With more than seventy sticks on, Jeff Bridges went on television to cast a thrillr of seven chapters, The old (Disney), which basically follows the resurrection of a retired CIA assassin. It is clear that neither the years, nor the gray hair, nor a serious illness or a recent chemotherapy have managed to affect his acting skills or the enchantment of his physical presence; Bridges himself is bundled with throws and guests against dangerous agency henchmen he’s twice the age to flirt with an attractive Amy Brenemann from whom he takes nearly fifteen stallions. The answer is another old-fashioned grandfather (John Lightow), one of those comrades who steals all the scenes even from behind and who looked old even when he was young.
There is no expiration date for male actors in Hollywood. Liam Neeson starred Vendetta (2008) on the verge of the 1960s, a great French action film that started a lucrative franchise in which first the daughter is kidnapped, then the ex-wife and I suppose they will continue with in-laws, genres and pets. Towards the end of his seventies, Neeson still has enough reserves of physical power (plus a nose left over from his days as an amateur boxer in Ulster) to take on not just the Albanian mafia but public disbelief. The same happens to Keanu Reeves’ half-century with the character of John Wick (2014), a former professional killer who has to get back to punching because of unscrupulous people stealing his car and killing his dog.
On the other hand, with rare exceptions (Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and a few others), actresses stop playing attractive roles not after fifty, but just over thirty-five. in the documentary I’m looking for Debra Winger (2002), Rosanna Arquette wonders why the great actress disappeared from the screens in full splendor, a few years after her prodigious performance in lands of twilight (1995), and the only plausible explanation, after interviewing dozens of stars (Charlotte Rampling, Meg Ryan, Vanessa Redgrave, Laura Dern, Holly Hunter, Teri Garr, among others) is that the film industry wants nothing to do with female wrinkles.
It is a shame and a blatant injustice that so many brilliant actresses have been forced to retire just when they have more experience, more artistry, more resources and more excitement that they can offer to the public. As for the tributes to physical appearance, she will never understand neither the exclusive cult of youth nor the absurd idea that a woman’s beauty fades from the moment four or five decades fall on her. You have to be very stupid (or Salvador Sostres, sorry for the pleonasm) to think that. In her fifties, Monica Bellucci made a brief and dazzling appearance in Spectrum (2015), in a fleeting romance with Daniel Craig, and it would be hard to find a single Bond girl who stands up to comparison.
There are actors whose baldness, wrinkles, gray hair and even old age make Bellucci’s beautiful lingerie feel. To name just a couple, Sean Connery and Jonathan Banks (the unforgettable criminal plumber from breaking Bad y Better to call Saul) are perfect examples of guys who reached the pinnacle of their talent when they had already lost all their hair and time was drawing a Rembrandt on their faces. What a pity that we cannot see so many great performers ripening like good wines, firstly because hardly any roles are written for them and secondly for that stupid and macho habit of trying to nail them to young people like butterflies. In Feud, the FX television series that chronicles the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during their period of decline, there is a moment when Robert Aldrich, director of What happened to Baby Jane?boasts of having invented the cinema of the old (“old exploitation” he calls it), a horror subgenre where mature actresses are only good for being scary. The fact that Jessica Lange (who plays Joan Crawford taking advantage of an endless series of cosmetic surgery operations) has starred in several seasons of American horror story it goes to show that Aldrich, unfortunately, was not far from the mark.
