Few actors in the world like DiCaprio. An actor who wins us all with his acting ability, far above any other more physical gift or any type of obvious charisma. In each role this actor knows how to exploit the strangest nuances of his childish face. A perpetual youthful rictus from which to project the contradictions and paradoxes of mere appearances. And that requires skills that only someone like him knows how to exploit.
For any other actor, his appearance in Titanic would have been the pinnacle of his career. But for the current DiCaprio that remains almost an anecdote. Because both what came after and what is discovered before Titanic exudes quality and ingenuity. Be careful, the same thing happens with a Kate Winslet who is much more of an actress in other lower-budget films.
But going back to DiCaprio, there is no other choice but to remove his hat to a characterization that is perfect mimicry for him and absolute empathy for the audience. I refer to that feeling of completely forgetting about the actor (something that costs more in the face of overwhelming presences like that of Brad Pitt) to get into the soul of the character. Without a doubt, if I were a director and prioritized the message and the significance of the movie, I would always choose Leonardo DiCaprio.
Top 3 Leonardo DiCaprio movies
¿A quién ama Gilbert Grape?
AVAILABLE ON ANY OF THESE PLATFORMS:Curiously, it is not in this film where DiCaprio has a leading role. And yet everything revolves around him. For the plot of the film itself, of course, but also because he knows that his presence is constant. One of those films that are not so remembered but that expresses an interpretative intensity rarely seen.
He is Arnie, Gilbert's brother (also perfectly executed by Johnny Deep). They both occupy their home with a mother who can give little care. In fact, the mother is a slight burden, a background that makes the brothers' existence in a remote town in the deep United States even more tragic.
Gilbert must move the house forward or, at least, not succumb to the weight of his roof that threatens to fall on him (I am metaphorical). Because he should live another life and he knows it. But the most beautiful and melancholic form of love, self-denial, weighs too heavily on him. Gilbert has his affairs with a married woman and begins to know a love that would invite him to think about futures that he cannot conceive with his burdens.
In the middle, pivoting above all, Arnie stands out. The not-so-little Arnie anymore, able to stay in the bathtub all night if Gilbert forgets to take him out after his shower for once. The Arnie who loves between suffocating snuggles that cling to Gilbert to that place where his life is burning as slowly as it is firm. The boy's disability is real, absolutely real in DiCaprio's gaze, in his gestures, in his walk. DiCaprio inhabits his own body as if he were truly an Arnie who has replaced him without traces of him. A fascinating effect that still amazes me today.
Shutter Island
AVAILABLE ON ANY OF THESE PLATFORMS:Let's start at the end. There is a spooky scene after all the stormy unfolding of the plot (I won't go into more detail just in case you haven't seen it). The point is that DiCaprio smokes a cigarette at the foot of a stone staircase in the old mental hospital. The day is mild and the black clouds seem to have had a good season. At that moment DiCaprio explains the reasons for his interpretation in the last resort. Because he talks about what his character had to experience. But at the same time we discover the full conviction of his role in his hurtful gaze ... «This place makes me think. What's worse? Die like a monster or die like a good man?
Another fascinating film in which DiCaprio reaches levels of tragicomic interpretation with seismic repercussions for the soul. The investigation entrusted to Edward Daniels (DiCaprio) takes him to a psychiatric hospital where a woman has disappeared under strange circumstances. Among the final scenes, Edward points to an incredibly disturbing vision of madness. Reality and fiction as spaces in which to live as is most convenient to survive the misfortunes that may occur. The mere fact of inhabiting our world dependent on entire subjectivity imbues us with that intention to reveal that nothing is more true than what we end up imagining.
A terrifying scenery with the location of the psychiatric hospital between gorges and cliffs that point to the steep situations that the protagonists of this story have to live through. A magnetic investigation around the lost woman that leads us to a dreamlike notion that seeks some kind of psychic purification. More of a dark setting, stormy in terms of climate and at the same time distressing as the few gaps of light open up to point to the truth that was never sought in the investigation.
The wolf of Wall Street
AVAILABLE ON ANY OF THESE PLATFORMS:The film in which DiCaprio shows us how human beings can undergo their deepest transformation. From the humble boy who seeks a way to prosper, to the ruthless and immoral wolf that ends up housing his soul. In that paradoxical ascent to the top where the descent into his hells is discovered, Leonardo DiCaprio teaches us that taste for luxury as well as for stock market gambling. Looming bankrupt in his own person, this Wolf of Wall Street in DiCaprio's sheepskin looks like a modern-day Dorian Gray. The example to which the winners of the current free market aspire with no other objective than excessive ambition.
The rest of the film is a fast-paced adventure in the most cartoonish Wall Street and no less true. As the money comes in, DiCaprio and his companions grow darker and indulge in all kinds of vices. Chemical and sexual excesses and of course the stain that spreads to make their lives that void under their feet that suddenly appears to cause the fall.
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