Sydney Pollack Dies

12 thoughts on “Sydney Pollack Dies”

  1. Was thinking of posting something but read Jeff Wells’ recollections and felt that that said more than I could have. Wells in nostalgia mode is almost unbeatable.

    In the end it’s the man more than his directing career that I think I’ll remember the most. He directed more than his share of very good films but when he spoke he had the kind of presence that instantly makes you listen and pay attention. You could see and hear he was a man speaking out of experience and mistakes hard learned. In Sketches of Frank Gehry (a great little documentary) you can see how Gehry opens up and reveals more about himself and his process than he would have if it were just some journalist asking and following around. His presence demanded respect while his personality made him likable.

    Haven’t seen Tootsie, so I’ll look that one up some time, along with The Yakuza and The Swimmer (which he directed parts of). I always liked Three Days of the Condor.

  2. Oh, you got to see Tootsie. Pollack is great as an actor in that, too. I loved his acting–he’s great in Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives, too (and I love his “turn off your cell phone” commercial.

  3. Sometimes artists die before it feels like they’re finished with their work. Seems that if he hadn’t died now, he would still have done good stuff. Sad news.

    Coincidentally, I just watched Three Days of the Condor again a couple of weeks ago. I think it’s the only time I’ve ever bought a DVD of a movie I hadn’t seen before, and I think it’s great. Probably my favorite movie of his, although as is often the case in these situations, I haven’t seen a lot of his most famous stuff. Not sure how I managed to see The Yakuza and Jeremiah Johnson but not Tootsie or The Way We Were. But there you have it.

  4. Sad news. As someone posted on HE, it’s probably a bigger loss from an acting standpoint as he was a strong chance to deliver an Oscar-worthy performance over the next 5 years.

    It’s funny, I’d always rated him as a fine (although not great) director, but when I looked over his film career just before it was less impressive then I thought it was.

    I guess this is partly because I’m not that big a fan of some of his more famous films. I found ‘The Way we Were’ turgid and almost unbearable at times and while ‘Tootsie’ has a lot of good stuff in it (especially when Pollack is in it) I think it’s a bit overrated.

    As for other films of his I’ve seen:
    Castle Keep – One of his least known films, a real oddball WW2 film with all the flashy tricks symbolic of late 1960s cinema. Not particularly likable, but quite fascinating to watch in many aspects. I’ve got a copy of it somewhere and I’d need to give it another long to give it a proper assessment.

    Jeremiah Johnson – Terrific film, resonant and entertaing throughout, probably my favourite of Pollacks’ films. ***SPOILER***The ending has been criticised by some for being rather unsatisfying and perhaps this is true. I remember reading somewhere Pollack saying their original intention was to have Redford’s character freeze to death just as he found someone earlier in the film but Pollack thought that was too pretentious and decided to end it on a more anti-climatic moment***END SPOILER***

    The Electric Horseman – A bit of a disappointment for mine, it wasn’t as sharp as it should’ve been (especially in its sizing up of the corporation’s role in the plot); seemed happy to coast along on the star personality of the two stars. That was probably a bit of a common weakness in Pollack films

    The Firm – Haven’t seen this for many years but I do recall it being a cut above what would’ve expected of this type of film; I think it highlighted Pollock was a more intelligent director then most and this came through in the final product.

    I’ve seen bits of some of his other films (I saw ‘Out of Africa’ over 20 years ago at the cinema but can’t really remember it) but not enough to make proper comments.

    imo, a good director but a not a great one.

  5. yeah, fully agree that Wells is fantastic in this mode. He really knows how to write a succint obit that sums up a person’s career. His one on Roy Scheider a few weeks back was excellent.

    And ‘The Swimmer’ is a classic, one of my all-time favs. But I thought Pollack’s involvement on that film was pretty limited (I believe he was only involved in the scene between Janice Rule and Lancaster). It’s really a 90% Frank Perry, 10% Pollack film if that’s true.

  6. Brian:
    Not being a great fan of the man’s directing…always seemed too unattached to any scene to pull us in with his directing…(from the movies I’ve seen)
    I just felt that his acting in his own and other films is nothing short of extraordinary.
    He was in the recent Avenue Montaigne, a small French film and as was said above, he commands attention in anything he does.
    His role in Michael Clayton was incendiary…you could feel Clooney knowing he had to make things good to stand toe-to-toe with the man. The scene in Pollack’s office…simply astounding, and the best parts of the movie. I always wondered why he never did more acting.
    The scene in his office in Tootsie…
    Classic…
    Here’s the scene on YouTube:

  7. “They call me MISTER Tibbs!”

    Truly a classic line. He will be missed.

    Dr. Ted Baehr

    (JAMES NOTE: Deleted Spam URL. Will leave post up so we can continue to laugh at it)

  8. Uh, Ted, maybe you’re a troll, but “They Call Me Mister Tibbs” is a line spoken by Sidney Poitier, directed by Norman Jewison, who are both alive as of this moment, unless you have other information. Kind of calls your web site into question.

  9. Ted, is Movieguide.org a parody of Christian movie review sites?

    Thus, WAR, INC. is just another cut-rate example of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Also, its left wing, secular progressive worldview crudely attacks American capitalism as if it’s morally heinous for excellent American businesses like Coca-Cola to sell their products in Iraq, the Middle East and the rest of the world. Finally, the moral philosophy presented by the movie’s filmmakers is not God-centered, but man-centered, reflecting their Neo-Marxist, Anti-American and humanist worldview.

    One can debate the pros and cons of President Bush’s decision to go into Iraq (which, by the way, liberals like Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Joe Biden did not stop though they could have), but pacifism is not the answer. In fact, sometimes war is indeed the answer, especially when trying to stop evil, anti-Semitic terrorists who fly planes into buildings and behead and blow up innocent civilians, including children and journalists like Daniel Pearl, who was Jewish. This movie overtly mocks the efforts of the U.S. military to minimize collateral damage during warfare, but that is exactly what many of our brave soldiers say the military does indeed try to do. Historically, this is a Christian principle that the church has advocated since its beginning 2000 years ago. It’s time to support President Bush and our troops now that they are deployed overseas in places like Iraq, trying to defend our liberties and establish a more compassionate society in the Middle East where, for too long, vicious Muslims and other Arab and Persian tyrants have held despotic control.

    Of course, Arianna Huffington, founder of the vicious, slanderous left-wing blog called The Huffington Post, says she likes this movie. If, however, leftists like Huffington and star John Cusack, who also co-wrote the script, got behind the Iraq War and America’s troops, it probably would be over sooner! In fact, it may have ended a couple years ago.

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Published by Jackrabbit Slim

Location: Vegas, Baby! I’m much older than the other whippersnappers here, a baby boomer. I tend to be more snobbish about film, disdaining a lot of the multiplex fare for “cinema.” My favorite films: Woody Allen’s oeuvre (up until about 1990), The Godfather, The Graduate, A Hard Day’s Night, Pulp Fiction. Politics: Well, George McGovern was my political hero. I’m also a prickly atheist. Occupation: Poised to be an English teacher in Las Vegas. For many years I was an editor at Penthouse Magazine. My role on this blog seems to be writing lots of reviews and being the resident Oscar maven.