Jude Law's Rage

By demand of the film script, Jude Law, well known actor and father of three, has been transformed into Minx, a model who contemplates desperately the deterioration of her beauty. The film is called 'Rage'. The cast is also headed by the veteran actress Judy Dench (the boss lady M. in a James Bond film), and this film was projected in the Berlinale in the edition with presence of many great actresses.

The director of 'Rage' is Sally Potter, expert in changing identities. It was her who changed Tilda Swinton in Orlando in the film of the same name and she was president of the judge panel of the edition of the veteran film festival in the capital of Germany.

Men in drag always proffers certain fascination for me, more than the other way round - with females interpreting male roles. In all the cases without exception, I think men do a much better job than the ladies. To be fair, the natural elements in many aspects favour their task more and therefore makes it much easier to accomplish with more credibility and less foul-ups. At least in the area of appearance.

To start with, make-up done by an expert nearly immediately gives them the feminine looks, hairstyles also help tremendously to create the illusion. Adding padded bras or falsies, a girdle maybe, stockings and high heels should complete the look. Whereas to change the appearance from female to male there's little artificial add-ons one can adopt. The worst part is there's nothing to take off either, never easy to hide the curves.

Naturally the most difficult and the most crucial is not the appearance but the carriage of the body in the ways of how the different sex walks, moves, talks; the mannerism, behaviour and the most revealing of all, the body language. And, most tricky to achieve, the male voice. Without being their fault or lesser interpretive talent, a woman imitating a man is very much more difficult. The result is often embarrassing rather than convincing. For me that's where the fascination lies; to see how the female impersonator 'carries' the role than just imitating and parodying.

Many actors have tried and some are quite outstanding, like Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in 'Some like it hot', John Travolta in 'Hairspray', Robin Williams in 'Mrs. Doubtfire' ... Apart form Hilary Swank in 'Boys don't cry', more natural and passable, I can't think of any other memorable actresses in male roles.

What do you think of Jude Law's Minx?

Tags judelaw, rage

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