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Becoming Jack Nicholson: The Masculine Persona from Easy Rider to The Shining Shawn R. Karli Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012. 193 pages. $50.00, hardcover
Shaun R. Karli presents the bold and persuasive case for Jack Nicholson as an auteur, which is an accolade not usually applied to actors but reserved for directors whose unique viewpoint makes their films distinctive. Karli identifies the 1970s as a defining period in Jack Nicholson's acting career. Film historians concur that this is a noteworthy period, but not all agree with the auteur theory. Karli revisits the welltrodden economic, political and cultural reasons for the Hollywood renaissance of the 1970s both to reassess the 'director centric' reading of authorship during the period and to present an interesting reassessment focusing on Nicholson's acting career.
Karli teaches composition at Harrisburg Area Community College and American literature at Conestoga Valley High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He draws on his teaching experience to ensure that Becoming Jack Nicholson will appeal not only to those engaged in film studies but also to students and researchers interested in gender studies, American studies and sociology. His methodology is simple yet effective: he establishes a set of films that reflect a range of masculinities as portrayed by Nicholson and then analyzes how Nicholson's performances both shape and enhance their narratives to create a body of work consistent with auteur theory. Through a sensitive reading of the texts Karli argues for his theory of Nicholson's authorship by showing how he shapes each of the films with a unique style of performance.
Karli attributes this style to what he terms Nicholson's dislocation technique. This is a distinctive style of acting, explained in greater detail below, which employs self-reflexive angst to reflect the absurdity of masculine hegemony. Karli offers a particularly important challenge to the idea that it was the 'New Hollywood' directors alone who mirrored and...