×

Face off! – Best performances by masked men

Rock ‘n’ roll has always been loaded to the amps with gimmicks: The Beatles’ suits, KISS’s makeup, Michael Jackson’s glove. But the curiosity-seeking bandleader at the heart of a new indie comedy has let his gimmick go straight to his head.

In Frank, Oscar-nominated actor Michael Fassbender plays an enigmatic rocker who has fashioned a homemade papier-mache mask and never takes it off. Equal parts Almost Famous and Portlandia, Frank is every bit a biting satire of Gen Y indie culture and a heartfelt rumination on creativity and mental illness.

“If I am to grow as an artist, I must see as [Frank] sees,” says the film’s narrator and Frank’s band mate Domnhall Gleeson (upcoming Star Wars Episode 7), who plays the everyman thrust into the absurdities of Frank’s group.

Based loosely on 1970s English comedian and musician Frank Sidebottom, with more than a little of Daniel Johnston’s childlike creativity and Syd Barrett’s darker days thrown into the mix, Frank debuts in theaters Aug. 15.

What’s remarkable is that Fassbender gives an entire performance with his face completely obscured by a mask. But he’s not alone. Cinema history is dotted with such challenging roles and the actors who managed to connect with an audience from behind a mask. Here are five of the greats:

Though paid just $250 for the role to wear a mask that he would later say he could “hardly breathe” in, Moran and director John Carpenter brought sheer terror and emotion on screen without showing the villain’s face and without relying on a lot of blood.

While much of the cool factor related to Haley’s hard-boiled comic character (pictured above) comes from the mesmerizing special effect of ink blots shifting across his clothed face, he still sells the part beautifully using only his gravelly voice and equally gruff body language.

Although Hardy did have the benefit of his piercing eyes glaring through the mechanical muzzle straddling the rest of his face in this climax to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, it is the rest of his physicality, his movements and gestures and ghostly voice that promote the power and grandeur that invades every scene of this film with a foreboding intensity.

Making audiences want to dance to destruction as the classically-minded, quick-witted anarchist who, taking cues and a mask from Guy Fawkes, plots to overthrow the dystopian police state of the near future, Weaving is at once frightening and all too sensical with more than a dash of whimsey” “A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having!”

Why not Darth Vader from the Galaxy far, far away? Well, while James Earl Jones’ voice performance is iconic, he did not don the black suit and helmet for the role of Luke’s dark father on set (that was English body-builder David Prowse), so for a complete performance from George Lucas’ space saga, my vote goes to Daniels as the neurotic, fast-talking robot C-3PO. Particularly in the original 1977 film, Daniel’s rapid-fire banter with sidekick R2-D2 carries the first half of the story and, as if we’re listening to a butler who’s simply had enough, the golden droid introduces us to this new universe in a relatable way through his sarcastic, exasperated outlook.