I won’t attempt an obituary of Charlton Heston, who died yesterday aged 84, as this should be left to proper film historians and scholars, but I will simply, if I may, make the following observations.

Heston was an actor of immense stature and gravitas who brought an effortless dignity to his roles and deserves substantial recognition for his body of work and influence.

He belonged to what we might call the ‘ancient tradition’ of the American leading man, along with the likes of John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford, who eschewed the theatrical mannerisms (Cagney) and methods (Brando) of more (justly) celebrated actors and who remained consistent in this approach throughout their careers*.

These actors did precisely nothing to move the medium on, save only to the extent that with both their popularity and skill they first enabled, then collaborated with, the greatest directors (Wyler, Ford, Capra, Welles, Leone, Hitchcock, Polanski, Eastwood, Spielberg) to make wonderful pictures. They were hired for their ability to make the films great through their acting, not to produce ‘great performances’.

What the likes of Wayne and Heston did was to capture the basic essence of screen acting and ground it, providing a historical testament and a lesson to that vast majority of aspiring film actors who don’t have the innovative genius of a Cagney, Brando or DeNiro: ‘less is more’. Some of today’s most watchable and effective leading men have clearly benefited from the Wayne-Heston tradition (think Mark Ruffalo in Zodiac (David Fincher, 2006), or Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007)). They don’t draw attention to their performances, but without their performances, these superb films wouldn’t work.

If only for his influence in getting Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958) made, we have a lot to be grateful to Charlton Heston for. But generations of actors will want to mark his passing, for being an actor who rose above the tide as it turned this way and that, and showed that in film acting, if you’ve got something that really works, it will always work.

 

*[The temptation to identify a strong pattern of conservative politics in the ‘ancient tradition’ is worth indulging but I think ultimately unhelpful, certainly in the case of both Eastwood, a humanist whose body of directorial work alone obliterates any attempt to associate his personal stance with that of Dirty Harry, and Heston, who loudly campaigned in support of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Wayne, Fonda and Ford are harder to defend on this ground.]