By R. Emmet Sweeney on 11/30/2009 IFC.COM
Quietly and unexpectedly, Matt Damon has become the premier Hollywood actor of the past decade. He's lent his minutely constructed, surprisingly athletic performances to the films of directors Steven Soderbergh, Gus Van Sant, Paul Greengrass, Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood, a roster that's not coincidentally produced some of the most vital and successful films of the past ten years.
His remarkable career isn't simply a matter of a good agent. It's all in the manner in which he so carefully adapts his particular skills to the roles.
Damon's commitment is displayed on his body, which he relentlessly crafts to the specifications of each character -- he's almost the anti-movie star in his physical malleability. Take a look at how he changes from "The Bourne Identity" in 2002 to the Farrelly Brothers' "Stuck On You," a year later. In the former, he carved himself down to muscle and bone, a tightly packed bundle of paranoia and frightening physicality. For the latter, he packed on a paunch, with his granite Bourne-head turned into a model of doughy affability. He managed a similar weight gain more recently between 2007's "The Bourne Ultimatum" and this year's "The Informant!", and as the latter film's Mark Whitacre, he achieves his most finely modulated performance underneath layers of fat and a fake nose.
These types represent the two poles of Damon's preferred personas: withdrawn nebbishes or moody muscular specimens. The first group would include the "Ocean's" franchise, "Stuck On You," "The Good Shepherd," and "The Informant!". The second contains "All the Pretty Horses," the "Bourne" franchise, "The Departed" and the forthcoming "Invictus." "Gerry" lies somewhere in between. But each extreme utilizes his physicality, with his literally weighty roles emphasizing the slapstick and satire of uncooperative bodies instead of the precise control of his action work. Even in "The Good Shepherd," Damon buries himself in a trenchcoat and wire-rimmed glasses, eschewing parody but emphasizing his CIA analyst's passivity and hyper-intellectualism.
