Elderly Heroes/Heroines in Fiction

Started by Cato, March 29, 2009, 06:31:21 AM

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DavidRoss

#20
March 30, 2009, 09:26:50 AM Last Edit: March 30, 2009, 09:28:50 AM by DavidRoss
Quote from: Cato on March 30, 2009, 08:48:46 AM
Thank you for the recommendation!  I will need to check that out, along with  Blood Meridian mentioned earlier.
Note that Steve recommended Blood Meridian as a better Western novel than Lonesome Dove, not as one featuring elderly protagonists or heroes.  I don't think there's a single character in that book who could be called a "hero." 

Hmmm, come to think of it, True Grit is a good Western novel made into a fine movie that features an older, if not elderly, hero.
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

ChamberNut

#21
March 30, 2009, 09:28:48 AM
Placido Domingo in Tristan und Isolde?

ChamberNut

#22
March 30, 2009, 09:31:48 AM
Quote from: Bogey on March 29, 2009, 07:46:12 PM
Patrick Stewart as Capt. Picard?

Bill, have you seen him in the "made for TV" movie Moby Dick?  He played a wonderful Captain Ahab!

Bogey

#23
March 30, 2009, 10:31:36 AM
Quote from: ChamberNut on March 30, 2009, 09:31:48 AM
Bill, have you seen him in the "made for TV" movie Moby Dick?  He played a wonderful Captain Ahab!

No!  I need to watch that for sure.  Thanks!
There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Maciek

#24
March 30, 2009, 10:47:20 AM
How about the films The Straight Story and The World's Fastest Indian? My impression is that especially the latter is vastly underrated (I don't care very much for the former anyway), perhaps the age of the protagonist is a factor? :-\

Cato

#25
March 30, 2009, 10:59:49 AM
Quote from: Maciek on March 30, 2009, 10:47:20 AM
How about the films The Straight Story and The World's Fastest Indian? My impression is that especially the latter is vastly underrated (I don't care very much for the former anyway), perhaps the age of the protagonist is a factor? :-\

You are quite right that the two men in both stories - close to documentaries - are in their 60's and 70's.

If Alvin Straight on his 350-mile lawn-mower ride did not quite risk his life in the same way, or for the same reason, as the Kiwi Burt Munro in World's Fastest Indian, it was still quite an undertaking.

Both movies are gems: Richard Farnsworth was even nominated for an Academy Award in 1999 for The Straight Story.

His director was...David Lynch!   :o
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Iconito

#26
March 30, 2009, 11:31:01 AM
It's your language. I'm just trying to use it --Victor Borge

vandermolen

#27
March 30, 2009, 12:29:29 PM
Lillian Gish in 'Night of the Hunter'
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Cato

#28
March 30, 2009, 04:16:15 PM
Quote from: vandermolen on March 30, 2009, 12:29:29 PM
Lillian Gish in 'Night of the Hunter'

Certainly there is no danger involved in the movie, but Lillian Gish made a movie when she was 93 (!)  called The Whales of August with Bette Davis (78 at the time) and Vincent Price (75).

Excellent little family drama: and Vincent Price is really great as a Russian aristocrat in exile, chased away to America by the Russian Revolution.
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Dundonnell

#29
March 30, 2009, 05:32:17 PM
Not that many will necessarily remember him but my favourite 'elderly hero' from fiction will always be the intrepid Allan Quatermain-the hero of 'King Soloman's Mines' by Sir Henry Rider Haggard, of its marvellous sequel 'Allan Quatermain' and of 12 less well know prequels.
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