I suppose I ought to be feeling spoilt for choice this week. There are no end of earth-shattering stories that I could explore. I could offer my take on whether Trump is well on the way to saving or destroying the world order. I could explore the multiple ways in which it appears that Israel is being dragged, either screaming or not screaming enough, to the very edge of self-destruction. I could even contemplate my own mortality.
However, I don’t feel up to any of that heavy lifting today, so instead I will, with your indulgence, offer two totally unrelated and probably trivial musings.
Muse the First: Marking the Passing of George Foreman.
Fairly high up on the list of sports that I don’t understand is boxing. I don’t understand how the deliberate inflicting of, often permanent, physical damage by one person on another qualifies as a sport. I don’t understand why anyone would choose to watch such inflicting. I don’t understand why the fact that so many youngsters view boxing as their only way out of a lifetime of poverty, crime and abuse should be seen as something to celebrate.
I did not watch the Rumble in the Jungle (Ali’s comeback fight in which he knocked out Foreman in Zaire) live or at any time since. Nor have I watched When We Were Kings, the acclaimed documentary about the fight. I haven’t even read Norman Mailer’s celebrated account of it. I did not follow Foreman’s career at all. I never even bought a George Foreman grill.
All of which means that I came to his obituary in The Times with an unprejudiced eye. (I apologise if the link is blocked for you by a paywall.) It was, unusually for The Times, a lacklustre obit, a pedestrian read about an unprepossessing and fairly directionless life. Like all Times obituaries, it carried no byline. I then read, in today’s Jerusalem Post, a tribute written by Alex Winston, the JP’s.English-born news editor specialising in real estate. This piece presented a coherent view of a life that followed a clear arc, a life informed by purpose, the life of a man who had elements of the hero in him. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and uplifting read.
I have no way of knowing which of these retrospectives is accurate, if indeed either is. Perhaps my only takeaway can be that you shouldn’t believe anything you read in the paper. Yet I find myself very strongly wanting to believe Alex Winston’s account. Partly this is because I take comfort, and perhaps even inspiration, from reading about a life of purpose. (It seems that, willingly or not, I may be, at some level, contemplating my own mortality.)
However, another part of the attraction is that this is a coherent story. Most days, at least one and often several of The Times obituaries are really good reads, not always, indeed not even nearly always, because they celebrate a life of virtue, but, rather, because they celebrate a life lived to the full, however outrageous or villainous that fulness is.
The readers’ comments that regularly accompany obituaries in The Times confirm that I am far from alone in finding that page of the paper a consistently enjoyable and meaningful read.
Muse the Second: What?! Why?!!
If you have any interest in film, you will already know that a new gangster film – The Alto Knights – has recently been released, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert de Niro. It’s fair to say that, in itself, this is not earth-shattering news. Indeed, I might well have written, in the previous sentence, “yet another new gangster film….Levinson…de Niro”. However, what distinguishes this film is that it sctus;;y strs Roberts de Niro: both of the mafiosi whose true-life rivalry the film depicts are played by Robert de Niro. At the risk of repeating myself: What?! Why?!!
It is fair to say that one actor playing two parts has a long and sometimes distinguished history in cinema (and indeed on stage). It is a device that can serve any of a number of purposes.
Let’s start by considering Peter Pan. The tradition is that the roles of Mr Darling and Captaion Hook are doubled. Although this is not specified in the script, it is a tradition that began with the very first production 121 years ago, when Gerald du Maurier played both roles. This doubling invites speculation that Mr Darling is only ‘tamed’ by his wife; when she is absent, his ‘piratical’ side shows through, in the same way as the lost boys, lacking the restraining and civilising influence of a mother, revert to misbehaving.
Interestingly, in the fabulous 2016 National Theatre production of Peter Pan, which originated at the Bristol Old Vic in 2012, director Sally Cookson had an actress play Mrs Darling and Captain Hook. Sophie Thompson was gloriously, moustache-twirlingly villainous as Hook, but I personally felt some dramatic resonance was lost in this casting decision.
In a similar vein to Peter Pan, Chaplin’s doubling of roles in The Great Dictator was obviously a clear exploitation of the opportunity to mock Adolf Hitler. If he bore such a close physical resemblance to ‘the little tramp’, there was patently no substance behind his bluster.
Another reason for doubling is that the plot directly calls for it. In most cases, this is because the film centres on identical twins, typically one as pure as the driven snow, the other decidedly slushy. Indeed, Bette David played such identical twins not once but twice: in 1946 in A Stolen Life – ‘Kate is self-effacing and gentle, while Pat is bold and ostentatious, getting any man she pleases. Jealous of Kate’s new beau, Bill (Glenn Ford), Pat steals him away, marrying him. But when tragedy strikes, Kate takes an opportunity to get the love she’s always longed for’ – and then in 1964 in Dead Ringer – Davis plays the wealthy Margaret, estranged from her twin, Edith (also Davis), for nearly 20 years. Edith can’t pay her bills, and with an eviction notice hanging over her head, she enacts revenge upon her sister, killing her, and assuming her identity.
In other cases, the playing of multiple roles is a vehicle for a versatile character actor to demonstrate his talent. Since in such cases the purpose of the exercise is to keep the audience aware that the characters are being portrayed by actors, this lends itself to comedies rather than dramas. Two such films come immediately to my mind. In the first, Alec Guiness struts his stuff as no fewer than eight members of the D’Ascoyne family, being serially murdered by a fiendish Dennis Price so that he can inherit the family’s title and wealth. While Guiness displays virtuosity, his characters clearly share a physical family likeness.

In the second film, arguably in a class of its own, Peter Sellers played three very disparate parts in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove: German-US ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove, US President Merkin Muffley and RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake. As you can see, Sellers created three visually distinct characters. The illogic of him playing all three parts seemed perfectly natural in a film that was gloriously surrealistic – while simultaneously being chillingly realistic.

Which brings us, finally, and puzzlingly, back to The Alto Knights. The burning question here is: What is the motivation for casting de Niro in the two leading roles? I ought to say here that I have not seen the film, although I have read several reviews and back-stories. From de Niro’s own comments, it seems that the producer suddenly came up with the idea and de Niro thought it sounded cute, and might hold his interest sufficiently to render making yet another gangster film a more interesting experience for him.
No great attempt seems to have been made to disguise the fact that both roles are played by de Niro. I find myself wondering why nobody in the film remarks on the uncanny resemblance between the rivals.

In addition, reviews that I have read suggest that there is little chemistry between the two de Niros, which is not exactly surprising. Considering the electricity that de Niro and Al Pacino created on screen in such films as Heat, this feels like very much a missed opportunity.
I end, as I started: What?! Why?!! Is this a case of de Niro being too huge a name in cinema for any objective measure of judgement to be applied.
I apologise for pontificating without seeing the film, but I’m not sure I want to witness what I am sure, from all I have read, is little more than a piece of self-indulgence.