Despite his looks and presence, he makes a poor matinee idol.
Pitt is thus one of the few neo-stars whose persona is located in, rather than denied by, his edgier projects.” Indeed, Pitt dazzled in his collaborations with David Fincher as the hotshot young detective in Seven and the enigma Tyler Durden in Fight Club. Seven and Fight Club, by contrast, were huge hits. As Basinger writes, “Many of ‘safer’ choices have actually been among the worst failures of Pitt’s career. One of the most perceptive insights into his work comes at the end of Jeanine Basinger’s trenchant book, The Star Machine. Pitt’s decisions as an actor betray a curiosity I’ve always found admirable. But is he a great actor? This question is trickier to answer because of the scope of his career and how subtle his best work can be.
He’s the kind of movie star that has become increasingly rare - larger than life, assured, contradictory, physically mesmerizing, with a strong understanding of the power of persona. He has an enviable coolness that snakes through his work onscreen, most recently used to great effect in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Photo-Illustration: Vulture and Courtesy of Studiosīrad Pitt is undeniably a great movie star.
