About Schmidt
For most such a situation would most likely result in sadness and misfortune. But, then, most people are not Jack Nicholson, who plays the aforementioned Schmidt.
Warren Schmidt is a man without means or resources. He is a man, a person, though not an individual, who has managed to pass through most of his life without an interest in much of anything. He has never sat down to read a book for simple pleasure. He has material possessions but nowhere in his house is anything that he deliberately took the time to collect and value.
His wife did, but she is dead, now, and now, it seems, Schmidt is dead from the inside out.
Or is he? As I already noted Warren Schmidt is played by Jack Nicholson, who is wonderfully and perfectly cast in this role, owing much to the fact his life has been lived full-bore, consuming everything and anything that might cross his path: Drugs, booze, women, love, lust, hate, anger, humor, horror--and that's just for starters, even before the finger bowl for life's rich banquet arrived.
Now here is the interesting thing about this apparent contradiction: Owing much, if not entirely, to his acting talent Nicholson has managed to not only take on this role, but supress the legend he is to become Schmidt. A man--if even that--who has not only lived a life of quiet desperation, but a man who has apparently made it his life's work to be the poster child for quiet desperation.
Understand: Nicholson does not disappear to become this character, he is the character. He is, simply, Jack Nicholson when the glare of the limelight is gone, when no one is looking, and when he came be who he really, truly is.
In other words: Warren Schmidt.
Of course, this begs a question: If Warren Schmidt has spent his life being nothing, what can he do now? Now that the one thing that made him--his wife--is gone? Go in search of himself? How is that possible, when one confronts a certain, albeit ugly truth: There is nothing to Schmidt.
Or is there?
Given Warren Schmidt is Jack Nicholson and given Nicholson has lived his life to its fullest what can Schmidt do but become what he really is?
Now I know this all sounds confusing and contradictory, but if you keep something in mind as you watch the film it actually makes sense. That 'something' is "Easy Rider", the film that all
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