Essays | Boomers Daily

From a Maclean’s Magazine online essay (01/08/20):

Don Gillmor in his home office Photograph by May Truong Maclean's Magazine January 8 2020 — Don Gillmor in his home office (Photograph by May Truong)

Boomers tore down institutions—divorce rates went up, churchgoing went down. We demonized the corporations that previous generations had venerated, though we bought their products in record numbers, our idealism blurring with the search for the perfect pair of jeans. We wanted it all. In place of institutions, we created the cult of the individual, our own particular Frankenstein.

So much of our music comes back to us in unfortunate ways, Dylan’s anthems barely recognizable in sappy orchestral arrangements that ﬁll the hours we spend on hold. And we seem to be permanently on hold these days. We are between 55 and 73 years old now, still deﬁning this as middle age, still a potent economic force because of our numbers, controlling 70 per cent of disposable income, though it feels to many of us that we have already disposed of it. Still, we bought houses when they were vaguely affordable. And politicians still cater to us because we vote en masse. However, we are largely left out of the cultural conversation, as music and social media continues to evolve, always leaving us one app behind the curve.

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From a Gentleman’s Journal online article:

Thankfully, Willem Dafoe and Willem Dafoe’s face have used this innate recognisability to their joint advantage. To date, the actor has appeared in well over 100 films, and his prolific career can be charted through the cracks and comments — some nice, some not so nice — that those in the industry have made about his looks.

In fact, in the intervening decades, Hollywood has called many, many times — as have independent filmmakers, foreign studios, animation houses, video game developers and scores of theatres. On the big screen, Dafoe has taken roles in Platoon, Mississippi Burning, Born on the Fourth of July, The English Patient, American Psycho and Shadow of the Vampire. He flew into The Aviator for a cameo, swung into the Spider-Man trilogy as the villainous Green Goblin and dipped his toe in voiceover work with Finding Nemo. He’s taken on John Carter, John Wick and narrated films from Vox Lux to The Great Wall. He’s been Oscar-nominated several times, for playing characters as wild and disparate as hammy vampires, Floridian motel managers and Vincent van Gogh. The man is a chameleon — and has managed to become one despite having Willem Dafoe’s face.