Born as Susan in a very well-to-do family (she adopted the name Sigourney after a character in The Great Gatsby) in some way she embodied the face and the expressions of a time of passage between the Faye Dunaway and Glenda Jackson generation and that of the mid-Eighties, personified by the likes of Sharon Stone and Michele Pfeiffer. Hard not to find herself crushed or overshadowed, all the while escaping the classical model features: “too tall”, “she’s beautiful, alright, but I can’t quite put my finger on it”, “she towers over her male counterparts”, “she’s a bully to other actresses”, and other such nonsense.
She was never too much in the spotlight – maybe her salvation, certainly her style – and she could jump from drama to comedy with ease and confidence, the same she demonstrated in picking older characters over four decades of film work, conspicuously divided in two. In the first half of her career, she worked with names such as Ridley Scott, Roman Polanski, Peter Weir, just to name a few. In the second, Weaver preferred less known filmmakers, though ones who have been able to upkeep her image, especially her direct look and her not-always-unambiguous smile. This is what makes you an actor.
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A classic: while History shuffles Indonesia’s cards, she and he, they fall in love – at whatever cost. Breakthrough role for Mel Gibson, an Oscar to the great Linda Hunt starring as a male dwarf. Also, a fellowship between the two Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement awardees at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
Sigourney Weaver is Dian Fossey – a researcher, photographer, animal rights activist, and above all, a woman. This is too much for a Rwanda caught between the legacy of Belgian colonialism and barbaric poaching.
An unexplainable half-bomb, maybe due to the fact that the figure of Christopher Columbus is put under scrutiny. The visionary man who didn’t bring Queen Isabella (Weaver) enough gold and trophies tells his son about his rise and his fall.
A terrifying face-to-face between victim and tormenter. Roles switch, though the latter rarely pay up. A great Polanski in the Schubertian quartet that lent its title to the film.
A mysterious man coming from a white supremacist background hides his past life, but the past, as Don Winslow once said, has all the time it needs, and sooner or later, it’ll get there.
