Kirsten Dunst Characters as the 16 Personality Types

Friend of the Blog Rory sent me a Tweet a couple weeks back in which Hannah Seidlitz contended that a favorite Kirsten Dunst film is “the fastest way to identify anyone’s taste.” As she stipulated, if you cite “Melancholia” over “Spiderman”, or “Bring it On” over “The Virgin Suicides”, your taste becomes apparent pretty quick. It makes sense. Dunst’s filmography is so dense and varied that whatever you pick as your favorite is liable to stand out against everything else. That variance, though, is what got me to thinking in even grander terms than mere taste. It got me to thinking about Kirsten Dunst movies in terms of personality. In 1921, the preeminent Swiss psychologist Carl Jung published Psychological Types, categorizing people into 16 different personalities. Those types were given monotonous titles like ISFJ and ISTP, each one bearing descriptions that sites like 16Personalities.com have broken down into more easy-to-digest monikers. Even those, however, are a bit too mundane for an exotic year on the calendar like 2021. So let’s take those 16 Personalities and ascribe them a coordinating Kirsten Dunst character. I think it’ll make it more fun for the kids in sociology class. I’ll expect the textbooks to update accordingly.

Kirsten Dunst Characters as the 16 Personality Types

Campaigner: Betsy Jobs, Dick

Architect: Claudia, Interview With a Vampire

Logician: Mary Svevo, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Commander: Lizzie Bradbury, Wimbledon

Debater: Betty Warren, Mona Lisa Smile

Advocate: Justine, Melancholia

Mediator: Kelly Woods, Get Over It

Protagonist: Amber Atkins, Drop Dead Gorgeous

Logistician: Vivian Mitchell, Hidden Figures

Defender: Edwina Morrow, The Beguiled

Executive: Regan Crawford, Bachelorette

Consul: Claire Colburn, Elizabethtown

Virtuoso: Torrance Shipman, Bring It On

Adventurer: Mary Jane Watson, Spider-Man

Entrepreneur: Marion Davies, The Cat’s Meow

Entertainer: Nicole Oakley, Crazy/Beautiful

Forgotten Characters: Camille, On the Road

My friend Andrew has a regular piece at his site, Encore's World of Film & TV, where he examines Forgotten Characters, those who made a significant impression despite minimal screen time. Today, I once again pay homage (rip him off), in honor of one of Cinema Romantico's all-time favorite actors whose celebration of birth is today.

Kirsten Dunst in "On the Road"

as Camille

Perhaps it's ridiculous to suggest that any character in a novel as seminal as Jack Keoruac's "On the Road" is "forgotten" but I dare say any wannabe beat such as myself who initially encounters the classic burst of run-on prose by the bard of the beats in his twenties reaches the last page with even half a thought of Camille. She was merely a speck dispersing in the rearview mirror, receding on the plain, collateral damage to a twenty-something idiot male tearing through "On the Road" while looking out on the drooping evening star shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie of the parking lot belonging to his apartment in Des Moines, Iowa where he wanted to believe whole-heartedly in the Dean Moriarty phantasm that his place of residence had the most beautiful girls in the world.

"We got what we needed," Sarah Vowell once wrote of Kerouac's most famous work, "namely a passion for unlikely words, the willingness to improvise, a distrust of authority, and a sentimental attachment to a certain America." All true. When you read "On the Road" at an impressionable age you take what you want and deny the rest. I remember reading it around the same time I first heard Eamon's "Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back)", a song from which I took what I wanted and denied the rest. Several years later, which felt like eons, I heard that song again and could only hear the winy self-involvement, the foul-mouthed vainglory, the cold-shoulder to introspection. "Christ," I thought to myself, "I could have been any more stupid? Or shallow? Or willfully ignorant?"

I felt like that when I caught up with Walter Salles' "On the Road" a good decade-plus after I first read the book and saw it as - to borrow the phrasing of Slate's David Haglund - "a pretty interesting work of literary criticism." It causes us, as Haglund notes, to "reconsider" Kerouac's book, and to reconsider it specifically from the vantage point of the women.

The first time we meet Kirsten Dunst's version of Camille, she is vivacious, in love with life, in love with Dean. When we catch up with Camille much later, she is no longer vivacious, in love with life, or in love with Dean. Now, because we have been on the road all this time with the dudes we are not privy to the change Camille has gone through. This means that when we return to Camille it is entirely up to Dunst to evince this change. She does.

I have a dear friend with two kids. Not long after she had the first one, I tagged along with her and her husband and the kid to their lakeside cottage in Wisconsin. At some point that weekend, after the little dude had run her ragged, she laid down on the couch, briefly, for like fourteen seconds, until the little dude re-sprang into her action. The look on her face as she laid there was a look I've only seen one other time - on Kirsten Dunst's face in "On the Road" when her tired eyes look up at Dean with such exhausted sorrow. And that's it. That's all Dunst needs to do to convince us of the all the years she has endured between her previous scene and now. Just one look.

And it's in moments like this where we see Dunst's absolute refusal to let Camille to fester as The Nagging Wife. In her exhaustion there is a strength, one so palpable that Dean recoils from it, because he knows he can't stand the heat, not like Camille, who Dunst, in a few flourishes, convinces us is too tough a cat to hang with this faux-macho weakling.

Forgotten Characters: Katie in All Good Things

My friend Andrew has a regular piece at his site, Encore's World of Film & TV, where he examines Forgotten Characters, those who made a significant impression despite minimal screen time. Today, I once again pay homage (rip him off).

Kirsten Dunst in “All Good Things”

as Katie McCarthy

No one has filled the template for callously creepy like Robert Durst, the subject of “All Good Things” where Ryan Gosling portrayed him as “David Marks”, willfully cross dressing and acting like the eccentric, asocial psychopath he apparently is. Of that performance, the real Robert Durst was quoted in a 2010 New York Times article as saying “Not as good as the real thing.” He also admits in the article, as he has many times elsewhere, to dismembering a corpse, though he did it out of self-defense, or so the courts ruled, and so it’s all cool. He does not, however, admit to any of the other murders for which he’s long been suspected though never convicted. These potential murders were the subject of “All Good Things”, which shows “David Marks” committing them, and of the recent six-part HBO documentary “The Jinx”, in which Andrew Jarecki (who directed “All Good Things”) interviews the real Durst as he re-explores the cases. “He answers questions about whether he hit Kathie (yes, he did—but, hey, it was the seventies),” wrote Emily Nussbaum in The New Yorker, “with a candor that no sane or diplomatic individual would use.” Kathie is Kathie McCormack, Durst’s first wife who disappeared in January of 1982.

If there is a non-narrative issue with true-life investigation procedurals such as “The Jinx”, or Sarah Koenig’s ballyhooed NPR “Serial”, it is how the tragically deceased person or people that spawned these new inquiries can kind of unintentionally become forgotten. As “The Jinx” took center stage, so did Robert Durst, and through suspected murders he became a cultural touchstone. Everyone knows his name. Less mentioned, of course, was Kathie. Heck, even when Kathie got her due in “All Good Things” she still didn’t completely get her due because she wasn’t Katie McCormack – she was Katie McCarthy, transformed into Julia Roberts in “Sleeping with the Enemy” if Patrick Bergin was the main character.

“All Good Things” is recording a cool 33% at Rotten Tomatoes presently, and not undeservedly. It’s mostly notable for the real guy upon whom its main character is based being its only real champion of quality even though the film basically accuses him of murder. And that’s a shame, because hiding in plain sight is a magnificent performance by Kirsten Dunst as Katie.

It’s Kirsten’s movie, yet the movie doesn’t know it. It’s too enraptured by David Marks. He is heir to a family fortune, yet an eternal disappointment in his father’s eyes and clearly on the wrong side of crazy even if he manages, for a while, to suppress it. He suppresses it because of Katie who is outfit by Dunst with an authentic and amorous glow. She doesn’t want to change him. On the contrary, she sees something in him and takes great pains to dredge his temperament to bring it to the surface. She wants to help him. She wants to provide the belief that he’s never gotten from anyone else. And even when the film begins its inevitable descent into thriller territory, Dunst never lets her character succumb to Movie Spouse rubbish, sticking around despite his bizarro behavior solely so she can be offed.

The further he recedes into the demented catacombs of his mnid, the more she looks at him with a genuine loving confusion, not understanding what’s happened to him but wanting to. She stays when she should run because, goddammit all to hell, she cares. And once she is moved out of the picture, the picture ceases to be interesting, or even good. She was it all it had. She was all he had.

Kirsten Dunst gives Robert Durst, however briefly, the one characteristic that should be, frankly, impossible for such a self-satisfied callous creep to achieve – humanity.

The Two Faces Of January

If nothing else, "Two Face Of January" is an exemplary Greek travelogue, opening at the beatific ruins of the Acropolis and exploring Athens before crossing the blue water of the Mediterranean for Crete where it meanders up the coastline. Even a scene that finds our desperate trio forced to sleep outdoors on stone benches seems like a warmer night's sleep than the warmth of our own beds. That warmth purposely stands in stark contrast to the characters operating within it. They are con-men, well-heeled and completely cool, but also motivationally suspect and inherently unlikable.

Rydal (Oscar Isaac) is an American tour guide in Athens in 1962. His occupation, of course, is a convenient conduit to pontifications on ancient gods to draw parallels to his forthcoming plight, but it's also believable in that it provides the perfect platform to bilk comely female tourists of their drachma. He has just lost his father but actively chosen to avoid the funeral, and when he sees an American, Chester McFarland (Viggo Mortensen), who inexplicably resembles his old man, it provides an excuse to be drawn into an inevitably nefarious orbit.

Indeed, the manner in which Chester and his trophy wife Colette (Kirsten Dunst) reconnoiter Rydal before invoking his accord betrays their status as no mere couple on a honeymoon. He is a swindler, big-time, having defrauded massively moneyed peoples back in the States. And when a P.I. tracks them down, things happen, the P.I. winds up dead and Rydal comes to their aid, helping them to hide out while they wait for fake passports.

While the film has bothersome elements archetypal to the thriller – walking into a hallway at EXACTLY the wrong moment to see the guy propping up a dead body, news reports telling a character EXACTLY what he needs to know – "Two Face Of January", which is based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, is more interested in the psychological than the pulse-pounding. In a deft performance, Mortensen opens with the air of a card shark setting you up for the big steal only to slowly morph into a rich man as basket case, and his crack up becomes the film’s focus as opposed to any gotcha! twist.

The film is set in 1962 but it might as well be 2008 with Chester in a Bear Stearns windbreaker rather than a swag tweed suit, refusing penance and attempting to avoid punishment. He’s not a man running from his past, he’s running from his present. He’s running from who he is, and not getting far, no matter how remote the locales. He, however, seems less equipped to deal with his self-made fate than Colette. Her character may be problematically reduced to an object metaphorically dueled over by the two males, as well as a narrative excuse for Rydal to stay in their company even when their secrets are exposed, but Dunst wrings quiet humanity out of willful acceptance. She’s not so much standing by her man as standing with him, aware of the choice she’s made and the consequences that come with it, a captain who understands she must go down with the ship because her mistakes led directly to the sinking.

The wild card is Rydal. Although the idea of Chester being a non-traditional father figure to him is only sporadic, it still feels overdone, not rising organically from the narrative but dropped in with a heavy hand, desperate to trigger his catharsis. Simultaneously, it is canceled out by the implied notion that he is also attracted to Colette. In the end, he simply seems attracted to the high life. There is no confidence trick in "The Two Faces Of January", only beautiful people in beautiful clothes in beautiful places. Who among us can resist?

The Greatest Walk of Shame (That Isn't Really A Walk of Shame)

A negative connotation surrounds the cultural phrase Walk of Shame. As Urban Dictionary defines it via its always eloquent prose, a walk of shame is "when you leave someone's house with the same clothes you had on the night before." This walk is generally viewed through the prism of regret, like Ashley Judd's character in "Come Early Morning" always sliding out of bed post-one night stand and slinking away or Charlize Theron in "Young Adult" slinking out of her own bed and her own house and still slinking away. But what if a Walk of Shame isn't shameful? What if it's a Walk of Joy Mixed With Melancholy That Finds Triumph In Embarrassment? Ah, then you have the walk of "Elizabethtown's" one & only Claire Colburn, the original [redacted].

Let's break it down, shall we, frame by whimsical frame.

Well, this is the how the Walk of Shame begins - Claire memorializing it with one of her patented mental pictures. And so straight away we know that shame can't really be involved. She wants to remember it, hold onto it, not let it end.

She leaves a flower beside the ashes of Drew's father. Another sign of the non-shame of this Walk of Shame. I mean, that's just so......nice. (Slate Magazine, I believe, criticized the choice of flower, advising Claire that "she did it wrong", citing Lilies as the optimal choice.) 

Here she strolls down the hall of The Brown Hotel with her head hung and her shoulders slumped. That is not shame, however, but sorrowful nostalgia for what has just passed. (Testify, sister.)

Love this shot. Love it, love it, love it. The way Kirsten poses, like she's trying to maintain a positivity in the face of sadness (and sorta failing), while the balloons chill in the bottom of the righthand side of the frame, gleeful taunts.

Elevator. Goin' down. Facing reality. Buck up. "I don't wanna buck up!!!!!!" BUCK UP!!!!!!

With a ding, the elevator doors open.

Hearing all manner of noises - like, say, a ginormous wedding party - in the lobby, Claire freaks the eff out.

"Love that dress!" Cuz, you know, it's the dress Claire was, like, totally wearing the night before.

Nobly, she assumes a smile of good humor and walks the walk. You got this, Claire. You got this!

Chuck (of Chuck and Cindy, the to-be-married couple staying next door to Drew at the Brown Hotel, "Loving Life/Loving You") is in the hotel lobby at, what, ten in the morning, drinking a beer. Respect. (Also, until this screen shot, I never noticed the older lady in blue to the right. Even she's into this non-Walk of Shame.)

Just take the cheers and the guffaws and the "you go, girls!" and just go, girl.

Owning it. #FuckYeah

Saying Goodbye To [redacted]

"Dragon clouds so high above 

I’ve only known careless love 

It’s always hit me from below 

This time around it’s more correct 

Right on target, so direct 

You're gonna make me lonesome when you go."

Forgotten Characters: Tracy in Wag the Dog

My friend Andrew has a regular piece at his site, Encore's World of Film & TV, where he examines Forgotten Characters, those who made a significant impression despite minimal screen time. Today, I once again pay homage (rip him off).

Kirsten Dunst in "Wag the Dog"

as Tracy Lime

It’s the image we remember, which is the whole point since the characters in the film are specifically crafting a false image to provide evidence of a war that doesn’t actually exist. So we remember her as the phony Albanian refugee fleeing the phony reprisals with the phony Calico kitten in tow as the phony Anne Frank sirens wail. Do we remember that her name was Tracy? Do we remember that she was played by Kirsten Dunst? Do we remember in a film that has roughly 775 lines of pure comic gold she might have delivered the single best one?

There is a moment early in the film when White House Spin Doctors Conrad Brean (Robert DeNiro) and Winifred Ames (Anne Heche) have sought out Hollywood producer Stanley Motts (Dustin Hoffman, riffing on Robert Evans but still crafting a wholly original character) for aid in staging the phony war that will distract the American people from a Presidential scandal a couple weeks ahead of the ensuing Presidential election. To prove they have the White House’s ear, Conrad and Winifred dial up an aid in the midst of a televised West Wing press conference and Stanley feeds him lines. The aide repeats them word-for-word but Stanley is unimpressed. “He didn't phrase it right. He didn't sell the line.”

Well, how do you sell your walk-on/walk-off performance amidst Dustin freaking Hoffman and Robert freaking DeNiro? As Tracy Lime (lime, the critical garnish to the cocktail), Dunst plays her as a genial if in-over-her-head and pointedly young struggling L.A. wannabe starlet. She knows enough to know she shouldn’t be signing something without her agent’s consent, but she also knows she wants to pad that resume. And when she asks Conrad, smiling sweetly, about that very thing, he advises she can’t tell anyone that she ever did this. “Is it a guild thing?” she wonders earnestly. “They can come to your house and kill you,” he says, still smiling sweetly. She turns away while simultaneously being doused with makeup and Dunst’s expression says it all – not fear, not at all, but confusion.

That confusion is underscored by what she's carrying in her arms. Moments earlier, in lieu of the kitten she was told she’d be getting to hold, into her arms is plunked a bag of tortilla chips. Her response is matchless, possibly's the film's funniest three words, though the delivery of the words is specifically what makes them so funny. She says: “These are chips.” And she sells the line. She sells it. She sells it precisely because she isn’t selling it – she’s just saying it. She was told she would be holding a cat and well, hey, these? These are chips. So she asks about the cat. “We’ll punch it in later,” she’s told. “You’ll punch it in?” she asks, not entirely up to date on post-production lingo. And that's the last we hear from Tracy, aside from the souped-up news report casting her as a war refugee, just another actress nobody knows left to wander around haplessly in the green screen wilderness.

I imagine Daisy Ridley showing up for her first day of “Star Wars: Episode VII” filming and being told she will be wearing a sort of exotic traditional Alderaanian headdress only to have J.J. Abrams nix all headdress choices and then some intern plunks a pot roast on top of poor Daisy's head and tells her they'll just punch in the headdress later.