Meg, Michelle and DDL: Great Acting is in the eye of the Beholder

The Age of Innocence turns 25 today. As someone who loves, admires and feels this film very deeply it’s been quite a year. Firstly with the Criterion Collection release; and now I’ve finally got the chance to see this classic Pfeiffer film on the big screen again. A week on Sunday at The Plaza Cinema in Stockport.This is one of two brilliant films from 1993 which dealt, in different ways, with two people in a love story which is never meant to be. There is such a sadness, such longing, and finally emptiness and regret in their endings. The 2nd film; which I also hope will gain Criterion Collection recognition, was Flesh and Bone.Part Southern Gothic, part screwball road movie, Steve Kloves’ grim prairie tale kicks up a very unique mood. The doomed romance between Dennis Quaid’s cowboy and Meg Ryan’s flibbertigibbet is so engrossing I tend to forget about the ending, so much so that I feel all the more devastated when I reach it once again.The fact both films saw the light of day in the same year with the same message done so well, is remarkable. I’ve often thought that a double feature of The Age of Innocence and Flesh and Bone would be the ultimate in viewer devastation.Great movies, great acting. Although as the years roll by I do wonder what ‘great acting’ even means. How do you judge it? Looking back over these films do I honestly think that Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Age of Innocence were superior to Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan in Flesh and Bone?I still can’t pick a favourite. Perhaps the term ‘great acting’ is too subjective to ever really mean anything. The appreciation of a performance, like the enjoyment of motion pictures, will always be a matter of taste. These films are to my taste. Like Groundhog Day I can watch them over and over again.

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