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Mr. Cool on Cool: The Films of Samuel L. Jackson
Aside from Morgan Freeman, his voice is probably as distinctive as any in cinema. From the angry braying or insistent arrogance of Stephen Warren in Django Rising to the wheedling persistence or petulant whining of Gator in Jungle Fever, nobody sounds quite like Samuel L. Jackson. He is one of those actors who always portrays characters filtered through his own persona, like Jimmy Stewart or Tom Hanks, rather than portraying a completely different persona for each character, like method actors Daniel-Day Lewis and Meryl Streep.
This makes Jackson no less an actor. Like Hanks or Stewart, Samuel L. is a known quantity. When people see his name on the marquee (as they have an astounding one hundred and sixty-seven times), they know they will see an outspoken and assertive African American man whose intelligence and street smarts qualify him for anything from a common street thug (School Daze) to a marine biologist (Deep Blue Sea) to a bitter and disenchanted blues musician (Black Snake Moan).
Even though the audience knows Jackson’s voice and his persona, he never fails to light up a film with a presence. We know what we’re going to get with him, but, like seeing an old friend at the door, his presence is always welcome.
Choosing the ten most outstanding performances of an actor who has made one hundred and sixty-nine screen appearances is—to say the least—daunting, but these are the best of the best—the most outstanding performances from one of our greatest actors.
The Ten Best Performance of Samuel L. Jackson
Black Snake Moan: In one of Jackson’s most non-traditional roles, he plays Lazarus Woods, a disenchanted blues guitarist whose wife has just left him. While running errands one day, he discovers Rae Doole (Christina Ricci), a young woman lying unconscious at the side of the road. It turns out she was dumped there by a boy who reviled her for her promiscuous behavior. Seeing that she cannot control herself and seeing it as a religious duty to help her, Lazarus chains her to his radiator—it sounds awful, but it works—and attempts to rehabilitate her self-destructive behavior. As Lazarus, Jackson portrays a combination of bitterness, hopelessness, pedanticism (at which he always excels) and, finally, redemption. This is one of his finest and most refined performances.
Do the Right Thing: In the first of his numerous appearances in Spike Lee films, Jackson plays Mr. Senor Love Daddy, the local DJ on the Brooklyn block where the film takes place. Part character and part narrator—re the vintage Spike Lee scene where various characters directly address the audience with racist monologues aimed at various racial groups: Blacks, Asians, Puerto Ricans, etc… After the last diatribe, Jackson rears up and says, “Cut that shit out!” At that moment, he transcends his character to become the voice of reason, a feat very few other actors could have accomplished.
Jungle Fever: In one of his many collaborations with Spike Lee, Jackson plays Gator Purify, the crack-addicted brother to Flipper (Wesley Snipes), his older brother who happens to fall for Angie Tucci (Anabella Sciorra), a white girl. To support his habit, Gator keeps returning to his parent’s house where he begs, borrows, and finally steals to support his habit. As the wheedling, manipulative, and feckless Gator, Jackson runs the gamut of playing the victim for his mother. One of the most poignant moments in the film is when he offers to do his “Gator Dance” for his mother, something he used to do for her as a child. The sadness of seeing a grown man resort to a child’s ploy for approval is both heart-rending and shameful, and Jackson pulls it off flawlessly.
One Eight Seven: In a different sort of role, Jackson plays Trevor Garfield, a high school teacher in a tough New York City school. After failing a gang banger from his class, he is brutally assaulted and stabbed repeatedly. A few years pass and Garfield resurfaces as a substitute teacher in a very tough Los Angeles school. Confronted with the same sort of thuggery that nearly got him killed in NYC, Jackson decides he’s had enough and fights back in a completely unorthodox and somewhat harrowing fashion. He also manages to lift several students from the depths of hopelessness and despair as he takes on the worst elements of urban society. Jackson’s performance not only evinces the toughness and bitterness of a man determined to teach, but also demonstrates a level of compassion and protectiveness unusual for his characters.
The Hateful Eight: Samuel L. Jackson catapulted to fame with his portrayal of Jules in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, leading to a number of collaborations between the two. In this twisted take on the American Western, Jackson plays Major Marquis Warren, a bounty hunter who runs across a sheriff, John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) in a stagecoach who is delivering a murderess, Crazy Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to justice. Forced to stop at a waystation for food and because of nasty winter weather, Warren finds himself in a group of deadly killer, all of whom have a grudge against someone. In typical Tarantino fashion, the narrative winds and unwinds through turns of violence, revenge, and hatred. When Warren reveals himself to General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern), and reveals how he dealt with Smithers’ son, whom the old man sent to wreak his revenge upon Warren, it is vintage Samuel L. Jackson hardcore matter-of-fact nastiness.
Django Unchained: As Stephen Warren, the house slave to Candy’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) plantation owner, Samuel L. Jackson displays such outrage at the fact that Django (Jamie Foxx), a Black man, is coming to stay in his house, that one would think he was the slaveowner. Shuttling from feral outrage to watchful fury to sheer indignation to complete subservience to his master, Jackson creates a portrait of man so blinded by the power he holds in his tiny kingdom that he becomes blind to the outrage that he helps perpetuate. His unwavering certainty that he and his master are on the side of right is vintage Jackson. No one else can be quite as definitive and self-assured as Samuel L.
Jackie Brown: In this Tarantino version of the Elmore Leonard classic, Jackson portrays Ordell Robbie, a gun runner who ropes stewardess Jackie Brown ( ), into a plan to smuggle drugs into the country. Jackie has been caught smuggling money into the country, but special agent (), has taken a shine to her and offers her a deal to help implicate others. As is typical in a Leonard story, the narrative takes a series of left turns. Double crosses and complications multiply until there is only one man—or woman—standing. As Robbie, Jackson conveys equal amounts of shrewdness, ruthlessness, manipulativeness, and audacity while attempting to make the perfect score but ultimately meets his match with Jackie Brown.
Unbreakable/Glass: Elijah Price/Mr. Glass: In this M. Night Shamalyan production, Jackson portrays Elijah Glass, an eccentric and wheelchair bound comic-book collector and genius who is positive that David Dunn (Bruce Willis), the lone survivor of a disastrous train wreck is the possessor of super powers. He seeks out after the crash and ultimately succeeds in convincing him that he does possess superpowers—which is ultimately proved to be correct. In a surprise twist at the end, however, Price proves to be more—and less—of what he seemed to be. In a departure from his more typical portrayals, Jackson conveys a sense of desperation and need here which most of other self-sufficient characters never seemed to need. This is a great calibrated performance; Price is never truly understood until the end of the film—this is when the performance doubly resonates. Then, in Glass, the third film in this trifecta, Price becomes something else altogether.
A Time to Kill: In this harrowing courtroom drama, Jackson plays Carl Lee Hailey, a man whose twelve-year-old daughter is raped and left for dead by two white men. Informed that the two may walk, Hailey takes matters into his own hands and guns the two down in the middle of a hearing. Hailey hires (Matthew McConaughey) as his attorney. As the trial unfolds, racial tensions in the town escalate and then explode until the trial concludes and the verdict is reached. Hailey’s fury at the men who nearly killed his daughter and the cold righteous rage with which he kills them is vintage Samuel L. Jackson, but the tenderness and sorrow he shows for his daughter is heart-rending. He is a man who broke the law, who took two lives, but who loves his daughter more than himself. A beautiful performance.
Pulp Fiction: In his breakout portrayal of the hitman Jules, Jackson is able to produce the portrait of an intelligent, ambitious, and somewhat philosophical stone-cold killer. The dialogues between Jules and his partner Vince Vega () are priceless, covering everything from elements of pop culture (“What do they call a Big Mac in France?”) to the nature of fate and miracles. In this film, more than in any other, Jackson is the paragon of cool. The humor inherent in Tarantino’s script (“Why am I cleaning up the brains? You should be on brain detail”) is impeccably delivered. In the final sequence, while confronting the robber (Tim Roth) at the restaurant, Jules’ explanation for his actions is so cool, so righteous, and so right, we can only marvel at what a marvelous and iconic performance this is.