4. David Bowie in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JTroFovUXw Of all rock and roll musicians, David Bowie probably has the most extensive and methodical track record for taking on roles and submerging himself in a character. Leaving out any involvement with the film world, his career has almost always aligned with some kind of over-arching performance, from Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke. He has established himself through the decades as a multi-layered artist. His film career is something of a marvel, taking on roles that compliment his musical personas, like The Man Who Fell To Earth, or roles that draw from his more modest personality, such as his small portrayal of Tesla in The Prestige. If anything shows a more natural sense of charisma from Bowie (other than the magical charisma in Labyrinth), Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence offers a dynamic sense of Bowie as an everyman. Not to say Bowies performance is average in Mr. Lawrence, he is more of a wild card in his turn as Major Celliers, who is sent to a POW camp in Japan only to confront a dividing community of social views. Bowie is at one moment a speechless figure, constraining the performance to only the face, and at other times a loud, physical animal. Nevertheless, he manages to maintain the presence of a battered, but resilient soldier and still give off his trademark supernatural dominance. While the film's titular character is the more prophetic and admirable of the bunch, Celliers is successfully portrayed as a true symbol for many POWs.