Sydney Pollack


Years ago, writing a review of The Firm, I wrote “Sydney Pollack directs great dinner parties”; I meant it in the best way possible: the sheen, elegance and taste Pollack brought to filmmaking made for polished, easy to take films. Including The Firm, which in retrospect may well be the best adaptation of Grisham ever, taken as a whole.

I am stunned to discover that he’s died. Pollack struck me as one of those “legends” you’d have around for many years to come.

He didn’t actually direct all that much - I tend to think of him as prolific, yet it’s about 20 some films, fewer of them from the seventies, which I remember as being his moment, than I would have thought.

Pollack won his Oscar for Out of Africa. You knew he would get one, and in the high eighties, when bloated, overlong epics seemed to carry the day (more than lately), Out of Africa was Oscar bait par excellance. Pollack always said it was the Second Unit work (shots of wild game in Africa seen during a plane ride with Streep and Redford) that got him the award. And he was probably right. The film lacks shape, and Streep, though excellent as always, isn’t at her best.

I think we will think of Pollack as an actor’s director; I think the more accurate appraisal could be that he was a star’s director - no one, these days, made great faces seem capable of more than you expected. Be it Redford (Out of Africa, and even Jeremiah Johnson, I think) or Cruise (The Firm) or Jessica Lange (Tootsie)… and I could go on … Pollack made the beautiful seem brilliant. And brilliant seem beautiful.

And isn’t that, really, what a big Hollywood film should be?

Don’t believe me? Watch Tootsie again. It’s a joy.

In recent years, Pollack’s greatest contribution was as a Producer (in perhaps a fairly revealing example of how ill he may have been, he had not directed since 2005, which I hadn’t even noticed), including Michael Clayton, Cold Mountain, and the upcoming #1 Ladies Detective Agency (which also lost Anthony Minghella). The producing resume, too, speaks to Pollack’s good taste. You don’t find a lot of that in the world. I know I’ll miss it.

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May 27th, 2008
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    The news of Sidney Pollack's death came as such a shock last night. We were used to seeing him in vignettes of older films, sharing his knowledge of film. He seemed to be etarnal.
    I feel sorry there won't be any new work by Sidney Pollack.
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    There's a good reason why Mr. Pollack was known as and actor's (or star's as the case may be) director. He was a very good actor himself. From appearances in several of his own films, to roles in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives," Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" to the final season of "The Sopranos," he put a pretty solid string of performances on screen. He deserve to be remembered for those, too.
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    Type your comment here.
    SORRY. CORRECTED VERSION, MINUS IDIOT TYPOS: There’s a good reason why Pollack was known as an actor’s (or star’s, as the case may be) director: He was a very good actor himself. From appearances in several of his own films, to roles in Woody Allen’s “Husbands and Wives,” Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” to the final season of “The Sopranos,” he put a pretty solid string of performances on screen. He deserves to be remembered for those, too.
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    Steve, I agree very much about Pollack as an actor; one reason I cited Tootsie was because of his fairly integral role in the proceedings as Michael Dorsey's agent... though I didn't specifically come out and say it. Pollack, as you note, is often the good thing (as an actor) in otherwise so-so films, and he deserves credit for that as well. It would be nice, as a retrospective, to have someone examine Pollack's acting work in itself, separate from his directing, to se what can be seen (something I will now toy with writing... but wouldn't a "Sydney Pollack:Actor" series at Film Forum in New York or something be impressive? Hmmm....).
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