I did have some lame excuse for a column planned this week, but I felt like I should touch upon two greats of cinema that we lost this week, each managing to drop my heart a bit when I heard about them.
I’m not sure if Sydney Pollack was a household name where you are, but I’ve always held the man in the highest respect. I know when he recently did that little cell phone PSA for AT&T, I thought it was hilarious, and when one of my friends asked me who Sydney Pollack was, I almost slapped him in the face. As an actor and a director, Pollack was nearly always solid as a rock. Sure, he hadn’t had a real homerun in a while, probably since he won the Best Director Oscar for Out of Africa, but he never made a film that sullied his legacy in any way.
While he’ll probably be best known behind the camera for Africa and his other critical darling, Tootsie, Pollack starts and ends as a director for me with two movies that I grew up watching because of my dad. First up, if you’ve never seen Three Days of the Condor and you like Spy Thrillers, then go out right now and rent it. Robert Redford stars in the movie as a nobody clerk working for American intelligence, when he’s betrayed and has to go on the run to elude his captors. A thinking man’s spy film, this is closer to Bourne than Bond and features one of my favorite Redford performances.
The Pollack film I’d probably take over all others though, would be Jeremiah Johnson. Again, we get Robert Redford, but this time in a Western of sorts. While my love for Westerns is well known, this is far from your typical genre piece. This is what my dad likes to call a “Mountain Man Tale”, where Redford’s Johnson has to compete against the elements, as well as bloodthirsty savages that send wave after wave after the poor man.
What I really think sets this apart though, is just how thoughtful and surreal this movie gets. Early on in the film, Johnson comes across a man who has frozen solid, and left a note for whoever finds his corpse and his gun. It’s this supremely odd moment that becomes this indelible image in your mind and separates the movie from nearly anything you’ve seen before. It’s like something out of a dream the way this man is preserved, with all he has in the world being his gun, hoping that someone would take good care of it.
Later, my favorite moment in the film has Johnson and his new pseudo stepson coming across a man in the desert named Del Gue (Stefan Gierasch), whose been buried up to his neck by a local tribe. The dialogue in the scene goes like this…
Jeremiah Johnson: Are you all right?
Del Gue: Sure, sure, I got a fine horse under me!
[sneezes]
Del Gue: Got one of them feathers in my nose.
Jeremiah Johnson: You keep sneezing, it’ll come out all right. Haven’t seen anyone pass by recent, have you?
Del Gue: Nobody’s gone in front of me. Can’t say what’s happened behind me, though.
Jeremiah Johnson: The Injuns put you here?
Del Gue: T’weren’t Mormons. A Chief, name of Mad Wolf. Nice fella, don’t talk a hell of a lot. Say, you wouldn’t have an extra hat on you, would you? Shade’s getting’ scarce in these parts.
Jeremiah Johnson: What’d you shave your head for?
Del Gue: Mad Wolf figures like every other Injun I know. Says this scalp isn’t fit for no decent man’s lodgepole. Ain’t the first time I’ve protected my head in such a way. Name’s Del Gue, with an “e”.
When I first saw the film, at about four or five or so, the sight of someone buried to their neck completely through me for a loop, that’s especially considering that Del Gue is so nonchalant about it. The entire film has this air about it though, as if you’re watching a dream Jeremiah Johnson was having instead his actual life, which is what that movie is portraying, not that that’s a bad thing at all. If nothing else, this was Pollack at the top of his craft in my opinion, creating beautiful landscapes on screen, as well as amazing human drama and comedy.
It wasn’t until much, much later that I discovered Sydney Pollack as an actor. Most notably, my awareness of him erupted after seeing him in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. Now Pollack was never the star of the pictures he was a part of, never the leading man who guided us through these movies, but nevertheless he was always an incredible presence every time he was on screen.
In Eyes Wide Shut, Pollack actually had to take over for Harvey Keitel, who had left the picture, but that character completely belongs to Pollack onscreen. You can see all the of the different emotions coming through him as he spars with Tom Cruise‘s Bill Harford; fear for both his friend and from reprisal about Harford’s lapse in judgment, but also a layer of menace underneath that makes you stand up and pay attention. It was often this layer of menace, put in there ever so subtly that gave Pollack a lot of power on screen, whether he played a heavy or not.
Again, Pollack was never a leading man, but what he was, was a consummate professional. You knew you would always get his best, even if the movie wasn’t that great. Then, if he took part in a movie that closer to the masterpiece portion of the spectrum, like say a film Michael Clayton, he’d never try to overwhelm the piece or chew up scenery, he’d always get it just right. This is really the everlasting legacy of this man, and though his passing may not hit everyone as hard, not seeing him show up every so often will definitely leave a void.
Hedley Lamarr: Repeat after me: I…
Men: I…
Hedley Lamarr: …your name…
Men: …your name…
Hedley Lamarr: [to himself] Shmucks.
[continues aloud]
Hedley Lamarr: … do pledge allegiance…
Men: …do pledge allegiance…
Hedley Lamarr: …to Hedley Lamarr…
Men: …to Hedy Lamarr…
Hedley Lamarr: That’s *Hedley*!
Men: That’s Hedley.
The other half of this obit piece involves one of my favorite comedians of all time. I can’t tell you just how many times Harvey Korman made me laugh in my lifetime. Whether in a Mel Brooks movie or on The Carol Burnett Show, Korman was always dynamite, coming off with a ton of energy, but never in a ridiculous manic sort of way. Korman was just funny plain and simple and I couldn’t remember a time when I saw him and didn’t expect to laugh within the next ten seconds of his appearance.
Of course, my favorite Korman performance has to be his Hedley Lamarr from Blazing Saddles. When it comes straight down to it, Saddles may just be the most consistently funny movie I’ve ever seen. Its on my shortlist for the greatest comedy of all time, without question, as it should be for most people that read this column. Matching incredibly crass notes with incredibly witty moments, the movie just throws you for constant loops where it ends up going, and Harvey Korman is a huge part of the movie’s success. What actually strikes me now is just how funny Korman was in the role, even though for a lot of it he’s actually playing the straight man, letting Brooks himself Slim Pickens play the goofball on screen while he knocked homeruns out of the park.
Hedley Lamarr: You will be risking your lives, whilst I will be risking an almost-certain Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor.
It kind of depressed me later on to learn that he never actually won Best Supporting Actor or was even nominated, because I can think of only a few comedic roles that made a larger impression on me that this one did. Thank God Brooks was able to pair Korman and Slim Pickens on screen together in this movie. Honestly, the duo are lightning in a bottle here, and even though they’re the movie’s villains, you can’t wait till they come back on screen, because they’re working so well together that gutbusting never really lets up when they’re in frame together.
Taggart: We’ll head them off at the pass!
Hedley Lamarr: Head them off at the pass? I hate that cliché.
[shoots Taggart in the foot]
Then look at his Rhett Butler impression on The Carol Burnett Show or his performances in History of the World, Part 1 or High Anxiety. In all these cases, Korman brought hilarity wherever he went, but not just playing the same role over and over again. Not that Mel Brooks is probably ever going to make another film again, but its sad to me that I’ll never see Korman in another one of his pictures.
To both of you guys, Godspeed. Thanks for everything.
