For a man who has had an unconventional film career, starring in some blockbusters as well as many lesser known films and who has had some serious acting droughts, Kevin Bacon has made another surprising screen choice. Starting his movie star life as a preppie in Animal House, soaring to fame and adulation in Footloose and back on an even keel with Mystic River, the eternally youthful Bacon has just finished his latest film where his performance is being hailed as his best yet, quickly followed by calls for Oscar nomination. But this is no ordinary film, for no ordinary actor. Bacon's latest triumph, The Woodsman, is a dark tale of struggle in which he plays a child abuser.
Bacon says he got into acting for the attention: "I always wanted to be noticed. Any actor wants the world to love them." Having got used to the limelight early in life by entertaining his brothers and sisters, Bacon left his hometown of Philadelphia for New York when he was just 17. Bit parts in Animal House, Friday 13th and Diner led him away from waiting tables and on to teen heartthrob stardom in Footloose. Deciding he didn't want to be typecast as a pretty face, he turned down pin-up roles to concentrate on rep theatre, something he now regrets - but which the objective onlooker can say has made him a far stronger performer. He describes the ten year period after Footloose as "total failure" during which his film lows were She's Having a Baby and Tremors. But Bacon had his reasons. He wanted to become more of a seasoned actor like his idols Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep, and admits he mishandled some of his career choices to run away from the teen attention that Footloose brought. This is ironic when you consider his revelation that Paramount were reluctant to cast him in Footloose because he wasn't "fuckable enough".
His role as a male prostitute in JFK led Hollywood to think of him differently, with the potential to play dark characters and against type. Bacon describes the four days working on JFK for his one scene as "very important, it really turned things around for me". He went on to play a villain opposite Meryl Streep in The River Wild and a sexually abusive prison guard in Sleepers . Bacon has said that at this time he tended to be drawn to darker films and those that touched on subject matter or characters that struggle with darkness, in a way to exorcise his own demons. "I prefer characters struggling with some kind of sadness. My theory is that all human beings have a sadness and anger and extreme sexuality and violence, that these things live in our soul, whether we admit it or not."
Murder In The First was a more demanding role, as an Alcatraz convict, he actually slept in the cell for between 10 and 20 hours in the pitch black to understand how the character would feel being trapped in a 6 x 4 space. Even strategically placed peanut butter failed to prevent rats from approaching the more sensitive parts of his naked anatomy. Bacon says, "I like to develop a back story of each character I play, work out his biog, what his childhood was like, and then develop the part from what stems from that particular background and how these characteristics manifest themselves."
He states his most physically gruelling film as Hollow Man, where playing an invisible man meant he was required by make-up for three to four hours. His theory that accepting an invisible role would mean he didn't have to turn up for work was thwarted by nine gruelling months covered in green paint, wearing green contact lenses and a mask glued to his face, eating and drinking through a straw.
Moving from strength to strength he found his feet as troubled detective in 2003's Mystic River. Meryl Streep recommended that he work with Clint Eastwood ten years ago: "He's incredibly efficient at what he does," says Bacon. "He casts and trusts you to do your own homework and develop your own character. He uses the same crew so works consistently and it clicks." A man of few words, the most Eastwood ever said to Bacon was "speed it up, talk faster", as well as a man of few takes, "because you know that's going to be the deal, you try to come on set wearing your 'game jersey', ready to hit the ball out of the park."
"And there's no star bullshit around Clint," Bacon adds. "No games, because he's the biggest star ever, you can't get any bigger than that. So you can't fuck with him."
He then played a stalker in In The Cut, originally just wanting the part that went to Mark Ruffalo. Bacon realised that wanting to only play certain roles went against his own acting ethos, so agreed to playing the stalker. For an actor who says he is willing to play anything, it must be hard for him to curb his enthusiasm.
2005 looks like being Kevin Bacon's year with his latest and perhaps most controversial role to date.
A film about a paedophile's attempt to reintegrate himself into normal life after a stint in prison may not seem like the most appealing pitch ever to land on an actor's desk. But we're talking about Kevin Bacon, who has embraced the role and used it to make a fresh stab at our cynical movie-going hearts. He does this with a powerful and intense portrayal of a man on the brink of breakdown, in a film that tackles a distasteful subject with thought and sensitivity. Ultimately, Bacon gives a remarkable performance that makes The Woodsman his film.
Convicted paedophile Walter (Kevin Bacon) is released from 12 years in prison. He rents an apartment across the street from a children's playground and a job is arranged for him in a timber yard. There he meets Vickie (Kyra Sedgewick) with whom he forms a friendship of sorts. Meanwhile the receptionist, Mary-Kay (Eve), at the timber yard finds out his nasty secret. Walter is put under extra pressure by his therapist, a local detective and his brother-in-law. The more stress he is under the harder it becomes for Walter to fight his sexual urges.
Treated to a gala performance at this year's London Film Festival, The Woodsman is being promoted as a film to be taken seriously. It concentrates on paedophilia from the point of view of our protagonist, who is a reasonably attractive, healthy, intelligent, middle-aged man and a skilled furniture maker (hence the title), as opposed to an unshaven old predatory alcoholic (á la Mystic River ).
Bacon plays Walter with sympathy, and as a man genuinely troubled by his inclinations who wants to be cured. "What is normal?" he frequently asks himself as he tries to establish how people who aren't sexually interested in children react around them, and what levels of attraction equal paedophilia. The film doesn't make excuses for anyone who harms children nor does it justify paedophilia. It is clear that Walter is a very lonely man, who will lose everything and end up back in prison if he re-offends.
The friendship and kindness offered to him by Vickie is contrasted with the viciousness and victimisation he receives at work and from Sergeant Lucas. Mos Def plays the wily but weary detective, who has seen too many abused children, with deceptive restraint. His body language is relaxed but his dialogue makes us aware of the full horror of sadistic paedophilia, and also that the general hatred of paedophiles means he could do anything to Walter without fear of recrimination. It is in these moments, when Lucas underlines the fact that no-one would miss Walter if he was gone and as we witness Walter's attempts at rehabilitation, that we feel for him. Mary-Kay's witchhunt is as inevitable as the media's decision to publish names of paedophiles. It is only when we think Walter is unable to curb his urges that our sympathies switch again.
Director Nicole Kassell and writer Steven Fechter make good use of Walter's depressing apartment to create a sense of imprisonment and claustrophobia. If he deviates from his normal journey to and from work, Sergeant Lucas knows about it. We can quickly establish that eloquent, emotional Walter is too good for this life and his monotonous timber cutting job, but that he has become slave to his addiction. Typically muted, the film's palette is greys, blues and dreary whites, punctuated by colour when Walter is tempted, either by a bright red ball in a playground or a conversation amongst the rusts and yellows of an autumn park. The tempo is steady throughout: Walter's motivations and pain are communicated through his body language and facial expressions, and the pace only quickens to show the violence he provokes in others. It is a subtle and understated film that results in a very powerful portrait of a troubled mind.
A brooding score by Nathan Larson (who hosted a masterclass at the London Film Festival) makes a quietly threatening intro to the film over an exceptionally long credit sequence. Larson (who has also written for Boys Don't Cry, Tigerland, Lilya 4-Ever, Dirty Pretty Things and Phone Booth) says that the score took him some considerable time to write and amounted to about 12 drafts, which was the most he had done for any film. This was mainly due to a "political situation" with the studio people who felt the music was portraying the subject matter in the wrong light. A situation which also underlines the inevitable difficulty in relating this kind of story in a way that everyone is happy with.
At under an hour and a half long, The Woodsman is a brief study of its subject. Corners are cut on occasions for plot purposes with coincidence rearing its lazy head, and the film shies away from deeply exploring Walter's feelings for girls and how he relates these feelings to an adult female body. His onscreen relationship with Vickie played by his offscreen wife is very convincing, and it would have been interesting to see him discuss this with his therapist. The premise also that Walter is not a "monster" but someone who with enough TLC may make it, creates a dubious distinction between what the film seems to be saying are evil paedophiles and more palatable ones like Walter. The film also suggests that paedophiles are on every street corner and it's pretty easy for your child to become a victim. Some scenes even have the potential to suggest that any man within 320 feet of a playground is a potential paedophile (as opposed to a father watching their kids). But for Bacon this was intentional. He didn't do any character research, preferring to play Walter as a normal man as opposed to our typical paedophile visual of a greasy old creep. He wanted to convey that a paedophile could be any one of us (just like the handsome young curb crawler he watches from his apartment window). Similarly when Walter follows a young girl to the park, he learns she is already being abused by her father when he asks her to sit on his lap. One coincidence too far perhaps, but their exchange compounds the film's message that child abuse is perhaps more prevalent than we realise.
This is such a huge and emotional issue, that Kassell and Fechter should be commended for even attempting to tackle it in a mainstream film. The Woodsman succeeds in not confining paedophilia to the realms of dirty old men and psychopaths, nor does it make any excuses for abusers (like their own abused childhood or broken home, etc). It portrays a very ordinary man whose life has been ruined by uncontrollable urges that have repercussions on anyone he comes in contact with. Vickie's attempts to reach out to Walter seem to be saying that whilst she is clearly upset by what he's done, her pity rather than her complete rejection may just help this 'average Joe' paedophile recover more quickly and safely. Furthermore, Kevin Bacon's humble and considered interpretation of Walter infuses an otherwise detestable character with humanity, and rather unsettlingly warms him to us. The decision to roll the end credits accompanied by a gospel song perhaps hints at hope for his redemption.
His part in The Woodsman came about as Bacon was walking along a beach in the West Indies . Someone he sees regularly there asked him to read through a script which had been given to him as an investment opportunity. Bacon was asked to read it with the idea of also investing in it, and his wife (Woodsman co-star Kyra Sedgewick) said he should play the part.
Furthermore, The Woodsman director Nicky Kassell had the qualities Bacon looks for in a first-time director: "Nicky was strong in her beliefs and did so much research. She was clear with her convictions and willing to say I don't know." Kassell's dedication also won her the London Film Festival's prestigious Satyajit Ray Award for best first feature.
But wasn't he making a somewhat calculated risk by taking on such a controversial character that may have put a black mark on his career? Bacon disagrees: "I don't think about my image or persona, or what audiences will think of me. I believe that an actor should be willing to play all aspects of life whether it's dark, funny, young, old, sad, rich, and I want people to judge me based on my work." He admits he didn't become the character but it definitely had an effect on him, and he made sure that he reconnected with his children every weekend.
As executive producer Bacon got rid of a lot of the dialogue. A scene with Kyra Sedgewick when they are sitting in a car by the river originally contained a whole piece of dialogue. Bacon cut that down to just one scene with no dialogue, and simply had Sedgewick hold his hand. That said everything they needed to say. "When I got involved they had the script, a little bit of money and no actors. I helped with the financing and brought in the rest of the cast, got involved with the script, cuts, and all for very little money."
He also feels that the independent arena is right for such controversial material: "I certainly feel that independent films are the place where you should be challenging people's ideas, and how they feel about everything . Independents should be taking risks, should be pushing the envelope a little bit. Obviously the studios aren't going to be making a sensitive film like this."
"Controversial material should live in independent cinema, the best thing independent cinema can do is challenge the film," he adds. "Mainstream and independents can effect one another. When you have unusual movies like Memento and Blair Witch, this can have a positive effect on cinema instead of churning out the same crap."
Bacon is also synonymous for the 'Six Degrees of Separation' phenomenon (where he is connected to any Hollywood actor in six or less by-association film steps). He says he was insulted by it at first but then met the guys who invented the idea and realised they were actually fans: "the thought that we are all connected in some kind of way is pretty cool".
Kevin Bacon apparently once said "I think of myself more as a workhorse actor. It will be hot and cold and up and down, but no one will kick me out of the business". Having looked back over his illustrious career, the edge his role choice has finally given him, and his outstanding performance in The Woodsman, it's thankfully very hard to imagine anyone doing that.
By Shizana Arshad and Rebecca Kemp
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