In Character: Bruce Dern

Bruce Dern is as grand and flawless as character actors get. According to IMDb, the man has 144 film and television credits to his name, and in tracing through them, it’s clear there isn’t a weak effort in sight. Whether he pops up briefly for one scene in a film, or steals an entire television show with his recurring character, or fills nearly every frame of a contemporary black and white Oscar contender, when Dern is on, he’s on like the best of them.

Five Essential Roles

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969)

James

Sydney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is one of the most gut wrenching films I’ve ever seen. Essentially, the movie is about a marathon dance competition that takes place during the Great Depression. Any couple can enter, and the winners take home $1,500. Sounds pleasant enough, right? But as the film progresses, we watch as these characters fight within an inch of their lives to maintain their standing in the competition for weeks on end. Weeks. No sleep, hardly any food, and constantly moving. Rarely has desperation been captured so hellishly on film.

Bruce Dern’s character enters the competition with his wife, who is very pregnant, and very in need of $1,500. Just watching these two loop around the tiny track over and over and over, we gather quickly that things will not turn out well for them. Yet they keep going. Around. And around. And around. Trust me, if you haven’t seen They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, it will utterly floor you.

The Cowboys (1972)

Asa Watts

Bruce Dern is one of the very few actors to ever kill John Wayne on screen. Given that fact, I think “enough said,” will suffice here. (Oh, one topical tidbit: The Cowboys is the film Karel Roden is obsessed with in the film Running Scared. So, if you’re currently stuck in a wave of Paul Walker nostalgia like me, then look out for a clip of Dern’s iconic killing of The Duke in Running Scared).

Black Sunday (1977)

Michael Lander

Michael Lander came back from the Vietnam War a changed man; his life now haunted by memories of his imprisonment in a POW camp. His only lasting desire is to kill himself, and take out as many innocent people as he can in the process. Michael’s day job is to fly the Goodyear Blimp over NFL games for TV coverage, and before long, he cooks up a plan to arm the blimp with explosives and crash it into a packed stadium during the Super Bowl.

John Frankenheimer’s Black Sunday is a staple of unhinged, American ‘70s cinematic bliss, certainly. But it’s also an excellent portrayal of a man gone mad, willing to do anything to be remembered.

Coming Home (1978)

Bob Hyde

Dern’s other great traumatic soldier role was as Jane Fonda’s husband in Coming Home. When we first meet Marine Corps Captain Bob Hyde, he’s excited to go to Vietnam, as he sees it as a means of career progression. But when he returns home, he finds his wife in love with another man, and his emotional balance on edge from PTSD. Bob witnessed horrors in Vietnam, but nothing can prepare him for his wife’s infidelity, which paves way for the film’s shocking conclusion. As of now, Dern’s work in Coming Home has garnered his only Oscar nomination, which will certainly change come this January.

Big Love (2006-2011)

Frank Harlow

Big Love always became more terrifyingly magical when Frank Harlow was around, didn’t it? As the evil and corrupt father of Bill Paxton’s character, Dern played Frank as a man we love to hate. Whether his family was trying to kill him, or he was trying to kill his family, no situation was too murky for ol’ Frank.

I think my favorite Frank episode was the first episode of Season 4, in which Frank tried to kill his on-screen wife (played by the ever-so-talented Grace Zabriskie) while giving her a loving embrace. When that didn’t work out, he simply tried to kill her again. The way Dern manages to make such awful creeps so charming is truly a wonderful feat.

The Best of the Best

Nebraska (2013)

Woody Grant

Bruce Dern has delivered many fine performances throughout his decades-long career, but I’m fairly certain his Woody Grant will be remembered as his undisputed best. At 77 years old, Dern has proven that an actor (any actor) always has one great performance left in them. That’s Woody Grant. That old, curmudgeon, confused, sad, desperate Woody Grant.

Woody Grant wants his million dollars. After receiving a piece of junk mail claiming that he’s won a large sum of money, Woody sets off from his Montana home to collect his winnings in Nebraska. Despite Woody’s family constantly trying to convince him that it’s a scam, Woody persists, walking on foot if he has to.

The entire time I watched Nebraska, I wondered if Woody was for real. I wondered if he knew the money was a scam, but he journeyed anyway, as a means of giving his life purpose. Or, perhaps, Woody really thought the money was real. Director Alexander Payne does a great job of keeping this fact ambiguous for as long as he can, thanks much in part to Dern’s contained and flawless work.

Perhaps I’ve talked out of turn in detailing Dern’s performance in Nebraska. While I do still predict that Woody will remain Dern’s finest achievement as an actor, I’m sure Bruce Dern still has great performances left in him. And I simply can’t wait to discover them.

Other Essential Roles

In Monster

The Wild Angels (1966)

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967)

Hang ‘Em High (1968)

Silent Running (1972)

The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)

The Great Gatsby (1974)

Smile (1975)

Family Plot (1976)

The Driver (1978)

Harry Tracy: Dead or Alive (1982)

Middle Age Crazy (1980)

The ‘Burbs (1989)

After Dark, My Sweet (1990)

Last Man Standing (1996)

All the Pretty Horses (2000)

Monster (2003)

Down in the Valley (2005)

The Lightkeepers (2009)

Twixt (2011)

Django Unchained (2012)