All posts tagged: Scarily

Robert Duvall Could Go Scarily Big or Hauntingly Small: Critic Tribute

Robert Duvall Could Go Scarily Big or Hauntingly Small: Critic Tribute

When people talk about an actor with range, they usually mean the wide variety of roles they can play. De Niro going from Travis Bickle to Jake LaMotta. Brando going from On the Waterfront to Guys and Dolls. Pacino playing both Michael Corleone and Tony Montana, two gangsters with diametrically opposed approaches to criminality. The same holds true for Robert Duvall, a tremendous screen actor who died on Monday at the age of 95, and whose credits — over 150 in a career spanning six decades — include everything from a Texas Ranger (Lonesome Dove) to a Texas outlaw (True Grit); a sinister TV boss (Network) to an enlightened L.A. cop (Colors); an ex-con pulling off one last job (The Outfit) to an aging rancher protecting his land (Open Range); a conniving sports journalist (The Natural) to an editor-in-chief seeking redemption (The Paper) to a Soviet dictator (Stalin). There are a hundred other examples in Duvall’s vast filmography, which lasted all the way till he was over 90, when he held his final roles as …