Sydney Pollack RIP

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.

Pollack finished The Swimmer, uncredited, when Burt Lancaster "tired of Frank Perry," says Dave Kehr in his tribute:

If his work declined in the 90s, it was because the pool of viable stars was beginning to dry up — imagine beginning your career with Lancaster and Mitchum, and finishing it with Cruise and Ford.

http://www.davekehr.com/?p=31

that's some B.S. burt lancaster would not have made "random hearts" a rad movie.

I believe Kehr's point is that IN A WORLD with Burt, Random Hearts wd not have been a Pollack project.

Sydney Pollack, Filmmaker New and Old
By A. O. SCOTT

Sydney Pollack’s career as a director blossomed in the 1960s and ’70s, but in many ways he was a throwback to an earlier era in American movies.

The story of the New Hollywood, dominated by a wild bunch of ambitious, iconoclastic would-be auteurs, is by now overgrown with nostalgia and legend-mongering, but Mr. Pollack’s place in that legend suggests continuity rather than upheaval. The vitality of motion pictures has always been sustained by craftsmen with a modicum of business sense and the ability to tell a good story. Mr. Pollack, who died on Monday at 73, was never (and never claimed to be) a great innovator or a notable visual stylist. If he could be compared to a major figure from the Old Hollywood, it would not be to one of the great individualists like Howard Hawks or John Ford, who stamped their creative personalities onto every project, whatever the genre or the level of achievement. Mr. Pollack was more like William Wyler: highly competent, drawn to projects with a certain quality and prestige and able above all to harness the charisma of movie stars to great emotional and dramatic effect.

Just about any film by Robert Altman or Martin Scorsese, for instance, will be immediately and primarily identifiable as such, no matter who’s in it. But if you think of “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” you’ll remember Jane Fonda, so desperate and defiant and sad as she pushes herself through a Depression-era dance marathon. “Tootsie” is Dustin Hoffman’s movie. “This Property Is Condemned” will conjure up Natalie Wood and Robert Redford, oddly cast but nonetheless generating Southern Gothic heat in an overripe Tennessee Williams scenario. And it is Mr. Redford who defines Mr. Pollack’s oeuvre nearly as much as the director himself. Over nearly 25 years, from “This Property Is Condemned” to “Havana,” they worked together on westerns (“Jeremiah Johnson,”); love stories both sweeping (“The Way We Were”) and intimate (“The Electric Horseman”); paranoid thrillers (“Three Days of the Condor”); and high-toned literary adaptations (“Out of Africa.”)

Those movies demonstrate both Mr. Redford’s consistency — he’s handsome, stoic, adjusting the mix of sensitivity and mischief depending on the role — and Mr. Pollack’s range. He was an exemplary mainstream filmmaker, which is not to say that he was a timid or unimaginative director. As a producer, he was certainly prolific and eclectic, putting his name on (and his energy and enthusiasm behind) projects as varied in scale and style as “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “Forty Shades of Blue.” In both capacities he worked, comfortably and with conviction, within the parameters of the Hollywood “A picture” tradition, turning out high-quality commercial entertainments that did not shy away from ethical and political engagement.

His death is a reminder that things have changed, that the kind of movie he made, which used to be the kind of movie everyone wanted to make (and to see), may be slipping into obsolescence. His last completed feature, “The Interpreter,” with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn hashing out the traumas of postcolonial African politics at the United Nations, struggled to find the mix of topicality and high intrigue that had come so easily in the ’70s, but it mostly seemed forced and preposterous. The blend of big stars with meaty, serious themes; lavish production values; and unstinting professionalism that once would have seemed foolproof looked downright anachronistic.

The old A pictures, made for mass appeal and Oscar glory, no longer have the industry cachet or cultural impact they used to. The studios send their specialty divisions out in search of awards on the relative cheap, while action franchises, raunchy comedies and family-friendly animation bring in the big money and attract the heavy investments.

There are exceptions, from time to time, movies that try to steer between the art house and the lowest common denominator in the great Hollywood middle-brow tradition. Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton,” a tale of corporate malfeasance with a smart script, a few murders and George Clooney’s charisma, may be the best recent example. It’s hardly an accident that Mr. Pollack’s name appears in the credits twice, as a producer and as a member of the cast.

It would be nice if “Michael Clayton” turned out not to be an anomaly but rather a sign that the old mainstream has not entirely run dry. And I hope that there are at least aspiring filmmakers and producers out there who dream of being the next Sydney Pollack.

I believe Kehr's point is that IN A WORLD with Burt, Random Hearts wd not have been a Pollack project.

-- Dr Morbius, Wednesday, May 28, 2008 7:59 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

kind of a stupid point. i mean, iffy to even consider harrison ford as an example of diminished movie stardom.

i mean burt lancaster was in "airport" for christ's sake.

C'mon, it's not fair to cherrypick a potboiler!

How many watchable films has Ford done since turning 50? Lancaster did The Leopard, The Train, Seven Days in May, The Professionals, The Swimmer, Ulzana's Raid, Go Tell the Spartans, Atlantic City, Local Hero. All highly memorable.

how many watchable posts has dr morbius done since turning 50?

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