Harvey Keitel
Originally published in 1997 and now available as an ebook.It has not been possible to include the illustrations in the electronic edition.Perhaps the bravest and most inspiring actor of his generation, Harvey Keitel has made his menacing presence felt in some of the greatest cult movies ever, from Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver to Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.With over fifty films to his name, a dozen of them since 1992, Keitel is one of the most ubiquitous and sought-after actors in Hollywood. Yet unlike so many of his contemporaries, he constantly surprises with daring and risk-taking performances in ground-breaking films such as Bad Lieutenant, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Piano and Smoke.Since his tough childhood in Brooklyn, Keitel's life has been a dramatic and unconventional as his screen roles. 'Harvey Keitel: The Art of Darkness 'tells, for the first time, the story of the rollercoaster career and turbulent personal life of this most powerful performer.
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Copyright © Marshall Fine 1997
Marshall Fine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780002558082
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2017 ISBN: 9780008245894
Version: 2017-03-01
To my brother and sister, Richard and Julie
Harvey Keitel is a tough interview. Ask anyone who’s tried it. It’s not that he won’t talk to you. It’s just that, for the most part, he will only talk about what he wants to talk about, no matter what you ask him.
The first time I met him, in October 1994, he started by telling me why he didn’t want to discuss the character he played in the film he was there to promote because ‘I’d like your readers to see the film with their own hearts, to see it without my influence.’
Neither did he want to discuss his work methods or his personal life. Nor would he talk about the taboos on male frontal nudity in films – ‘I wouldn’t know because I’ve never done a nude scene.’ All evidence to the contrary.
Instead, he wanted to discuss how he had discovered the joys of reading as a young man in the Marines, when, out of boredom, he picked up a book of Greek mythology and transformed his life. And to complain that ‘we’ve lost the art of story-telling for the most part. We’ve lost the art of sitting around the table and sharing stories about life. We’ve lost the art of the caveman who painted on walls to express his own fears and desires.’
Most of all, he wanted to discuss the journey inward, the journey to self-knowledge that drives him onward as an actor and as a man. It was the kind of discussion that could have sounded pretentious; well, actually, it did sound pretentious. But Keitel also made it sound heartfelt:
I still struggle at times not to escape from the inward journey. I can never weigh for you how hard that is, the temptation away from doing what is right. The problem is we give short shrift too often to the devil in us. We shun it instead of making its voice divine and accepting our goodness. The problem is in accepting the dark side. People don’t understand that they can accept it – but they don’t have to act on it. There are ways of expressing the dark side without hurting anyone. It can take a lifetime to learn – but it doesn’t have to.
Harvey Keitel’s journey to self-knowledge and his career as an actor have both been bumpy, sometimes frustrating trips, that eventually led to creative breakthroughs and newfound success in the 1990s.
He came to acting late – in his mid twenties – and was already in his thirties when he had his first burst of fame in Mean Streets. But subsequently he couldn’t find parts worthy of his talents, playing colorful but small character roles before suffering a kind of career meltdown in the late 1970s that lasted, more or less, through the 1980s. Then, in 1991 and 1992, Keitel was reborn as the risk-taking king of the American (and, indeed, the international) independent film scene.
When I started this book, I assumed I understood Keitel’s career, having followed it since he emerged in Mean Streets in 1973, the same year I left college and started working professionally as an entertainment writer and critic (after several years of practicing in college). Acting, as it turned out, was an escape from a life so unsatisfying that Keitel had sought refuge in work as a court stenographer, where he could sit without speaking or being spoken to for days at a time. Yet that proved to be the opposite of what he wanted and needed: the ability to explore, understand and express the riot of emotions roiling within him.
