2. Total Eclipse - Arthur Rimbaud
In this forgettable and regrettable 1995 film, DiCaprio plays real life French poet and enfant terrible, Arthur Rimbaud. Sharing the screen with David Thewlis, playing his contemporary and lover, poet Paul Verlaine, the two men go about a game of debauchery, rage and love together, all the while peaking in their literary careers. The source material here is good, and DiCaprio takes many risks in this film including steamy on screen love scenes with Thewlis, and a full-frontal tirade on a rooftop, but this was just another "wild teenager" role for DiCaprio, who was beginning to tread water he had already swam before, and in much better form (This Boy's Life, The Basketball Diaries). DiCaprio, although playing a historical figure from 100 years previous, seems to be pushing all the similar buttons in this performance, and lacks any real depth in showing what a talent the real Rimbaud was as a writer and where his creative influences lie. Instead we are given scene after scene of him lashing out, usually at Thewlis, and he paints a picture of Rimbaud as an overbearing tortured soul, as opposed to the troubled and sadistic vagabond that he was in real life, which would have made this character and performance so much more interesting.