Sydney Pollack, 1934 - 2008
May 27th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: News & Comment
Sydney Pollack, prolific actor, producer and director, died yesterday of cancer. Best known to the public in recent years as an actor, he often played affable executives with a core of steel underneath. He was director of such films as They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Way We Were (1973), The Electric Horseman (1979), Absence of Malice (1981), Tootsie (1982),The Firm (1993), and The Interpreter (2005). Most recently, he acted in Michael Clayton (2007) and Made of Honor (2008). He won an Academy award for Out of Africa (1985).
Although Pollack’s films were not always to my taste (I enjoyed Tootsie, Three Days of the Condor, The Firm and Absence of Malice), they were epitomes of the classic Hollywood style, made with elegance and care. They were the movies that played in the background as I was becoming aware of movies. Whether as a genial onscreen presence, a sure hand behind the camera, or one who helped mold (for better or worse) the present shape of Hollywood, he’ll be missed.
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Weirdly enough, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think him is Eyes Wide Shut. Specifically that spectacular scene between him and Tom Cruise near the end where they talk about the reality of what happened at the mansion. Pollack was fantastic in that film.
Yes, he was. In fact, that’s the way I think of him, as a solid, humane character actor, especially given that many of his flicks weren’t my cup of tea