David Denny
APOCALYPTIC CHARLTON HESTON
More cynical and clammy than Western Heston or
Moses Heston or even Judah Ben-Hur Heston,
Apocalyptic Heston is anti-epic, much less likely
to strike the Northwestern University-trained
acting school pose—that smug you’ll-soon-find-out-
I’m-the-hero-of-this-picture pose—remnant
from the age of Barrymore and Fairbanks.
Apocalyptic Heston is a scavenger, a roamer,
a Duke gone rogue, cut loose from the hero’s
code by rampant, empirical, planet-devouring
capitalism and spun into his own oxygen-depleted
hyper-Darwinian filmic orbit. Apocalyptic Heston has
little of the sonorous America-first Bible-recitation
Heston of his later years. Even the rifle-raising
pry-it-I-dare-you-from-my-cold-dead-fingers
NRA Heston, for all its Republican posturing,
wouldn’t survive in a room with Apocalyptic Heston,
whose Dudley Do-Right chin is bruised,
stubble-covered, and weary of humanity’s
death-loving hubris. He may be lugging a weapon,
but it’s clear from the haphazard way it’s slung
over his shoulder that it doesn’t have a name.
He only cleans it because there’s nothing else
to do and no one to talk to—they’ve all been
swallowed up by the great earthquake, crushed
into protein-rich crackers, or ravaged by mutant
cells no immune system but his could battle.
It’s not that he’s lost his humanity, but he has
dropped the now burdensome and obsolete load
of decorum required by the late great western civilization.
He can still fall to his knees in the sand,
shedding tears of rage and sadness for what’s
been lost, but the camera is very far away
and the sobs are drowned out by the elegiac strains
of Montovani’s violin-heavy score. Indeed,
absent Cecil B. DeMille production values,
Apocalyptic Heston has his own brand of sweaty
1970s cinemascope appeal. But no Orange County
nomination committee would ask him to run
for office. No AFI tributes for him. No tuxedos
or red carpet strolls. No late-night TV guest
appearances with amusing behind-the-scenes
anecdotes. Not even Michael Moore would dare
satirize him for fear of Apocalyptic Heston’s
nothing-left-to-lose reprisal. Alzheimer’s
wouldn’t dare stalk him. Apocalyptic Heston’s
long goodbye is a medium shot at dusk;
he’s standing alone on the rubble heap of
a Malibu mansion, turning over chunks of chimney
debris with his steel-toed boot. Don’t expect him
to wave as the camera cranes back and
the credits roll. His eyes are fixed on some
far-away vanishing point on the horizon,
lit by the lavender atmospheric pollution
that gives this finale its tragic luster as the painted
cyclorama sun sinks slowly into the Pacific.
—from Rattle #42, Winter 2013
__________
David Denny : “My son Zach and I were lounging with our notebooks at the Lahaina Starbucks on Maui. The rest of the family was snorkeling that morning, but we had gotten into a routine of scribbling together for an hour or so before anything else. We got to talking about a string of apocalyptic movies that Charlton Heston made during the 1970s—Planet of the Apes , Soylent Green , The Omega Man , Earthquake . How oddly dark these pictures were given the actor’s studio-era career as a larger-than-life true-blue hero. When we fell silent and opened our notebooks, he gulped his skinny mocha and worked on a sci-fi fantasy story. I sipped at my iced tea lemonade and jotted the initial draft of ‘Apocalyptic Charlton Heston,’ a back-handed ode to the star’s ability to reinvent himself for a more anti-heroic age.” (web )
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