes, yes, especially in the case of De Niro’s late film career, but intelligence nonetheless). Actors that “play themselves,” like, say, Gary Cooper, are likable, but we don’t think of them as necessarily smart. Method Acting is a learned and difficult skill, and it differentiates those who excel at it from the rest of Hollywood.
You — readers of this blog who like to think deeply about the popular culture you consume — are most likely attracted to thoughtful, intelligent men, whether as friends or as objects of affection. With his close association with The Method, ratified by his own meta-textual perceptiveness, The Fassbender is this man.
3.) THE BLANK SLATE.
If you’ve only seen Jane Eyre and X-Men Origins, you might think Fassbender is a type. I certainly did. But having watched his other films, I’ve become convinced of the Method/Talent stuff up above. As mentioned above, I have no idea what this man could do, what character he could embody next, whether or not he’ll be creepy or endearing. He could be anyone.
Including Your Total Boyfriend. Your Best Guy Friend. You can paint him into your elaborate fantasy and it so totally works.
It’s because he’s a Method Actor, but it’s also because he’s Not a Real Movie Star. I know this comes as a surprise — haven’t I been saying that he’s the next big thing? Isn’t he on all of these magazines? — but he’s not a movie star in the same way that Brad Pitt, or Will Smith, or Ben Affleck are movie stars. Not because he’s not a blockbuster star — because with Ridley Scott’s film, he will be — but because we know virtually nothing of his extra-textual life.
Because as much as people love to argue this point,
Star = Picture Personality (accumulation of roles) + Extra-Textual Personality (the image of their lifestyle off screen).
Fassbender has submitted to dozens of interviews. He’s posed for GQ fashion shoots. He’s super visible. But what do you know of his homelife? Sure, you know a bit about his family — that his father is German, that he lived in Germany — but that was emphasized to explain his near-perfect (if accented) German in Basterds. Maybe you know that his father is a chef. Maybe you know that he dated Zoe Kravitz, his co-star in X-Men, over the summer. But it’s unlikely that you knew that, because they were caught a total of ONCE by photographers. The man is intensely guarded about his private life. In fact, the most illuminating thing he’s said about his private life is that he’d like to to model his career on Viggo Morgensten’s, which is to say he’d like to remain intensely private and choose his roles carefully, balancing high profile films with personal projects.
This level of privacy — and the resultant blank slate of his private life — is part of the reason he’s able to recede into his roles so effectively. Even tremendous, transformative actors — like Brad Pitt- can only go so far with a role, if only because every time you see his face, you’re reminded of his everpresent star image. Fassbender, in his current iteration, is free of the heft of a star image.
As a result, we can project our own fantasies of “what he’s really like” onto Fassbender’s highly mutable image, and Fassbender can continue to refine his non-star-image as a method actor. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. The less we know about him, the more Method he seems, the hotter he becomes…..and The More You Love The Fassbender.
THE FASSBENDER.
26 Responses to “Why You Love The Fassbender”
I think it’s that he dated Zoe Kravitz - Lisa Bonet’s daughter.
D’oh! Absolutely what I meant. Amended.
All true, but this kind of soured me on the Fassbender: http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/45223583.html
Please use your celebrity gossip skills to find out that it’s not true so that I can like him again.
I haven’t heard that — and if it is true, it’s certainly been covered up/put under the rug quite well. But I also think the press hasn’t taken it up much because it doesn’t match the image of him just sitting around and reading his lines all day. Star images are never about figuring out how to make all the truths work together — they’re about selectively picking what fits with the dominant message.
Yes, Patti - that’s totally what soured me on the Fass too! If someone could tell me it’s not true I could return to loving him again from the first moment I saw him in Hunger.
Also, AHP, funny that you should mention Viggo Mortenson as the privatest of private stars, because apparently he just decided to open up. Have you seen this profile: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/viggo-talks-and-talks/?scp=1&sq=viggo&st=cse
I *did* see that! I even linked to it on the Facebook feed! And you’re right: Viggo seems more willing to open up and lose the mountain man image, but we’ll see if that’s just schtick.
Hey, Annie… Lovely pics.
Agreed re: the handsomeness and talent and perhaps the blank slate bit. But I’m rather perplexed by the second bullet point: that we/society/HW like Fassbender because he’s a Method Actor who’s intelligent and/or he’s intelligent because he’s a Method actor.
In my 37 years on this earth, I don’t know that I’ve ever, ever associated “intelligence” and “Method Acting.” In fact, I sometimes think of Method acting/actors as sorta pretentious, rather than a “learned and difficult skill.” I’m not saying Method isn’t tough or that those trained in it are UNintelligent, but are the two inextricably intertwined? For example, when I click on that picture of the emaciated Fassbender or when I see the same of Christian Bale in THE MACHINIST, I do not think “Whoa, those fellas are super smart; they’ve really done their homework.” It’s the same when I hear DeNiro and/or Jim Carrey speak about remaining in character for virtually the entire shooting of CAPE FEAR and MAN IN THE MOON. Maybe I’m alone in this, but I don’t find that appealing at all. Do the other actors on set or the director who wants to direct Carrey rather than Kaufmann appreciate that? I dunno.
More attractive to me at least are actors who can turn it on and off when the camera rolls/stops and then go home in the evenings and live a “normal” existence. No surprise here, but I much prefer Colin Firth’s mentality about acting to that of (some) Method actors: “Actors are basically drag queens. People will tell you they act because they want to heal mankind or, you know, explore the nature of the human psyche. Yes, maybe. But basically we just want to put on a frock and dance.”
Hope that makes sense.
There’s an interesting discussion of some similar points going on over at the blog’s Facebook feed. To wit, a reader asserted that you wouldn’t ever say that, say, Bette Davis wasn’t intelligent. This reader was correct: we think of Davis, K. Hepburn, Cary Grant, etc., as “hard working,” with their intelligence showing through in their devotion to their craft. But that was also pre-Method. Post-Method (which is to say, Post-Brando — I realize that association is problematic, but that’s how it works in the popular imaginary), I think we associate “genius” with Method Acting.
Again, this isn’t to say that I, personally think that Method Actors are smarter, or that actual actors think that Method Actors are smarter. And when I say “smart,” I don’t mean “common sense” — obviously, eating one’s way through Italy to put on a hundred pounds, as De Niro did for Raging Bull, is not in any way “smart.” But there’s a difference between genius and smartness, yes?
As I pointed out in the discussion on Facebook, there’s also a highbrow-lowbrow thing going on here. Method Acting = “Serious” acting, affiliated with high brow theater, “film,” etc. “Just Being Oneself” = “Movies,” “movie star,” etc.
I realize that I’m making all sorts of fudgy generalizations, conflating dedication with genius and intelligence, Method Acting with high class. But I do think that that’s the connotation that Method Acting has accumulated.
My response to this article is along the same lines. Method acting as Daniel-Day Lewis practices it is not the same thing as serious, dedicated, intelligent devotion to developing a character. Day-Lewis practices an extremely dangerous and, in my opinion, less technique-oriented form of character preparation: that of becoming his character entirely for the duration of a shoot or play. This “method” was incorrectly appropriated by Lee Strasberg from Stanislavski’s early teachings (which Stanislavski abandoned later in life because he viewed them as limiting) and in the theatre world, it’s viewed as highly suspicious. Day-Lewis gave himself a nervous breakdown playing Hamlet on stage because he believed his father’s ghost in the play to be his real-life father’s ghost (his father had recently passed away). This isn’t acting and it led to institutionalization.
What Fassbender does is prepare for the role by studying it, not becoming it entirely. Even moving in with his co-star for Hunger and practicing the scene multiple times a day can be viewed as non-Method (unless they stayed in character the entire 17 days, which would be viewed as Method). I hope he becomes known as someone who respects the craft and believes in preparation but not someone who believes he has inside of him the ability to become the character he is playing (as Day-Lewis and other proponents of the Method practice). It’s a limiting use of “technique.” Meryl Streep (who comes from many years of theatrical training) is not a Method actor, by this definition.
Method actors have this mystique about them because they are willing to do so much to build a character from living it, but it always comes at a price that doesn’t need to be paid. If proper technique is used, the process can be healthy, helpful, and still remarkable to behold. I hope that we can continue as a culture to talk about serious, intelligent actor preparation without conflating it with the American style of the Method, as it gives aspiring actors a false perception of good and bad acting.
Hello, I am actually the reader from Facebook and just wanted to pop in. This is a great blog and the points you make about Method acting versus playing to the established persona is interesting. Method Acting has definitely gained the connotation of intelligence. There are a lot of Method Actors I find interesting but I’m not in love with this school of acting as much as others.
P.S. I love Bette Davis. I tend to say “Bette Davis was Brando before Brando”. But that overstates Brando in my opinion.
Fascinating as usual! It’s funny because Herr Fassbender really drew me in as Rochester, but I had no idea he was this big star in the making. He’s one of those guys that pop up in a movie and you say, “he looks familiar…” - which is where the very private life comes in.
I want to thank you for your writing in The Hairpin and here. You’ve really made me look at “celebrities” in a different way. I like that there is an intelligent way to digest media. You’re awesome.
I haven’t read the article (I’m saving it for the train ride to work tomorrow) but ever since i heard about the domestic violence last year i haven’t been able to get on this train.
I get why everyone is into him but he seems destined to disappoint. like some past dark secrets are going to come out.
@Cece Yes, of course, he probably will disappoint eventually, but that doesn’t matter - now is his moment. He’s still all shiny and wonderful.
Like the blog a lot, Anne - Viggo’s surname needs an edit in the post, though.
I’ve had mixed feelings regarding “The Fassbender” from the time I first saw him on BBC America on ‘Hex.’ The usual that would normally get me (bad - fallen angel!, redeemed by love - check, still bad - check, mysterious, brutal and prone to lurking - check) just didn’t do it. I don’ t know why. It was sort of cemented by the rumors mentioned above. I think, for me, because there is so little known, the rumor looms larger. While I agree about the pretty face and talent, I have no love, mostly ambivalence for him…..at this time.
So here is what I’ve been able to find on the domestic abuse charge:
His girlfriend filed for a restraining order in March of 2010, claiming all that you can see in the link above. An incident of specific domestic abuse. The abuse, however, allegedly took place in the Summer of 2009, and the two broke up shortly thereafter. The restraining order six months later doesn’t make complete sense. She also asked for over $250,000 to pay for the injuries she allegedly sustained during the attack.
What’s more, the request for the restraining order — and the claims that accompanied it — was rescinded.
There’s two ways we can look at this:
1.) Fassbender paid her off, with the contingency that she revoke her claims and stay mum.
2.) The ex-girlfriend timed her suit with Fassbender’s international visibility in Basterds, and the claims are unfounded.
Now I *in no way* want to insinuate that this girl was *necessarily* lying. But I do think that the timing is fishy.
What’s ultimately interesting is how some people picked up on this tidbit from several years ago and some did not. I do not have a tendency of forgiving stars that I otherwise like for domestic abuse, so I promise you that I was not simply censoring the unseemly bits from the narrative above. I honestly did not know. And why I did not know was because it has not become part of Fassbender’s narrative: it’s not mentioned in articles, it’s most certainly not on his Wikipedia page, he never addresses it. But for some, the fact that someone made the charge has stuck with you — and seems to stick, for whatever reason. It might resonate with the understanding of Fassbender you’ve culled from his performances. (Indeed, it does).
But it also drives home the power of gossip: whether or not it is true, and we’ll never actually know, what matters is even an *accusation* can stick to an actor’s image and inflect its reception.
Fassbender is not a method actor. He denied it many times in his interviews.
BTW why this obsession with method acting? It’s just one of many acting techniques. Not every great actor is a method actor (Fassbender isn’t, Laurence Oliver also wasn’t a method actor). Also not every method actor is a good actor.
As for those accusations, remember people that they are exactly this: accussations. Nothing was ever proved and that woman quickly withdrew it. I don’t know who says truth and who lies, but it’s just one person’s word against the other person.
Althought honestly that woman’s past makes me go hmmm. You do know that she accused of the same thing her two previous boyfriends? And that she herself was accused of trying to dig money from one of them? Add to this that one of her previous on-again off-again boyfriends is a powerful producer who hated Fassbender when he started dating his ex-girfriend and promised him he would destroy him and his career. You can easely google it. And then after about a year she accuses Fassbender and then is seen with her ex-boyfriend producer both looking rather friendly.
All of those things make me think what really happened and who is a real victim here.
But like I said nobody knows what really happened.
I agree meme. I’ve been following Michael’s career since Hunger & as soon as I heard about these allegations I knew something was off. The timing of the charges, her own past. I’m glad you brought those facts about the Ex. It’s a shame that most people won’t do their own research & will automatically think the worst of this man. There is much much more to this story than we will ever know, nor should we.
I believe the producer being referred to is Lawrence Bender? He was a producer of Inglorious Bastards. Seeing a connection here? For those who don’t know, Michael was one of the stand out performances in IB. Dating the producers Ex? Not really a good idea. From what I’ve heard, this guy could be a bit of a bully.
Excellent point re: Fassbender not technically being a Method Actor. I’ve read those interviews as well, and I agree that he doesn’t adhere to the traditional Stella Adler understanding of picking up motions/drawing on one’s own experience/etc. Indeed, he makes it clear that he had so little in common with his character in Fish Tank that he had absolutely no personal experience on which to draw.
What I was pointing towards — and should have been more explicit in the article itself — is the contemporary, hackneyed understanding of Method Acting as any acting in which the actor disappears into the role. Some people might just call this “acting.” But there are definitely dominant two schools of performance in Hollywood today: “acting” and “being.” The actor deviates from his/her star image; the “be-er” embodies his/her star image. One is considered, rightly or wrongly, as “more difficult,” while the other is thought to be simple and straightforward. The Academy awards one and ignores the other. Audiences like both, but generally treat one with reverence and think of the other as “entertainment.”
Fassbender belongs firmly in the “acting” camp. The very very serious acting camp. It might not be Method Acting, but The Method definitely hangs out at that same camp.
I think you’ve basically articulated all of my feelings on the Fassbender. I first saw him in X-Men First Class and, hah, the magnetism of his performance really struck a chord with me. After reading a few of his interviews and seeing him as Mr. Rochester, I was absolutely sold.
There’s such an incisive intelligence in his interview responses, and he answers questions in such a natural way. I don’t feel like he’s being pretentious or ungrateful. I feel like he has been able to keep his life private without the off putting grumpiness that Daniel Craig has displayed as of late.
I do have to say that the domestic abuse rumors are off putting, but I’m wondering if in the upcoming awards season if anything will be flushed out - whether it’s a confirmation or denial. If he is nominated for an Oscar, will the gossip hounds sniff this up and be able to investigate more thoroughly?
i heard about this when it broke and pretty much dismissed it as well. the circumstances seemed vague and i too thought the timing was fishy. while i hate to think like a slut shamer,
she is an aspiring actress with a documented history of hooking up with a string of high profile men in hollywood (lawrence bender is the father of her daughter) and it seemed like she was in it for the publicity.
[...] Well Anne Helen Peterson has provided the answers, intellectual style. With a ph.D from the University of Texas about celebrity, her website is dedicated to unveiling the underlying reasons we are obsessed with the people we are obsessed with. She puts our love affair with Fassbender down to a couple of things, the most notably being that because he’s a method actor - and brings very little of his own personality to each role - we can project whatever we want onto The Fass and imagine him however we please. He is the perfect potential partner for all of us! [...]
These comments perfectly encapsulate why I can’t like Michael Fassbender. I don’t know if he abused his girlfriend or not. But I do know that every time it’s brought up his fans come out in force to either explain away the charges on the grounds that nothing was ever proven, or to attack the character of the woman involved. Way to contribute to the culture of silence surrounding domestic abuse, you guys!
You forgot to mention ’300′. When that came out, I only had eyes for Stelios, and not Gerard Butler. ‘Then we will fight in the shade’…great line.
Great article! Really enjoyed reading it! Great that you put an intellectual argument within the writing!
I agree with this discussion in so much that he is the antithesis of modern day “celebrity”. I don’t think that this discussion is actually so much about his style of acting as about the fact that he is such a refreshing personality. I think one of the main reasons people like actors like DDL is because they are a change from the norm. MF isn’t looking to be in the limelight, he just wants to make intelligent films with passion and credibility. (He has spoken about this in his interviews). He still lives a relatively normal life in Hackney, and it is easy for people to believe that they could be a part of that life!
I also think it helps that he is quite mysterious. As noted above, he is fairly reticent about his private life and that is incredibly attractive compared to most celebrities. You can daydream about him because anything is possible!
Also, he loves his family. And that is almost the best thing about him.