Sydney Pollack
I am greatly saddened to hear of the passing of Sydney Pollack.
He had a great gift for infusing genre pieces — suspense thrillers and romances,generally — with sophistication, wit, humanity and spontaneity. He got great performances from some of our greatest leading men and ladies, and as an actor gave several great performances himself.
My favorites of his directorial works are Jeremiah Johnson, Tootsie and Three Days of the Condor — you couldn’t find three more different scripts, and yet they all vibrate with intelligence, warmth and a sense of detailed, lived-in reality. Johnson and Condor also offer us two of Robert Redford’s greatest performances.
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and I were, just last night, watching Spielberg’s Munich, and I was reminded right off the bat how accurately it recreates the early-70s, gritty-realism vibe of Pollack’s best work.
My favorite of his performances as an actor include Tootsie, Husbands and Wives, Eyes Wide Shut and, quite recently, Michael Clayton. He was a very rare kind of actor, an intelligent man who was both easily likable and physically threatening. I can’t think of a false moment in any of his performances — whenever he came on screen you knew the scene was in good hands.
I know- anytime I’d see a film and he’d show up in a scene, I’d have this almost sense of relief, if that makes any sense. Even if the film wasn’t so great, kind of a “Well, at least this part will be nice,” sort of thing.
Damn.
His IMDB actor credit list is much shorter than I was expecting. Was he really in only one Woody Allen movie?! I think of him as a Woody regular for some reason. Also, he was great as Will’s dad on “Will & Grace”.
Sad news indeed!
A great actor and director. He was excellent recently in Michael Clayton.
RIP Sydney.
I had the extreme good fortune of seeing him at the 2006 Austin Film Fest and hearing him give a couple of great talks on story development (especially the development process on Tootsie) and his typically flawless directing and acting choices. He was also on a particularly unhinged and memorable panel with David Milch and Shane Black. It was a great experience, he was a tremendous talent and I’m very sorry to hear of his passing.
He was a very rare kind of actor, an intelligent man who was both easily likable and physically threatening. I can’t think of a false moment in any of his performances — whenever he came on screen you knew the scene was in good hands.
That’s the best description of Pollack as an actor I’ve ever read. He played with equal aplomb terrifying authority figures and avuncular father figures; often in the same scene. He did this so often and so well that I’ve come to think of those types of roles as “Sydney Pollack” roles and I honestly can’t picture any other actor playing them. His presence, both in front as well as behind the camera, will be missed.
That is very sad – I like a lot of his films that he directed, including The Way We Were and Out of Africa, not to mention Tootsie, and my friends and I used to imitate his slowly considered responses in Eyes Wide Shut (which usually sounded like “Yes…………..he did!”
Always great as a (sometimes sinister) authority figure. Nobody could pull off easy, capable and possibly vindictive Corporate Authority figures like Mr. Pollack.
Also, I just watched his Yakuza, which is surprisingly great, and features a really impressive katana battle in the climax.