Heresy

Since I've made a specialty of annoying audiences with renegade opinions, I might as well take this opportunity to confess that I've always thought that Charlton Heston was a really good actor.

True, he gives a goofy performance in The Ten Commandments, especially at those times when CB makes him strike "dynamic" poses straight out of Jack Kirby. Face it -- everyone in that movie looks foolish, even Edward G. Robinson. Cannon's rule: When one actor in a film does sub-par work, blame the actor. When all the actors seem "off," blame the director.

You may laugh at the idea of Heston playing a Mexican in Touch of Evil, but Welles always thought he did a fine job. As indeed he did. The very absurdity of the casting makes Heston's work all the more impressive. No hint of any then-current stereotyping touches that portrayal. He makes the protagonist heroic, yet peppers the character with enough traces of self-doubt to keep him human.

In high school, when I had to deliver the "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech, I looked to Heston in the 1970 Julius Caesar as my model. (Actually, he did the role twice on film.) He outdid Brando -- no easy feat. Although Heston didn't direct the film, he suggested the novel way in which the Big Scene is blocked. I love the spin he puts on the line "So is my horse, Octavius": He discovers a bit of Machiavellian humor that no other actor had found. Heston still owns the role; all other Antonys are imposters.

(I'll always think fondly of that film, since it inspired me to crack open the family's Complete Works Of, illustrated by noted commie Rockwell Kent.)

Just the other day, I had another look at The Agony and the Ecstasy, which is -- don't scoff -- a superb piece of film-making. It's an epic that turns into a two-person drama, and it would not work if both performances were not first-rate.

If you'll forgive a digression: A lot of dolts slam the film for "avoiding" Michelangelo's homosexuality. I don't see how Carol Reed's movie could possibly be more obvious. When the luscious Diane Cilento thrusts herself at Heston and he doesn't respond, you know what's (not) up. In essence, the film focuses on a love-hate relationship between two men, and quite a few lines are double-entendres: "You took a stick to me once..."

(There's also a scene in which soldiers looking for Mike raid a house of ill repute, thereby sending a hooker into hysterics: "You're looking for him here?")

Moderns now find Michelangelo's sexuality more easily comprehensible than his religiosity. His love for God intertwined with his love for the (male) figure in ways that are strange yet authentic. That's why a picture of a naked quarterback reaching out to an old man in a pink nightgown has become the world's most beloved religious image.

Have I stopped talking about Heston in order to talk about Michelangelo? Not really. No other major film actor of his generation could or would have portrayed a non-het with strength and nobility. That performance is both brave and dignified. Yet some of the pieces written about Heston on the occasion of his death have referred to him as "homophobic" -- an utterly unfair charge.

Yes, his Macbeth (on stage) was a disaster, as was his go at Sherlock Holmes. And yes, his politics took a rightward turn toward the end. You may not know that the NRA chairman once favored left-ish causes. Oddly enough, those were the years in which he gave his best performances. Do not let the good be interred with his bones.