Existence As Performance
Existence As Performance
Johnny Depp emerging
out of his depression is on,
never to be off until off
at last into the Irretrievable.
It is, he is, then, perfection,
a rather remarkable feat,
living at one remove,
all of it “terribly surreal.”
Observing the one who
has grown all-too-seen,
we see how he feeds on
our gaze, while his performance
feeds us with its frightening,
and at the same time, enviable,
ongoingness. The fish in the
fishbowl who knows, who
swims to be seen swimming.
Each of his characters
becomes more real than
the rest of him: Gilbert Grape,
Edward Scissorhands,
Ichabod Crane so thoroughly
there, no one else remains.
How to wrest life back
from the cinematic surround,
from the ground of objectification,
the self as product, life as script?
The loveliest of boy/men,
of girl/women, turn into
things. But how to abound
in the birthright of pure being,
unself-consciously oneself,
the disappeared-into true
vanishing, like the unrarified
rest of us, becomes, for Depp,
a question that has too much
at stake; to avoid performance
would destroy the illusion,
to turn off would be fake.
from: Brave Disguises
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002