A Career Gone Sour

...The man has to eat, after all...

...If the script were better, the role could have been for him what a similar part was for Marlon Brando...

...Jimmy is ultimately dragged to a bloody downfall after being torn by the conflicting worlds of concert music, gangsterism and illicit sex...

...And this crucial flaw is again on display in his latest films —Fingers, Blue Collar and The Duellists...

...for Keitel they have to be, as they certainly are for his admirers (among whom I count myself...

...his best starring role in Mean Streets, five years ago...

...This was followed by the role of William Cody's nephew in Robert Altman's ill-fated Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976...

...Selecting Keitel for one of the two leads in The Duellists might have been regarded as classic instance of miscasting—except that the other part was given to Keith Carradine, a casting error so egregious it diverts our attention...

...Written and directed by James Toback, it is an obvious and unsuccessful attempt to combine Mean Streets with The Gambler, the 1974 film Toback wrote that starred James Caan...

...As the movie opens, Jimmy is preparing for an audition at Carnegie Recital Hall...

...On the other hand, Keitel's best supporting part was in raw' Driver, two years ago...

...In Taxi Driver his whole torso was constantly writhing when he hustled Johns, almost as if he were being burned alive by the lust he was marketing...

...His irregular cadence, lack of inflection and restricted range are annoying enough, but his absolute inability to convince us that he is a man whose life is ruled by his sense of honor manages to destroy the film...

...Schrader has a deep urge to say something about the squalor of working-class life and union strife...

...In Alice, he was Ben, the macho stud given to violent outbursts...

...Perhaps he was motivated by another dubious privilege—working with Altman...

...In that movie the raw material of Scorsese's first two features was finally given a form transcending autobiography...

...Yet while Keitel actually had the lead, De Niro had the flashier part and to his credit made the most of it, attracting the lion's share of critical and popular attention...

...One could speculate that economics brought Keitel to this pass...

...The moment seemed ripe for Keitel's career to take off at last...

...Nine movies in as many years, and six in the last three years—a more than adequate track record for a young actor...

...producer David Puttnam and director Ridley Scott are English...

...1977), directed by Alan Rudolph, an Altman epigone...

...1969), his screen debut and the first feature-length film written and directed by Martin Scorsese...

...Still, it is clear he can make a steadier, more comfortable living by acting in a few semire-spectable movies...

...His ideas, though, never rise above the level of social realist cliches...

...Of course, it is a noteworthy feat for any actor to have the lead in three movies opening in New York in the same month...

...Although Bethune mysteriously went nowhere from there, Keitel became a regular member of Scorsese's informal repertory company, teaming with the director in Street Scenes, which was widely acclaimed at the 1970 New York Film Festival, and in Mean Streets (1973...

...The part was so small and the billing correspondingly so low, one wonders why Keitel accepted them...

...One could also wonder whether the sheer accidents of casting explain Keitel's situation...

...The latter film reunited Keitel with De Niro, and their two relatively short scenes together confirmed Keitel's remarkable ability as a supporting actor, a perfect foil for a performer like De Niro...

...Consequently, Keitel's struggle embodies no genuine drama, merely contrived conflict and decisions arbitrarily arrived at...

...In addition, he has a good visual and aural feel for the flashes of butane torches, the ceaseless pounding of heavy machinery and the inhuman regularity of the auto assembly line...

...In Fingers, when Jimmy is practicing his piano alone, Keitel's intensity—tightly closed eyes, rolling shoulders, tunelessly hummed accompaniment—makes us feel we are invading his privacy...

...Since the themes concern the burden of honor and the rigidity of the officers' code in Napoleon's Army, this European emphasis seems to be appropriate...

...In the meantime, he is not getting any younger...

...A description of the protagonist and his plight should suffice to indicate the tremendous strain imposed on Keitel's abilities, not to mention our credibility...

...His practice is soon interrupted, first by a mysterious stranger (Tisa Farrow), who is alternately sexually inviting and unresponsive, and then by his father, who convinces him to collect two large outstanding debts —and to use force, if necessary...

...At least Keitel acquitted himself honorably as Ken Hood, the philandering husband and harried businessman...

...But once again, why he appeared in the film remained a mystery...

...and the movie was shot in England and France...

...Whatever the case, there is no minimizing the poor judgment—on the actor's part or on the part of his advisers—that has resulted in Keitel's accepting both inconsequential and unsuitable roles...

...Keitel plays a conscience-stricken informer...

...Jimmy Angelelli (Keitel) is the half-Jewish, half-Italian son of a former concert pianist now in a mental institution (Marian Seldes) and a Mafioso loan shark (Michael Gazzo...

...That Keitel does this well, and fences and rides with some skill, can not alter the fact that The Duellists represents another step backward in his career...

...Fingers is the most bizarre of the trio...

...His star billing notwithstanding, by having to prop up Carradine, he is in a supporting role again...

...Then came something called Shining Star (1977), a movie about the record business I managed to miss (as did everyone else 1 know...

...Piano playing invariably provides a flashy scene for actors, but the way Keitel gives himself up to the music the one thing preventing our total belief is the absurd script's accounting for his passion in terms of simple-minded psychology...

...In contrast, Keitel comes off better than he deserves despite his being trapped in a costume drama that does not suit him...

...He starred as a hustler from Little Italy who suffers through a guilt-ridden affair with a blonde wasp from outside the neighborhood, nicely acted by Zina Bethune...

...As the Doppelganger who exploits his opponent's sense of honor to bind the two of them in increasingly violent ritual duels, he has little to do besides glare menacingly to convey a smoldering madness beneath the stiff exterior of a gentleman officer...

...Most of the supporting roles in this adaptation of Joseph Conrad's story "The Duel" are performed by English actors (Albert Finney, Edward Fox, Robert Stephens, Gay Hamilton, Jenny Runacre...

...his self-conscious sneakiness, an animating force of his humor, is put to good use in the character of the union activist able to convince himself that he is compromising when he is actually selling out...

...By that time De Niro was already a star, having won an Oscar for his acting in The Godfather, Part II...

...Unless he was terrifically well paid, though (unlikely, considering the obvious indications of a low-budget "quickie"), the price of appearing in this mess was simply too high, especially at such a crucial point in his career...

...Unfortunately, none of them advances Keitel's career one bit further...

...He has always been a marvelously kinetic performer, using his entire body where lesser actors can use only their faces or hands...

...Unhappily, Blue Collar has none of the subtlety of On the Waterfront, and Schrader nothing of Elia Kazan's sensibility...

...For a smaller talent, such credits would not be a real disappointment...

...Once more he is burdened by a virtually unplayable script—in this case, by Paul Schrader (screenwriter for Taxi Driver), who directed as well...

...Bill Cosby was Mother, Raquel Welch was Jugs (naturally), and the movie was a joke—an uncertain mixture of black comedy, slapstick and violence...

...Keitel did have two dubious honors: star billing and a romantic scene with Welch...

...Richard Pryor should be glad he has the least sympathetic part...

...The riddle is why Puttnam and Scott freely chose to tolerate the complete inadequacy of Keith Carradine to the linguistic and dramatic demands of the role...

...One fantastic plot device, evidently Schrader's notion of motivation, has Keitel shouldering an unwelcome financial burden when his daughter mutilates her mouth in order to convince him to spend extra money for her orthodontic work...

...Finally, there was the pretentious and embarrassing Welcome to L.A...

...To be fair, Keitel does manage some effective moments here...

...Keitel then made brief albeit impressive appearances in Scorsese's next two films, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1975) and Taxi Driver (1976...

...But for some reason Keitel started to squander his established talent, taking weak parts in insignificant films...

...Keitel played Charlie, a young and ambitious Mafioso tortured by his Catholic conscience and torn by conflicting loyalties—to his epileptic girlfriend (Amy Robinson, another talented actress who unfortunately has never been seen again), to his uncle and patron (Cesare Da-nova), and above all to his compulsive and dangerously irrational friend, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro...

...The slide began with (he role of an ambulance driver in Mother, Jugs and Speed (1976...

...Had his and De Niro's roles been reversed in Mean Streets (as they conceivably could have been), Keitel might now be enjoying the popularity and success his former costar enjoys...

...in Taxi Driver he was Sport, the sleazy pimp to Jodie Foster's Iris, a 14-year-old hooker...

...Blue Collar offers fewer opportunities for Keitel's artistry to manifest itself...

...True, he has done theater (including work with Cafe La Mama and the Actors Studio, and most recently with George C. Scott in a revival of Death of a Salesman) as well as television...