King, Prince, Warrior, God - Charlton Heston played them all, American style
The Omega Man
It's ironic that Charlton Heston's death should come during the theatrical and DVD success of I Am Legend, a remake of one of his most popular films, 1971's The Omega Man.
The Omega Man was one in a brief series of films from the late '60s to the early 70's that made him relevant to a new generation, converting him from all they held politically offensive and aesthetically corny to a cultish spokesperson for their own concerns. Heston spoke about the deterioration of the environment (Soylent Green,) inner city decay (Omega,) the irreparable divide from our uncomplicated ancestry (Planet of the Apes.)
Charlton Heston
In these films, Charlton Heston, dead this week at 84, played the last establishmentarian WASP on earth, forced by his solitude to confront all that his generation had so destructively wrought. He reacted as the succeeding generation was reacting, with tearful anger (Apes) or screaming dismay (Green.)
The Boomers would break rank with him again as he returned to the corn bag spectacles that made him famous, and end up outright despising him with the public trumpeting of his increasingly right-wing politics.
Man of Epics
Until that demographic came of age, however, Heston enjoyed a long, popular run as a man whose very name was synonymous with epics. One of his most famous quotes: "If you need a ceiling painted, a sea parted or a city besieged, you think of me." And we did, as Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and Judah Ben-Hur. He was King, Prince, Warrior, and God, American-style. His athletic stature, gritty tenor, and hawkish profile were enough to satiate our appetite for epic-specific believability - who cared whether or not he could act? His job was largely one of anchoring the production values, of providing a central focus among the multi-million dollar over stimuli ; a little internalism among the obviousness.
The Small and Offbeat
And yet, when snuck into something small and offbeat, he could distinguish himself with honours. The quiet, character-based western Will Penny remained his favourite film, and with reason - it inaugurated a tiny but important chapter of his career in which he was permitted to show true dimension. The sci-fi flicks that followed (see above) took up the rest of that all too brief catalogue.
Larger Than Life
Still, it's the roles in the robes and the false beards and the armour for which he will be best remembered. The characters "are not larger than life," he always insisted. "They are simple larger than you and me" - as he was, upon that screen in all his authoritarian glory, in comparison to us.
