Wednesday, 05.28.08
Mr. Mainstream, RIP
TIZIANI FABI/AFP/Getty Images
A Eulogy of Sorts
27 May 2008
Jeffrey Goldberg recalls writing a screenplay for the late Academy Award winner.
As an actor, Sydney Pollack did one thing -- play the rumpled, cynical man of the world, with an avuncular exterior and a sinister streak -- and did it exceedingly well. As a director, he did one thing -- turn out middlebrow star vehicles pitched to grown-up audiences -- and all too often made a hash out of it, especially in the dud-riddled later stages of his long career. Pollack referred to himself as "Mr. Mainstream," a moniker that served as the jumping-off point for Bryan Curtis' memorable Slate takedown, which lamented the director's ability to "take any scenario -- from the ridiculous to the horrific, from Streep to strife -- and mold it into benign mush." But if Pollack's films were sometimes case studies in everything that's wrong with middlebrow entertainment, he left behind one shining example of how mass-market cinema for grownups ought to look. I speak, of course, of Tootsie.
Even Curtis had to pause, amid his Pollack smackdown, to acknowledge that Tootsie was an exception to his rule. And what an exception it was! Start with Dustin Hoffman's marvelous turn as Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels, the unhirable actor who rescues his career by posing as a woman: It's a performance that makes Robin Williams's adventures as Mrs. Doubtfire look like the glorified SNL sketch it was -- and for whose brilliance Pollack deserves enormous credit, since he apparently steered a recalcitrant Hoffman away from the temptation to play the role as pure Williams-style farce. Then consider the supporting cast, all of them working at the peak of their powers: Dabney Coleman and Teri Garr, a young Bill Murray and a luminous Jessica Lange, and of course Pollack himself as Dorsey's rumpled, cynical, long-suffering agent. And finally the script, which was sophisticated yet accessible, sexy without being raunchy, savvy about the culture-war terrain it was navigating without being polemical and hectoring -- and which crammed in as many laughs per minute as any Farrelly Brothers gagfest or Apatowian sex comedy.
In his appreciation for Pollack, A.O. Scott noted that "his death is a reminder ... 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." Lamenting the decline of the middlebrow, and the rise of a cinematic landscape in which the art-house crowd gets peddled highbrow Oscar bait and everybody else gets sold "action franchises, raunchy comedies and family-friendly animation," Scott suggested that today's filmmakers could learn a thing or two from Sydney Pollack. I agree -- but only if they start with Tootsie.
The man offscreenPete Travers writes that Pollack was the guy to seek out if you were in a Hollywood bind. |
His styleA.O. Scott says "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." |
A star he directedRobert Redford, who starred in seven Pollack films, remembers the director. |
His work, his wordsA Charlie Rose interview with Pollack began with a montage of his work. |
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While Mr. Pollack "made a hash" out of some of his later films, his filmography is far from "benign mush."
Three Days of the Condor. Jeremiah Johnson. They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Absence of Malice, and Out of Africa.
There are only a handful of directors with a top-five as strong as these films.
Edward Weinman is a screenwriter. His credits include A Little Trip to Heaven, staring Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker and Julia Stiles.
Ross Douthat couldn't shine Sydney Pollack's shoes. Ross is as clueless about cinema as he is about politics.
You sound like somebody who doesn't actually know anything about Pollack but feels the need to suggest a careful, individual appraisal of his life's work on the week of his death.
If you don't know, you don't know.
Do you have a post quota?
Trash talking Sydney Pollack whose body of work over thirty years from Jeremiah Johnson to the recent Michael Clayton was comprised mostly of socio-political thriller/ dramas and not comedies is like calling Charlie Chaplin technically deficient for not producing more talkies.
The fact he could make a living in the present market geared toward CGI action movies is testament in itself. The fact that he had some failures is proof he was willing to take risks not that he lacked talent or that he wasn't a quality act. He along with Robert Altman will be greatly missed. You should rethink your blurb but first go see his better movies. Start with Michael Clayton and go back. Then write your apology.
Gentlemen, I totally agree with the opinions that have been expressed here. Pollack's body of works speaks for itself - he was a smart, creative artist who acted and directed. His contribution advanced the medium. He also did not appear to be on an ego trip, he was generous with his time - offering useful advice to young filmmakers. He will be missed. And Ed thank you for mentioning Robert Altman.
Talk about a back-handed compliment! You go out of your way to trash the man's directing on the way to praising Tootsie. You'd think that Tootsie were a complete fluke that happened almost despite him. The truth is that there are few directors working over the same period as Sidney Pollack who can boast of such a strong and admirable body of work, or who was able to work in so many genres successfully. As someone commented at the House Next Door, even when he's bad its better than 80% of what's out there now.
Posted by David A | May 28, 2008 3:48 PM