Becoming Jack Nicholson: The Masculine Persona from Easy Rider to The Shining by Shawn R. Karli (review)

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 well-trodden 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 commented on the lack of confidence in that American masculine hegemony which many have considered at least partially responsible for the Cold War and America’s involvement in Vietnam. In this reading, the ‘New Hollywood’ films reflected a lack of trust in the government and its agencies, and a rejection of the ready-made masculine roles of the American Dream. Karli argues that Nicholson’s acting (and his choice of films) reflects an equally effective challenge to hyper-masculinity as well as a portrayal of men seeking to escape their ready-made and restrictive roles.

Karli divides the spectrum of masculinities into categories: the existential man in search of meaning; the hyper-masculine man; the frustrated man; the man who tries to fight; and the man who goes over the edge. Karli identifies different approaches in Nicholson’s portrayal of masculine angst. Drawing on Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The White Man’s Burden” (of cultivating the savage), Karli makes a case for Nicholson’s singular performances of various antiheroes who challenge the status quo. Karli defines Nicholson’s unique dislocation technique as an ability to distance himself from the character. He thereby gives the impression that it is Jack Nicholson playing “Jack Nicholson” playing the various characters, which at the same time yields a sense of angst. Karli offers the reader accounts of Nicholson’s performances that situate each within the spectrum of masculinities. This ongoing discussion of performativities and masculinities strengthens Karli’s case for Nicholson as an auteur.

In chapter one, Karli introduces Nicholson and his 1970s filmography. In his performance as George Hanson in Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969) Nicholson plays a drunken lawyer who befriends two bikers and joins them on their road journey. This chapter introduces the Nicholson character as a man located on the intersection of the counterculture and the establishment, a site that would become integral to Nicholson’s dislocation technique.

Chapter two addresses the existentialist end of the spectrum through the rejection of masculine hegemony in Five Easy Pieces (Rafaleson, 1970) and The Passenger (Antonioni, 1975). Both films subvert the road movie genre to challenge the ideology of the day, a theme...