By playing in Luxembourg next Tuesday, Kiefer Sutherland revives an old pop question: where does the actor end and the singer begin? Perhaps there are no boundaries, but rather two ways of stepping into the spotlight. Analysis.
Microphone and camera, same battle
The Anglo-Saxon entertainment industry has never truly believed in boundaries between disciplines. It’s clear, a body that captures attention on stage can capture it on screen, just like a voice that creates desire on the radio can, two shots later, bring romance to the cinema. Frank Sinatra is a case in point: what makes him a great crooner is also what makes him so right in From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953). Elvis Presley takes the phenomenon to its most popular, most industrial version as well: from Love Me Tender (Robert D. Webb, 1956), rock ‘n’ roll knows it doesn’t just sell songs, but a certain way of moving within a framework – it’s not about putting Elvis in the cinema to act well, but because he is himself a living fiction.
The industry doesn’t detect two separate talents (one musical, the other dramatic), it identifies a single energy that can be converted. In the Anglo-Saxon world, especially from the intersection of radio, record, television, cinema, and live culture, the star is seen as a platform before platforms. They should be able to switch from one medium to another without losing their essence. Italy’s “musicarello” showcase this too: Mina, Adriano Celentano, Little Tony, Gianni Morandi… They find themselves in films that don’t view the song as an extra, but as a way to advance the image and, in this case, to sell youth, a style (rock ‘n’ roll), and a social tempo. The film is the natural extension of the record, and the record is the anticipated soundtrack of the film.
Singing and acting: the act of presence
The microphone amplifies the voice much like the close-up enlarges the face. A great singer knows that a phrase is not just about what it says, but how it’s interpreted. A great actor understands the same about looks, silence, and breathing. David Bowie demonstrates this in The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976), not just because he plays an alien in it. If a song reflects unstable identity, Roeg’s cinema is there to capture that identity and put it into frames. Lady Gaga in A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper, 2018) follows the same principle: it’s not just about applauding a singer who succeeds in acting, but rather a performer who pushes towards cinema the display of self. Janelle Monáe, in Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016) and Hidden Figures (Theodore Melfi, 2016), works on the same basis: in her music as in her roles, she handles elegance and a very acute awareness of what a body tells before singing.
From Carmen: A Hip Hopera (Robert Townsend, 2001) to Dreamgirls (Bill Condon, 2006), then Cadillac Records (Darnell Martin, 2008), Beyoncé shows that song, music videos, and cinema can be part of the same creation and control. As for Madonna, in Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman, 1985), the camera already captures an icon. And in Evita (Alan Parker, 1996), her self-mythification finds a role that fits her. With a voice that is a dimly lit street or a bar at 3 am, when Tom Waits appears in Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch, 1986) or elsewhere, it’s the same character. Scarlett Johansson knew it well while recording the beautiful Anywhere I Lay My Head (2008), a cover album where she’s not just singing but replaying Tom Waits.
From “me” to play
Artists freely move between arts, but if the transition between stage and studio is so common, it’s also, of course, because it’s profitable. Jennifer Lopez is a modern pop icon: dance, television, cinema with Selena (Gregory Nava, 1997), music, fashion, public image, myth self-production… The same goes for Justin Timberlake. The MTV culture has produced artists already trained to work with cameras, think in sequences, editing, and music video adrenaline. His transition to Alpha Dog (Nick Cassavetes, 2006) or The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010) is not a whim, but an extension of a media education where singing means staging oneself. Queen Latifah adds a layer of complexity because she doesn’t just move from music to cinema; she brings along a certain diction, vocal weight, and mastery of phrasing that, in fact, become real dramatic forces on screen.
From Jungle Fever (Spike Lee, 1991) to Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002) to Hairspray (Adam Shankman, 2007), with Queen Latifah, a flow is certainly a cinematic presence. Even the “one-hit wonders” from the film world are revealing. Patrick Swayze with She’s Like the Wind, following Dirty Dancing (Emile Ardolino, 1987), Bruce Willis with Respect Yourself, Eddie Murphy with Party All the Time, Don Johnson with Heartbeat, or Vicki Lawrence with The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia</i: for three or four minutes, the actor's figure seeks to convert their presence into a musical form. Sometimes it lasts, but often it doesn't. This experience shows that the line between screen and song is not impermeable, but porous. It's a game.
Music as a breath of fresh air
Jared Leto is an interesting case because he embodies both suspicion and success. An Oscar-winning actor who sings in a band, 30 Seconds to Mars – on paper, many would roll their eyes, but the audience comes not just to see a celebrity aspiring to be a rockstar, but a performer embodying total immersion. There’s a similar desire to intensify presence in less spectacular figures, like Ryan Gosling, with Dead Man’s Bones, who doesn’t capitalize on his star image but rather disrupts it, making it somber, with a children’s choir and a haunted carnival aesthetic. Instead of using music as a derivative product, he uses it as a means to deconstruct himself. Listening to the sublime album of the same name Dead Man’s Bones (2009), it seems that, more than any film, including Lost River which he directed in 2014, that’s where he truly belongs.
Many actors venture into music not to be seen more but to be seen differently, to be heard… Kiefer Sutherland, in a country-rock genre, also seems to seek a less narrative relationship with music than cinema, as if going through music allows breathing outside the character while paradoxically continuing to interpret. And then there’s Clint Eastwood, a jazz enthusiast from the beginning, who ends his Gran Torino (2008) by opening the film’s song, on a few piano notes, just after his character’s death on screen. It’s like Tom Waits; it’s Clint. This moment is powerful because it feels like a signature in the wind: it’s no longer just about the filmmaker or the actor, but it’s the voice as the final touch, a way to bid farewell while staying in fiction for just one more minute. It’s all about interpretation. In essence, rock ‘n’ roll played a crucial role in this because it spotlighted a more physical, more sexual expressiveness than the camera captured like an electric current, and it enforced the idea that the song is a full-body spectacle. From there, inevitably, cinema wasn’t that far off.
Kiefer Sutherland at the Atelier (Luxembourg),
on April 14 at 8 p.m. Support: Colin Andrew.
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