Montgomery Clift, A Place in the Sun

Montgomery Clift has a face that was meant to be gazed at. As if by the grace of God, his matinee idol looks pull you in, commanding you to pay attention.

The camera knows this. The opening seconds of A Place in the Sun is that of an opening long shot of Monty, his back to us. His turn to the camera is accompanied with a swell in the score, as if we've experienced some sort of dramatic reveal. It then closes in on Monty's face, very close. Too close? This happens on a number of occasions throughout the film, the camera encroaching rather tightly into Monty's personal space and lingering its focus on that mug of his for our collective gaze.

Montgomery Clift, The Search

as STEVE / RALPH STEVENSON

When you watch Montgomery Clift in The Search, there’s an immediate sense that something is off about him. He’s not normal, at least...not so in the Golden Hollywood sense. His face, smoldering in its God-given beauty, is distorted in peculiar ways as he expresses his reactions to the people and scenarios around him. He doesn’t sound rehearsed, almost recklessly so, as he fills the space with mumbled, ad-libbed lines. In other words, he’s a revelation, a breath of fresh air and a bookmark of a new style of acting that would be further popularized in the next decade.