tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

If you're going to ask me which movie of Leonardo DiCaprio I remember the most, I'd say - 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape', and I'll have to add that even though Johnny Depp headlines the flick, both him and Leo stood out with their heartfelt performances- with DiCaprio earning an Oscar nom for his role. While I am inclined to say that Leo's role appears to be the more challenging, the acclaim he received stems from the fact that he really put himself into Arnie and he became that character.

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In putting some more perspective, let's see how the Lasse Hallstrom's movie fared with the critics - In 'Grape' Chicago Tribune's Roger Ebert said:

The special quality of "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" is not its oddness, however, but its warmth. Johnny Depp, as Gilbert, has specialized in playing outsiders ("Edward Scissorhands," "Benny and Joon"), and here he brings a quiet, gentle sweetness that suffuses the whole film. Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Arnie, the retarded kid brother, has been nominated for an Academy Award, and deserves it. [ read more ]

For which Variety's Todd Mccarthy asserted that:

Even trickier is Arnie's character, whose spastic movements and infantile rantings could easily make viewers uncomfortable. DiCaprio's remarkable performance doesn't stint on the erratic behavior, and also brings the kid alive as a human being who must be cared for and nurtured -- as hopeless a task as that might be -- thereby justifying Gilbert's devotion to him. [ read more ]

I'd love to watch both Depp and DiCaprio once again on the big screen, perhaps performing different characters or even similar ones, but I guess, it might not happen anytime soon...

Here are some scenes from 'Grape' featuring both actors:

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So I'll settle for the next best thing - a DiCaprio starrer with Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a character, that might spring in some awesome surprises. That would be Inception right?

I'm going back to my original question, do you think both actors are in similar acting mode? What do I actually mean by that? I guess, what I'm trying to say is - Do both actors prefer playing similar types of character or is one (Levitt) in a sense, following in the other's (DiCaprio's) footsteps? Or perhaps both have been pursuing different career paths since the beginning? Let us see...

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Best Unconventional Characters to date: If it's about Joseph Gordon-Levitt, then his movie, Mysterious Skin, would be at the top of my list - as a favorite. In this film, Gordon-Levitt plays Neil - a teen hustler who grew up in a small town, was sexually abused by his pedophile baseball coach while  his promiscuous mother does not pay attention.

The following clip demonstrate the intensity of Gordon-Levitt's performance:
[ Warning: very powerful and disturbing images ]

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Observes Dennis Lim at The Village Voice:

... the aggressively carnal Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) takes up hustling-first in the desolate parks of his hick town, and then on the somewhat meaner streets of AIDS-scarred New York, all the while pursuing (and often enjoying) sex with considerably older men. His psychological profile is not exactly novel, but given the stunted societal discourse surrounding kids and sex, it still comes as a shock to realize that for Neil, the man who once abused him remains the first love he can't get over. - - - Few directors objectify their actors as unabashedly, and Araki delights here in reinventing a very game Gordon-Levitt, the former 3rd Rock From the Sun moppet, as a strutting dicktease (from a certain angle, he even brings to mind the director's onetime muse James Duval). And for perhaps the first time in an Araki movie, the gaze squarely implicates the viewer, our rapt voyeurism contributing to Neil's circumscribed identity as a sexual plaything. [ read more ]

Remarked Steve Rose at The Guardian:

Gordon-Levitt in particularly gives a physical, uninhibited and affecting performance - it didn't register until afterwards that this was the kid from the sitcom 3rd Rock From the Sun. It's a powerful, disorienting hallucination of a film - like the boys in question, we're never exactly sure whether it's a harmless daydream or an awful nightmare. [ read more ]

While DiCaprio's character is 'Grape' is not as 'controversial' as Gordon-Levitt's Neil in Mysterious Skin, there is something similar about these  characters - both are hungry for attention, love and consolation. Of course, DiCaprio did portrayed a  gay character - one in particular, is perhaps as intense and as unforgettable as Joe's Neil - As Arthur Rimbaud in Total Eclipse. There is, however, one big difference - critical acclaim.

Remarked Todd Mccarthy at Variety: Director Agnieszka Holland exacerbates matters by dwelling on both the emotional and sexual skirmishes with what can only be called grotesque explicitness: Kissing and sodomy scenes between the two men are photographed in frankly embarrassing close-up... [ read more ]

You might assume critics lambasted the film.. But in Basketball Diaries, DiCaprio did not play gay, but his character was forced to 'sell himself' to someone who is... and the reviews were quite different...

Jimmy Carroll (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a star basketball player on his New York City Catholic school team. Fellow roundballers Mickey (Mark Wahlberg) and Neutron (Patrick McGaw) and unofficial cheerleader Pedro (James Madio) are Jimmy's closest friends, and whenever trouble stalks one, it invariably affects them all. So, when the drug cycle starts, it quickly spreads to each of the four corners of the friendship. What begins as casual use first becomes a weekend habit, then an everyday obsession. Grades plummet, on-court performance becomes unreliable, and crime looms as the only means to pay for a seemingly-endless supply of uppers, downers, cocaine, and heroin. There have been quite a few addiction movies, but most are surface melodramas, concerned with busting the bad guys or facilitating a Hollywood-style transformation from user to productive member of society. Films like with The Basketball Diaries, which paint a stark, ugly portrait of drug abuse, are rare. This is not the type of picture likely to draw big at the box office. Much of what's shown is simply too raw for audiences out for a couple hours' entertainment. [ read more ]

Ascent into the Top of the A-List: DiCaprio did both movies in 1995, and after 2 years, Titanic catapulted him into the A-list. Movies such as Gangs of New York, Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator, The Departed, Blood Diamond and Revolutionary Road came right after.

Aside from these high-profile movies, his collaboration with acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese is particularly instrumental in making him today's most sought-after actor. Three films have been completed featuring their collaboration, and there are upcoming features indicating the team-up is getting stronger than ever - Shutter Island and The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

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On The Verge...: After Mysterious Skin, Gordon-Levitt did Brick, an indie film from Rian Johnson. Says Peter Travers at Rolling Stone:

"Sensational" is the word for Joseph Gordon-Levitt (equally striking in Mysterious Skin), who stars as Brendan, the teen outsider who becomes a budding Bogart when his ex-girlfriend (Emilie de Ravin) is found dead near a sewer. With the help of his pal the Brain (Matt O'Leary), Brendan starts playing detective. He rubs up against the sexual wiles of two babes, Laura (Nora Zehetner) and Kara (Meagan Good), slaps around a stoner (Noah Segan) in Bogie fashion and -- in the film's most thrilling scene -- plays matador with a killer car in a parking lot. The trail ultimately leads him to the Pin (Lukas Haas, dead-on creepy), a drug dealer who doesn't lose an ounce of menace just because he lives with his mom. [ read more ]

It was followed by a number of high-profile films, though he did not receive the kind of acclaim DiCaprio got after Titanic. However his list of movies are also quite impressive. Take a look: The Lookout, Stop-Loss and 500 Days of Summer.

The last one - 500 Days of Summer - remains probably his most acclaimed movie to date. The movie from Marc Webb, and featuring an amazing performance from Zooey Deschanel, remains both critically acclaimed and a box office success.

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A Mentor like Scorsese: A critical difference between the two actors is that while DiCaprio boasts of a 'mentor' in the person of Martin Scorsese, Gordon-Levitt has no one of equal stature to match the former in this department.

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What's on your mind? Are you a fan of both actors? Which of DiCaprio's movies are your favorites and why? How about Joseph Gordon-Levitt - any particular favorites? Let us know what you think!
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Stay tuned for Cinema's Most Unforgettable Leading Men: Through the Years - A special article featuring cinema's leading men from Robert Redford, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Romain Duris, Moritz Bleibtreu, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Ethan Hawke to today's latest batch: Jim Sturgess, Robert Pattinson, Zac Efron, Jesse Eisenberg, Paul Dano and many more.
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