An icon is on your computer desktop. You click it and a program starts automatically - no thought involved. You know which program you're opening because you recognize the icon. A legend is found on the bottom of a map. Before GPS, legends told you how far apart things were, and in which direction you needed to go. With Elizabeth Taylor's passing, we have lost not just an icon, but also a legend. It is important to know the difference.
I've read (and written) articles about the current state of film - how bad it is, how unoriginal, how so many "artists" are doing films for the paycheck or the awards. We have recognizable icons in the business today - Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp. Supermarket tabloids tell all their innermost secrets, as long as they don't break confidentiality agreements. These people are movie stars - icons. They are not legends.
To be a legend, it's necessary to bring MORE to the table. Being easily recognizable makes you a movie star. It makes you famous. It can make you an icon - but nowhere near a legend. Legends are people like Clint Eastwood, who now directs as much as he acts. He got credit for giving a face lift to the genre that made him famous - the western. Another is Robert Redford - founder of Sundance. But it's not necessary to go behind the camera in order to be a legend. Paul Newman was a legend. His performances showed he wasn't just a great looking guy, he had talent and range.
True legends show you the way film is going. Whatever you may say about Elizabeth Taylor, you can't say she didn't have talent. From "National Velvet" where she stole a nation's heart to the ingenue in "Father of the Bride", giving Spencer Tracy as good as he was giving, she had the range. Plus, Taylor gets credit for being in (and almost dying for) one of the biggest box office flops ever - "Cleopatra". Talk about taking a risk!
But the one I remember most is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" - the movie showing her at her bloated, miserable, venomous best. When I first saw it I was rather young and didn't get it. Now I now it's a stellar performance, once seemed too private and exhausting to watch. The closest we have now is "Blue Valentine", and even that's not that close.
It's a shame today's audiences don't really care to know what good acting really is. We'd rather see the same people make the same films over and over. Or we'd rather remake films because no one remembered them the first time.
It's also a shame that, given their age, more legends are leaving us. There aren't many people to fill their shoes, and most aren't even trying. And I think that's the biggest reason today's cinema is directionless.
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