Musings on Jack Nicholson and age

Thought I'd throw this out there and see if anyone has any thoughts about it.

By coincidence, I've recently seen three Jack Nicholson movies from what I'll call the Three Ages of Jack.

They were Five Easy Pieces from his younger days, Heartburn from the mid 1980's and his latest, Something's Gotta Give (and also About Schmidt).

I know we all change as we get older, but he has almost become a different person. T^he younger Jack was extremely lean and mean looking, and his sharp feastures were his most notable physical characteristic. In his early films he almost looked wolflike.

In Heartburn, he was in mid-metamorphosis. he still had the same basic look and expressions, but was starting to fill out.

In his latest movies he looks almost the opposite of his younger self. His features have flattened out, and are lost in a big round face. They are -- in true Jsck style -- still somewhat askew. But unlike his lean and hungry early self, he is now sort of a butterball. Not obsese, but blocky.

It's interesting how he went from one extreme to the other, compared to many other actors of his vintage. Clint Eastwood is a little more gaunt and grey, but he's stiill Clint. Redford has gotten wrinlkly, but he's still the same basic guy......But Nicholson seems to be a totallty different person.

I would have thought, looking at his younger self, he would have aged like those guys. Getting more weatherted, but still with that same basic cast of his fave and body.

Anyonme else notice it? if so any theories as to why the change has been so dramatic?

It's to the point where I can almost watch him without being creeped out and repulsed.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is my favorite. By far.

it's such a masterpiece all the way around. I can't think of anyone in the role of McMurphy but Jack.

FWiW, someone left that book in my mom's math room many moons ago. I read it when I was 12-13, I think. I adored it. At the time I did feel so disconnected from everyone and everything, it felt like an insane asylum.

edit: That book left its mark on me. I still wonder if I'm the one who needs treatment or if there are so many others walking around who need treatment.

One of my all-time favorites.

He filled out a bit as he aged too.

replaced by a good-humored detachment, as in Don Juan De Marco.

But in some ways, the big fat Marlon does still look like an aged version of his younger self.

Nicholson looks to me like a different person.

Redford and Eastwood are more vain, and work to look the same.

is that, especially redford, they are the same guy no matter what character they play in a movie. heck redford won't even change the part in his hair.

jack is way cooler. willing to take a chance, doesn't always have to be the hero, he will play the bad guy, the crazy guy, the anti-hero, the fall guy.

jack was really great in 'witches of eastwick'

The ultimate "new" Jack role. That's where he really changed physically, I think.

a fucking pig inside and out. It just took a while for his outsides to begin to match his insides. My model friends hate him with a passion.

It's no fun knowing some things about people you like to watch. If it had come from anyone else, sis, I would have chalked it up to iconoclasm, but unfortunately I trust your observations way too much.

As the mother of a teenaged girl, I always thought he was a pig.

:hi:

I guess he didn't have a portrait in a closet that absorbed the piggishness?

This always shows up in the face, which is what you seem to be centered on.

I think that JN has aged quite well, and has grown up a bit, with time.

It amazed me at my high-school reunion a few years ago how some of my classmates looked exactly the same, otehrs looked somewhat the same and otehrs already looked like grizzled old folks.