Salute and Farewell: Sydney I. Pollack (1934-2008)

Hollywood and the movie loving public lost a great one Monday, May 26 when award-winning director, producer, actor and writer Sydney Pollack passed due to a cancer related illness.

Initially an actor, Pollack made his film debut in War Hunt, a 1962 drama about the traumas of war that was also the first big screen appearance for Robert Redford and Tom Skerritt. He and Redford became longtime friends, and Redford urged him to pursue directing. Taking Redford's advise, the two subsequently worked on seven films together, including This Property is Condemned (1966), Three Days of The Condor (1975), Jeremiah Johnson (1973), The Way We Were (1975), The Electric Horseman (1979), Out of Africa (1985) – winner of the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Movie -, and Havana (1990/91). But while Pollack enjoyed tremendous acclaim for Out of Africa (still considered his masterwork), he directed and produced a number of additional risk-taking, groundbreaking and highly creative films that helped to define American film in the 1970s and 1980s.

His first major motion picture direction was The Slender Thread (1965) with Sidney Poitier as an unsuspecting college-volunteer at a crisis help line who expects to essentially watch the phones for a brief interim between expert shifts rather than actually man them, and Anne Bancroft as a suicide caller who seeks subliminal companionship and anonymity as she slowly succumbs to an overdose of pills rather than help and rescue. Both bring the ideal amount of anxiety, passion and sense of spontaneity to their characters with powerful support performances by Telly Savalas as the crisis line psychiatrist, Steven Hill as the neglectful husband, and Edward Asner as the police detective trying to locate her before it is too late. A fact based story, it is an emotional, gripping drama that is almost gritty in its black and white format. There is simplicity and honesty in its candor, and the interaction between characters is on the mark in every scene. In addition to his artistry, Pollack was on target in casting Poitier as the student - a role that was not contingent on racial implications during an era in the United States when race was on the forefront of America’s daily existence, and at a time when far too few individuals in Hollywood made such decisions based on talent, not skin color. In so doing, however, Pollack allowed the viewer to consider the potential associative relationship between race and sight – neither of the two voices on the phone can see the "physical identity" of the other - and the fact of race is rendered superficial in light of the life-and-death circumstances of the situation.

Pollack’s meat and bread genre was political thrillers - Three Days of The Condor remains his most outstanding film in this regard, although The Firm (1993) and The Interpreter (2005) are two among others that contribute significantly to his reputation in this arena. He was also capable of driving the romantic comedy (Tootsie, 1982); and, had a particular gift for inspiring ensemble casts to simultaneously bring solo and collective believability and punch to complex stories that consequently appealed to diverse audiences...They Shoot Horses, Don’t They (1969), Absence of Malice (1981), and Sabrina (1995) come quickly to mind.

While Pollack delivered credible support actor work in Changing Lanes (2002), Michael Clayton (2007), etc., he rose to his fullest height as a director and as producer of such notables as Presumed Innocent (1990), Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and Cold Mountain (2003).

Sydney Pollack will be missed by this movie-goer...and many, many others.