CATE BLANCHETT
SHIFTING SCREEN CHARACTER PERFORMS THE MORAL DIVIDE
By PETER THOMAS BUSCH
Cate Blanchett has the unique ability to perform characters on both sides of the moral divide.
The talented actor can play reigning monarchs as equally well as unsavory former spouses, subtly bending character traits from film role to film role.
In The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) Blanchett plays an innocent bystander who witnesses the good side of the diabolical behavior of an impersonator, played by Matt Damon.
The main narrative of jealousy and betrayal unravels on the screen unbeknownst to the character occupying a secondary narrative.
The innocent bystander role becomes a bit more entangled in the plot when Blanchett plays listless housewife, Kate Wheeler. Wheeler, who has become stymied as a bored housewife, falls for the excitement of being connected to a pair of bank robbers, played by Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thorton, in Bandits (2001).
The character performance goes one stop down when Blanchett plays the unscrupulous former partner in The Shipping News (2001). Petal is a rough trampy woman who sells her daughter to an illegal adoption agency.
Petal has just a few scenes, but she becomes all the more memorable by the artful transformation the actor undergoes for her film character in complete separation from her public image.
The immorality of the characters Blanchett plays gets a bit worse, yet. In Notes of Scandal (2006) the married public school teacher, Sherba Hart, has an affair with one of her pupils.
Life often becomes deeply flawed by mistakes cast upon individuals by the people around them. But Sherba becomes intrigued enough by her own lapse of judgment to continue on unphased until all the world collapses around her and her family.
In The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Galadriel ever so briefly falls to the dark powers of the ring while giving counsel to Frodo. The great light momentarily falls into the darkness, compelled down by the seduction of power the ring projects onto those who are near.
Blanchett prefers the more challenging roles and her telling of the darkness often comments as much about the accepted truths as the telling of the light, from a trampy single mother in gritty reality films to a mystical being in shear fantasy cinema.
The actor’s ever shifting artistic talents even carries her across gender roles where she performs one of several character sketches of folk singer Bob Dillon in, I’m Not There (2007). Blanchett loses all her femininity but for that gentle soft soul carried about by the musical artist of the folk hero musician generation.
In Carol (2015), the actor portrays a woman vilified by society for seeking companionship with other women.
Blanchett has been one of the most entertaining actors in a generation partly because of the delightful unpredictable morality of her performances from film project to film project. These performances contribute artistic value to the narrative beyond the femme fatal image of classic screen legends.
Instead of heavy moralization, performances tend to ever so subtly connect human frailties with the personality traits that get the character into trouble.
Blanchett’s performances are often presented from the perspective of the unheroic character, setting off the social manners of other characters as satyrs while rationalizing her characters’ behavior within the boundaries of social norms. This contrast of manners provides a rich texture to the film.
Carol goes through a metaphysical trial as a person whose morals offend society. But through the performance, her husband’s opposition seems absurd. The husband, played by Kyle Chandler, ultimately wins the custody battle over the couple’s child, but he is made to look the outsider in doing so. And to provide subtle finishing touches to the morality play, Carol happily moves on after her divorce, while everyone else is made to look tragic, and left behind in the past.
Blanchett shows range as an actor by also playing heroic characters such as the English Queen in Elizabeth (1998). Blanchett reprises the role in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). The Queen is portrayed as a heroic character, even when fallen vulnerable to her inner court as much as to England’s rival empires.
Blanchett shores up her character’s on-screen integrity by lashing out at the unheroic acts of the characters around her. Sir Walter Reilly is a coward compared to the Queen’s bravery shown in defending against the Spanish Armada. And a maiden is a traitor when contrasted to the Queen’s trust shared with members of her court.
The Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences awarded Blanchett the best supporting actor award for her portrayal of classic Hollywood screen star, Kathrine Hepburn, in the Aviator (2004).
Blanchett received a second Oscar for her leading role as a New York socialite, in Blue Jasmine (2013).
Blanchett’s character portraits show a rough masculine side that takes the center stage away from predominantly masculine characters, partly because she simultaneously portrays a brilliant feminine side with grace and beauty. Performances are seamless masterpieces so believable as to make the air of fiction disappear between the screen character and the audience.
Kate, also known as Kathrine Hepburn is shown to be this true to life character with a kindness and forgiveness in her step that carries her through life until she finally has enough of unkind and unreasonable affronts to her character.
Blanchett delivers for the screen a picture perfect character study with all the eccentric mannerism, including the pitch and pace of speech of the classic screen actor she portrays in the most brilliant of Oscar worthy performances.
In Nightmare Alley (2021) Dr. Lilith Ritter gets a bit smitten by the carnival mentalist pulling up in town his traveling show. Ritter teams up with Stanton Carlisle, played by Bradley Cooper, to swindle the town’s powerfully rich to whom she provides counseling services.
Cooper’s character matches wits with Ritter until all is said and done and the true trickster of cinema is revealed.
In the role, Blanchett shows masculine and feminine sides, as well as moral and immoral characteristics.
Blanchett then sets the screen at ease by creating a character that produces compelling classical music for an international orchestra, in Tar (2022). But Lydia’s musical perfectionism begins to fall apart when her morality becomes questioned publicly.
The eccentric perfectionism and focus that are often the magical ingredients for great musical masterpieces are evidenced on Lydia’s corpus. But when the confidence generated by and for perfection begins to deconstruct as a result of the public scrutiny, so does the high minded conduct that the famous conductor carries herself with through life.
Blanchett’s passion for acting seamlessly intertwines with all the skills of a master screen performer clearly in sync with the overall vision of the film for everyone to witness for themselves.
This film project, that film project, the most gifted of talents only needs a compelling enough script to perform her finely ingrained, character infused art.
