Top 10 Best Characterizations in Film (10-6)

There are many things that make a great character - the direction, the actor, the performance, but most importantly - the characterization.  This is due to the creativity of the writer and their feeling of how this person should be made.  Many are characterized perfect to a T, and this is what this list is all about.  So fasten your seatbelts - it's going to be a bumpy night, and if you disagree, then frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Honorable mentions to:

• Rick Blaine - Casablanca
• R.P. McMurphy - One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest
• George Bailey - It's a Wonderful Life

10. Andy Dufresne - the Shawshank Redemption

Throughout this inspiring story adapted from Stephen King, Frank Darabont does a phenomenal job of identifying the intelligent, modest, and kindhearted person that Andy Dufresne is.  Tim Robbins, too, does a great job of showing his dark emotions very well - also shocking that he didn't receive any Oscar or Globes attention - and making it easy to sympathize with him.  He is easily a character that is one to love, told through his emotions and the breakthrough performance of his prison inmate and soon best friend Red (Morgan Freeman).

9. Howard Beale - Network

Never has a film about television been more fascinating, and how could it not with the help of top-notch writing of Paddy Chayefsky?  Peter Finch's portrayal of Howard Beale made him seen incredibly realistic as it lets the viewer choose whether to hate him or sympathize for him.  He's just an old man trying to be successful through television and soon becomes a hit with a spin-off of his own show later on.  His anger is what makes this performance so terrific and helps characterize him very well.  We can all guarantee on one thing - he'll always be mad as hell.

8. Norman Bates - Psycho

From Robert Bloche's novel to the big screen, Bates has always been the most unpredictable character in the history of cinema.  Is he just an innocent soul wandering, or is he a time bomb just waiting to blow?  It is never sure what he is until the end, and Hitch does a perfect job of showing what a confused, interesting person he is.  His personality is so unique - taxidermy, his obsession with his mother - make him one of the best characterized in film history.

7. Vincent Vega & Jules Winnfield - Pulp Fiction

There is nothing else to say other than, I love these guys.  They're so rich in terms of personality and it is exemplified through their small-talk, primarily in the first scene they share, as they go to whack somebody.  It is shown how great of friends they are through their conversations about pork, foot-massages, and pilots on television.  The two are hysterical as they react so differently to the same situations as each twist happens.  Both John Travolta and Samuel Jackson were very deserving of their Oscar nominations, and are still memorable to this day, through Quentin Tarantino's brilliant screen-writing

6. President Merkin Muffley - Dr. Strangelove

Both portrayed ingeniously by Peter Sellers, he is one of the most well-developed characters in the history of film (like I haven't said that enough).  Maybe it's the fact that Muffley's played by an actor who doesn't have an american accent, or that he has great chemistry in the war room with everyone else.  Stanley Kubrick did tremendously on the script to make him hilarious, but this time, it's more of the improvisation that Sellers does to make him characterized so hilariously.  He is shown to have such a great personality when he is on the phone talking to Russian president named Dmitri.  You can understand how Dmitri feels through how great Sellers does, and you never hear the man.  This is a character so creative, he's makes the silent come to life.

It Happened One Night

Hailed as one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time, It Happened One Night is remembered as a classic and one of the best films of the mid-30s.  The film is infamous for winning all five of the major Academy Awards - screenplay, actor, actress, director, and picture - and being the first to do so.  Even after 77 years, this film still holds up.

Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) is a spoiled heiress who runs away from her family when they make her unwilling make her marry aviator King Westley.  She soon gets on a bus to get back to her husband.  On the bus she meets reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who recently lost his job.  However, as the two get to know each other, Peter threatens to make her stay with him, or let the story loose and get Ellie back to her father.  No matter what, Peter will get a great newspaper story.

The film is very well written and shot.  Robert Riskin did a terrific job writing this film and it is especially shown by Gable based on what he says.  Whether it be Gable's false threats or his small-talk with Ellie, Riskin does a fantastic job of writing.  Capra, too impresses with his fantastic eye for the camera, directing this film better than any I had seen until Gone With the Wind.

However, the best part of the film is the chemistry between Gable and Colbert.  At first you can sense the uneasiness between the two, based on how rotten they are with each other.  Later on, you can see the friendship that develops, and all of the comedic moments the two share.  For example, when Gable and Colbert are looking for a ride, Peter shows the ways of showing how to pick up a ride in a car.  After about twenty cars, he gives up.  When Ellie takes a shot at it, she does the classic "pull up her skirt revealing a thigh" routine, they get a ride easily.  You can easily sense the frustration Peter Warne goes through then.

This film really is great.  As I said earlier in the review, this film definitely holds up.  It is funny, entertaining, innocent, and surely worth a watch to see the first terrific Best Picture winner chosen by the academy.   Also, I want to say that it has arguably the best title for a romantic comedy.  It Happened One Night receives a 3/4.