Final Comparison Essay

 

Tootsie, Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman

When I decided to write about Dustin Hoffman, I was a little shocked by myself for making such decision. I never specifically liked him, just that i have watched a couple of movies of him, and I thought he was great for taking a wide range of different personas, like The Graduate, Rain Man, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Tootsie, Meet the Fockers, etc. Well it wasn’t much but it’s quite a lot for watching the same actor. Actually, it was the trailer of Tootsie that confirmed me in writing Dustin Hoffman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For someone like me that hadn’t heard of Tootsie, looking at the woman in red dress and Dustin Hoffman was top billing in the posters, I was confused, thinking of who was that old woman? and where was Dustin Hoffman? How did he look like in the movie? So I looked up the trailer of the movie. No. Way. That woman was Dustin Hoffman?! I was so shocked. It surprised me, like I said in one of my earlier ETs, I love surprises in movies. So Tootsie definitely got picked.

The next movie, I watched it a year ago, another Dustin Hoffman’s significant movie, Rain Man, immediately popped into my mind. No more women, no more red dresses, but an autistic savant. Dustin Hoffman was famed for his multiple personas in acting; in Rain Man, he was autistic; in Tootsie, he was a woman. You can never imagine the flexibilities of his acting.

First of all, in Tootsie, there was three aspects in his persona, the Michael Dorsey-before being Dorothy, Dorothy Michaels, and Michael Dorsey-after being Dorothy. All three has different personalities, all well-played by Dustin Hoffman. At first in the movie, Michael Dorsey was an unemployed, he’s been a jobbing actor for 20 years, and there was a reason for it. While he was auditioning, or shooting a commercial, he argued with everybody. He tries to be reasonable, but his ‘reasonable’ seemed very unreasonable to others. I could tell how desperate he was for money, but still insisted his own way of working. Besides, he was a tutor, acting tutor, always sharing and teaching others about his philosophical thoughts in acting. And here’s an important question, how did he become Dorothy Michaels? It was a role his friend, Sandy (Teri Garr) wanted, so as a friend and a tutor, Michael Dorsey coached her for the audition. That was the first time Michael Dorsey in touch with the character of Emily Kimberly. After hearing the provoking assumption from his agent (Sydney Pollack) that he could never earn a dime, he made up his mind…

Then, Dorothy appeared. I have to say, Dustin Hoffman once became a real woman in this movie. Did you see the way ‘she’ walked, stared, it was exactly how a woman walk on a busy street: walk fast, eyes were looking around, kept tidying up her hair, a bouncing feel of walking - most feminine thing ever happened to guy. Next, i LOVE the way she revealed to Sydney Pollack that she’s Michael Dorsey, talking with a sweet voice and suddenly a deep nasal voice came out, I laughed so hard at that part. I think that was an amazing way to reveal yourself to someone you knew when you are in disguise.

Before, Michael Dorsey was a person who would fight for himself under any circumstances, but as Dorothy Michaels, when the director Ron blamed Dorothy for not discussing with him first for changing the plot of her first kissing scene, she just apologized. Well I think Michael Dorsey would never ever do that, he will just throw the script and walk away. But look at ‘her’ now, ‘she’ just apologize gently, without any attitude. Was Michael changing into a better man? Yes, i think, from then onwards, and the following made the famous line of Michael Dorsey in the end of the movie, ‘I was a better man with you, as a woman than I ever was with a woman, as a man.’

The Michael Dorsey–after being Dorothy, he started to think like a woman, he wanted to buy Dorothy jewels, he started to think from a woman’s point of view, which hadn’t happen to him before, and Michael was so care about how others thought of Dorothy, when Sandy says Dorothy was fat, he seemed so upset about it; Sandy says again that Dorothy wasn’t acting tough enough for the character of Emily Kimberly, he later on work even harder and even changed more of her lines in order to make Dorothy look more tough and better.

Dorothy Michaels was the America’s hottest new actress, so Michael Dorsey seemed like having a trouble getting rid of the whole Dorothy thing. Michael Dorsey grabbed the chance to spill the beans in front of the nationwide audiences, how so? By faking a ridiculous story that he was Emily Kimberly’s twin brother, took off his wig in front of everyone, talk with his deep nasal voice and immediately became Michael Dorsey, a feminine woman to a jerky middle-aged guy within seconds, I laughed so hard at the moment he took off his wig and I have to remind myself to inhale. That part, a moment ago Dustin Hoffman still playing a feminine administrator, and the next second the wig’s off and she turned into a guy, showed how desperately he wanted to get rid of this character, Dorothy. Because he was so madly in love with Julie (Jessica Lange) and doesn’t want to hurt her anymore. In this scene, before the wig’s off, Dustin Hoffman was like playing Dorothy more delicate and sensitive, in order to make a contrast with the masculine Edward Kimberly, that surprised us.

Overall, Tootsie was a film about Dustin Hoffman playing Michael Dorsey playing Dorothy Michaels playing Emily Kimberly but turned out to be Edward Kimberly, and became Michael Dorsey again. I think no one in this universe could play such a role except for Dustin Hoffman. Bravo.

Now, we are leaving Dorothy Michaels, moving on to Raymond Babbitt, the rain man. Raymond Babbitt was an autistic, Charlie Babbitt was played by Tom Cruise as Raymond’s younger brother. I've separated the performance of Dustin Hoffman into two aspects, the autistic savant, and the brother of Charlie Babbitt. At the beginning of the movie, Raymond and Charlie were just strangers, but because Ray knew very well of his father’s car, Charlie felt strange and he was told by Dr. Bruner that Raymond was his brother.

Raymond Babbitt, as an autistic person with photographic memory. Meaning that you can memorize things and never easily forget about them. Like statistics, stories, time schedules. And rituals, routines are the ways he protects himself, anything emergency will freak him out. Raymond had this stern look and a fragile heart.

Here is a fact that Dustin Hoffman had been working a year with autistics men in order to understand the feelings and relationships of them, which made him successfully portrayed autistics, and this movie won him an Oscar too.

When people forced Raymond to do something he’s unwilling to, he would begin to scream hysterically, and hit himself on the head. The airport scene, Raymond’s screaming and hitting did leave a deep impression on me, when I'm watching i thought: wow, that was some kind of madness, was he having a mental problem or what? When Raymond doesn’t want to do something, no one could forced him to do it. Raymond did use a lot of body languages to represent his emotional and thoughts. When he doesn’t want to hear, he closed his ears, he reacted the same either to Charlie or to strangers. Raymond never sees people in their eyes when having a conversation with them. He was always looking somewhere else.

On the other hand, as Charlie’s big brother, Raymond never told Charlie that he was the rain man, he just recalled from single little things, like in the Big 8 Motel, Raymond’s brushing teeth, he remembered Charlie once called him ‘funny teeth, funny rain man’, and when Charlie open the hot water, Raymond became hysterical again, kept yelling ‘hot water’s hurting the baby!’. Charlie finally recognized Raymond was his childhood imaginary friend, Rain Man. Raymond didn’t do that on purpose, he was just showing us how he used to be with his little brother, Charlie in the most natural way. At the moment, audiences would feel the emotional coming out from a brother who loved his little brother so much, but they just couldn’t be with each other, which made people feel sad for them. That scene was really touching, it was one of my favorite scenes in the movie. And the amazing part was, they just took 1 shot on that scene. The right feelings lead to the right moments.

The best way for me to describe the performances of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man was, when you watch Charlie Babbitt, you will see Tom Cruise; but when you watch Raymond Babbitt, you will see Raymond Babbitt, you’ll never see Dustin Hoffman. Dustin Hoffman became the character in the movie, which made his movies so mesmerizing.

There were similarities of the acting of Dustin Hoffman in these two movies. Dustin Hoffman was playing a role that utterly different from himself either in Tootsie or in Rain Man. He was neither unemployed nor a woman, and he’s never autistic in reality, but he played it so well, so real, and so touching. And the second thing was, his body movement in each film was so coordinated to each persona. In Tootsie, he moved with the most feminine way; whereas in Rain Man, he moved with those uncoordinated movements, which matches with the persona so perfectly.

The differences between them were the genres, Tootsie was a comedy, Rain Man was a drama. The first time i watch Tootsie i thought it was an amusing comedy, so hilarious and humorous. But the second time i watched it on the TV, i suddenly felt Tootsie wasn’t a comedy anymore, it was a biographical film about the life of an actor named Michael Dorsey. I could feel the message brought out by Dustin Hoffman’s performance, feeling lost, unemployment made him realized how cruel the reality is, at the end he still need to dressed as a woman to finally found a job, in 20 years. In one of the Dustin Hoffman’s interview, he said ‘Tootsie’s never a comedy for me’.

Moreover, Rain Man showed me how the connection of brothers can make a difference, Raymond had changed the whole life perspective of Charlie, he showed Charlie that there’s still something else in this world besides money. To conclude, although Dustin Hoffman is no longer young now, but i believe his following work/movies will still be inspiring. Great actor.