I watched a half hour of CSI Miami last night. I have no idea why. Because it entered my line of sight, I guess. Because using the remote is hard, pippa! Because my book was upstairs and using the stairs is hard, pippa! I’m sure it’s one or all of the above. Whatever. All I know is that’s the longest stretch of that show I’ve ever watched, ever been able to stomach. Because the show is basically unstomachable.
I blame David Caruso. Now obviously, he cannot help that he looks like a leprechaun and, obviously, a nicer person would not call attention to it. But he is a leprechaun, a glue-faced leprechaun, much more glued-faced than my long ago Glue-Faced Boy. He seems like a half-baked cake or like he was raised in a cave with Romulus and Remus. His face screams Vitamin D deficiency. I have loathed the man since the moment I first laid eyes on his drained undead face, in Jade, a movie I remember watching and hating, but a movie about which I could tell you nothing else today, other than those two things. Watched it, hated it. Particularly David Caruso. I know he was some kind of big deal in NYPD Blue, a show I never watched, but he was good enough, apparently, to be nominated for various awards here and there. Fine. I have no opinion about his days on that show. And if he really has the potential to be so good, so noteworthy, then what in the name of sweet baby Jesus is his excuse for his ongoing wretched performance as Horatio (pleease) Caine in CSI Miami?
If I string together all the minutes I’ve watched this show, it might equal one entire episode. Some might think that’s not enough to render an opinion and, well, those some would be oh-so-wrong. Trust me. It’s plenty. It’s plenty because whenever I’ve watched, he’s done the same exasperating thing the entire episode. It’s what Joey Tribianni on Friends called “smell-the-fart acting.” (Remember when Joey was on Days of our Lives and one of the other actors was teaching him “smell-the-fart acting”? Hahaha. I loved Joey. God bless Matt Le Blanc.)
Basically, “smell-the-fart acting” is a form of posing. Actor’s “vogue”-ing, if you will. A kind of don’t be in the moment, be outside the moment watching yourself be awesome acting. Have an arsenal of tics and expressions rather than letting reactions happen organically in the moment. It’s a self-consciousness. A cheat. And a kind of insecurity, too, in my opinion. You pose and strut and mug when you don’t know what else to do or how to make a moment work. You know, I mugged up a storm when I was in my first play in 5th grade but eventually I was forced to grow out of it by professors and directors who cared for me too much to let me continue on my artistically destructive path. And, to me, to my eye, David Caruso does nothing but pose on CSI Miami. I’ve watched enough of it — I have — to tell you exactly what he does, too, and it would drive me crazy to be in a scene with him.
Because he doesn’t look at people.
He doesn’t.
For instance, from last night’s episode:
Caruso as Horatio is questioning a suspect who is seated at a table. Horatio stands looking out the window, remembering a long-ago fart, perhaps. He says his line. The suspect answers. Horatio, still looking out the window, slowly puts his hands in his pockets, furrows his brow, asks another question. Suspect answers. “H” turns, looks at the floor, starts another question, and on the last few words of the question, for maximum impact, finally looks at the other actor in the scene.
Later, “H” is out in the dreaded sunlight, talking to a colleague. He murmurs intensely, stares down at the sunglasses in his hands. Finally, he looks up, glances sideways at the person while slipping his glasses on and walking away.
Now I’m not saying actors have to be looking at each other at all times. No. That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t seem real. But every single one of Caruso’s scenes has this same detached rhythm to me. I’ve yet to see a scene where he doesn’t look out the window, look at the floor, look to the side, all while talking to someone …. only to turn his face — slowly — to make brief intense eye contact the split second before the scene changes. Maybe Horatio is just aloof. Maybe that’s the character. Fine. Incorporate some other ways to show that, something other than this predictable, slow-motion ballet he’s got going on. What he’s doing makes Horatio a cartoon. He’s not real. He’s a series of moves and furrows and mumbles. When I watch, I am aware of David Caruso. I’m aware of his movements. I am aware of how he curls his deep rich voice around certain words for no apparent reason. I am aware of him working at a different speed than the other actors, as if they think the scene should take 30 seconds and he thinks it should take 3 hours. It seems calculated. Like an affectation. It seems like something David Caruso chooses to inflict on the other actors, rather than something organic to the character of Horatio Caine. Caruso is not in the moment at hand. He’s in some solitary and everlasting moment of his own choosing. A slow-motion scene-stealer, busily stretching one hour into 24.
And the posing! Joey Tribianni would be proud! He remembers long-ago farts, wistfully. (Gaze out the window.) He smells a suspect’s fart, judgmentally. (Furrowed brow.) He smells a colleague’s fart, empathetically. (Meaningful glance.) He smells his own farts, furtively. (Extreme interest in the floor.) Watching CSI Miami feels like being on a bus tooling along at a decent speed, when suddenly, the bus slows way down and the driver says, “Hey everyone, if you look out the right side of the bus, you can see David Caruso, acting.”
Weeks ago, before the season started, I saw a commercial that seemed to promise the death of Horatio. Alas. It was a hideous falsehood.
He has lived to smell again.
