Sydney Pollack RIP

ah, damn

RIP

Ah, this sucks. I imagine him to be in more roles than he really was, just shows how strong and memorable he made the few he was in.

I see he also produced Talented Mr Ripley, Cold Mountain and Breaking and Entering. If I was Jude Law I'd be getting worried now.

Nobody mentioned how good he was in, um, Eyes Wide Shut. RIP.

Yeah, better actor than director. But a really good actor!

my wife's stepfather runs a skeet-shooting range, does woodworking in the basement and watches jeremiah johnson so often that they had to buy him a new copy of it after he wore the old one out.

Jesse, your post belongs in http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kpWzDqL9L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Aw man.. :( :( :(

One of my favorite episodes of the Sopranos is with Pollack and Johnny Sack in the cancer ward of prison...

"I killed my wife. Not that it's any excuse. I had reason to believe she was cheating on me at the time with her chiropractor. Granted, I was abusing cocaine at the time. And alcohol. But I came home one day, shot her four times. Twice in the head. I killed her aunt, too. I didn't know she was there. And the mailman. At that point, I had to fully commit."

great episode.

Billy and Elvis so OTM. Rest in peace, Sydney. Thanks for it all.

Always a treat to find him turning up in a film. RIP big man.

I forgot he was in "The Sopranos."

Made some very good films; super as Michael Dorsey's agent.

As for NPR calling him "iconic" this morning... uh...

I see he also produced Talented Mr Ripley, Cold Mountain and Breaking and Entering. If I was Jude Law I'd be getting worried now.

About where he'll get roles in movies that don't work?

Wonderful in Tootsie and pretty great in Husbands and Wives too.

I once saw him in the street in New York - he was directing Sean Penn in a scene from what I later discovered was The Interpreter. Took a photo - it didn't come out.

I forgot he was in the "Sopranos" too. When I read that somewhere else my first thought was "Was he Peter Bogdanovich's shrink?"

He was towering and magnetic in EWS.

been thinking about that sopranos ep all morning. the way he says "i concur with his diagnosis" at the end... great line reading.

Michael Clayton was a nice way to go.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, May 27, 2008 1:21 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Link

unfortunately his last role was in 'made of honor'

I guess since I forgot it, I'm not allowed to say his Sopranos appearance was memorable, but it was good, in line with the other good performances mentioned.

OK, you guys are now counterintuiting yourselves into overrating him as an actor and underrating him as a director.

No one repping for The Way We Were, I see. (Haven't seen it in 20 years, preferred the MAD magazine version)

Ans what was the title of that?

the way we... blurg?

The Way We Blog

bernadette peters: "i heard a song yesterday that reminded me of the way we were."
steve martin: "what was it?"
bernadette peters: "the way we were."

lol

July '74: THE WAY WE BORE!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mad's_movie_spoofs

I remember The Oddfathers and Muddle on the Orient Express very well, too!

haha!

that is so a poll about to happen in like 30 seconds.

uhh... can someone else be bothered

a lot of those have to be in in-print compilations, right?

The Poopsidedown Adventure

Botch Casually and the Somedunce Kid

so many r-rated movies where i read the mad parody before i was old enough to see the movie - altered states comes to mind specifically

me too! where he turns into a sheep

i think a lot of my base '70s cinema knowledge came from my cousins' old mad magazines

I remember in the Orient Express parody, they had a panel of them all stabbing Richard Widmark, with Tony Perkins in his Psycho wig and Sidney Poitier in uniform saying "For the crew of the Bedford!"

altered states comes to mind specifically

Hahaha, yes, I remember that one as well!

OK, you guys are now counterintuiting yourselves into overrating him as an actor and underrating him as a director.

Everyone talking about how good his performances are /= overrated. But I'm wrong for not mentioning They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, a fantastically acted movie that's more ambitious than anything else Pollack helmed.

I need to read that book (Horace McCoy)

so many r-rated movies where i read the mad parody before i was old enough to see the movie - altered states comes to mind specifically

That was The Exorcist (a.k.a. "The Ecchorcist") for me

You know how long it took me to figure out that the protagonist in "Midnight Wowboy" wasn't really known for his kissing?

Three Days of the Condor is on TCM late tonight, btw

It's some kind of Faye Dunaway night, no? Little Big Man is on too, and maybe Network.

OK, just saw you revived the other thread.

oh, The Yakuza is a good, weird mesh of sensibilities (Mitchum, Schrader brothers, Pollack).

http://www.uvouch.com/video-Sydney-Pollack-in-cliches-for-Cingular-263597

i never knew he directed the swimmer!

I never could sit through the whole thing until the end to read the credits.

Although I suppose they told us at the beginning.

dude was good for a memorable cameo

He's talky but on point on the Tootsie commentary track.

Watched a nice new DVD edition of 3 Days of the Condor at the weekend, which I'd not seen before. Uber 70s American cinema - jazz fusion score, New York locations photographed by Owen Roizman in his best French Connection/Pelham 123 style (the Twin Towers feature heavily), paranoid conspiracy vibes a la Parallax View or The Conversation, Max Von Sydow as an ice cool assassin, groovy computer font used for the credits over shots of 'state of the art' mainframes, people smoking all the time, etc etc. Film sags a little in the middle - there's a Stockholm Syndrome romance between Redford and Dunaway that's pretty ludicrous and slightly distasteful - but the freeze frame ending is suitably bleak and the motor of the plot ("It's all about oil") is still very timely. A pretty slick piece of entertainment.

too bad they killed that off rad Asian girl so soon

ditto about that Stockholm thingie. maybe kinky & shady avant la lettre.

yeah i remember that movie as being really good -- nothing profound, but very engrossing.

Saw two Pollack films this week (happenstance, no design): The Interpreter at home, a rep screening of Three Days of the Condor tonight. The Interpreter was a little better the second time--I'd say it's better than Lumet's last film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. (It was Pollack's last non-documentary.) Kidman's very good. Penn is the one thing I don't like--affectatious world-weariness. Always have the same reaction to Condor: Dunaway's great, ditto the ending, but I find the last third drags a bit. I swoon over Tina Chen.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/chen.jpg

I was thinking how interesting it was for Kubrick to cast Pollack in Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick must have liked him as a director--don't think he'd cast him otherwise. They're so different.

I think The Interpreter's also the only film I've ever seen that had Moby Grape on the soundtrack. Penn pulls the plug on them so he can play Lyle Lovett. Sounds about right.

he can be seen kinda frantically waving his arms at the camera crew during the Aretha doc

He gives himself about five minutes of screen-time in The Interpreter. (I didn't even realize he co-directed the Aretha film till a few days ago.)

I was thinking how interesting it was for Kubrick to cast Pollack in Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick must have liked him as a director--don't think he'd cast him otherwise. They're so different.

Harvey Keitel was originally cast in this role though. Keitel dropped out after shooting went on for too long and was replaced by Pollack.

https://scontent.fman2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/57485048_10218938139749034_2461046102040772608_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&_nc_eui2=AeHt54FYnF9o3bfAwKRy5Hi441LMlKRjWSUnOnDioLm05hJkOfh3HEpWJBdYyjfONxYAgNxEjzSU2hZV7U8A4X431anydCIsi5RScc0rOcDsyA&_nc_ht=scontent.fman2-1.fna&oh=59693db0b178a0b94fd20d02af667cd3&oe=5D38C26D

Sydney Pollack says he can do it in three... pic.twitter.com/DpZmIh1RPi

— Larry Karaszewski (@Karaszewski) April 18, 2019