Gene Hackman

[Matt Wilson]

Is there a better meat 'n potatoes actor? They said Spencer Tracy made acting look easy, that you couldn't see the wheels turning. It's the same with Hackman. I'm not sure if I've ever seen him overact, or ham it up. From the late '60s until the early 2000s he was effortlessly great. Not showy like some of the other guys we praise around here, more like a Duvall. Here's some of my favorites:

Bonnie and Clyde
Downhill Racer
The French Connection
Prime Cut
Scarecrow
The Conversation
Young Frankenstein
Bite the Bullet
Night Moves
Reds
Under Fire
Hoosiers
No Way Out
Mississippi Burning
Unforgiven
The Firm
Get Shorty
Antz
The Royal Tenenbaums

I haven't seen his nominated performance in I Never Sang for My Father, or Cisco Pike, but I bet he's probaby good in both.

[Thang-y]

There are only a few actors who, when I see their name on a film, make me want to watch it. He's one of them.

Was looking for him on Actor's Studio on youtube, can't find it just now. Here's a clip from Dustin Hoffman's interview

[Dr Markus]

Always watchable, favorite character is an obvious one but has to be "Popeye" Doyle.

[Belle Lettre]

You didn't mention The Poseidon Adventure

[Sneelock]

oh man, I think he's SO good in the Poseidon Adventure. His crisis of faith really hit me as a teenager and it still works for me. so much for ME maturing.

I waited on him once or twice in the 80's.pretty private, he didn't make small talk but polite and surprisingly easy to spot maybe because he's pretty tall.

As much as I like Spencer Tracy, I didn't see Spence play a lot of bad guys. I get what you're saying though. they do make it look easy. The thing about Hackman (and Robert Duvall and maybe a few others who play good & bad guys) there's some kind of weird acting voodoo in what they do.

watch them. they look up - as a bad guy and a good guy. their faces look exactly the same but something comes out of them that translates as good or bad. it's extraordinary!



Robyn Hitchcock wrote a cute song about how many movies he makes. if you've never heard it, it's worth taking a minute to watch him tune up to get to it.

[Geezee]

I think I first understood his greatness in his small but important turn in The Firm - I still find his performance there to be, as you say, understated but heartbreaking. One of the true great ones.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

He's one of the guys who makes me think about the difference between a great film actor and a great stage actor. Hackman did some stage work in the 60s, and returned to Broadway as a star only once in the 90s. I'm sure he was wonderful. But in the end, he was a screen actor. As good as there ever was.

Like the best of them, his main talent was that you could see him think. In acting class they'll tell you to hold fast to your motivation. Hackman was like a pit bull about his in whatever scene was being filmed. Mind you...he had some shtick (all actors do),his was that thing he'd do where he'd be trying to charm another character while the audience was aware of the manipulation. At some point the collegiality drops and his steely ambition would be revealed. Think of Mississippi Burning, The Narrow Marginor Unforgiven for the more obvious examples. Shtick at some level, but endlessly wonderful shtick. If a script gave Hackman the opportunity to to use it, he'd take it and we'd be lucky for it.

The other thing I loved about him as an actor was his willingness to have his characters lack self awareness. In films like Night Moves and The Conversation his characters are not nearly as good at their jobs as they portray. Hackman doesn't telegraph any insecurity. He just plays them like guys who think they are the best in their field. They don't learn from their mistakes. It's such a strong choice, but the opposite of what most actors are trained to do.

Anyhow...yeah, he's great.

[Matt Wilson]

What makes you think he wasn't good at surveillance in The Conversation? Everybody in that film acknowledged him as the best in his field.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

What makes you think he wasn't good at surveillance in The Conversation? Everybody in that film acknowledged him as the best in his field.

His tapes get stolen, his hack competitor manages to trick him with a pen, etc...

[Matt Wilson]

That doesn't mean he's not better than the hack competitor, who continually asks him for his secrets, etc. But to each his own.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

I didn't say he wasn't better than that guy. I said he wasn't as good as his reputation.

In a lot of ways, this is the point of the whole movie. He's slipping and he is trying not to know it.

[Sneelock]

it's been a while. At the end WE suspect the bug is Allan Garfield's pen but does Harry? He completely demolished his room and is playing the saxophone. LOL. What a movie.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Here's the scene. He knows. He's completely humiliated:



Mind you, I don't want to reduce Harry Caul to just the Roger Ebert interpretation. I think there's more to him than just a portrait of a guy who was the top but is beginning to slip. He's also having a moral crisis that is making him hate the version of himself that was "the best" at a very dirty job.

[Matt Wilson]

I don't see the hack competitor tricking Harry with the pen as emblematic of Harry not being at the top of his game, more like the hack was just trying to prove to Harry that he (the hack) was good too. Harry could have just as easily tricked the hack through some other means had that been his goal.

No, I don't feel that Harry losing his skill is a theme of the film at all. In fact, I just finished watching it, and then listening to Coppola's commentary where it was never mentioned.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Well...that settles it!



How about the fact that his landlord gets into his apartment? Or that his mail is intercepted? All of this despite the great efforts he makes to hermetically seal off his world.

Nothing there to see?

[Matt Wilson]

What does surveillance have to do with your landlord having a key to your apartment? Coppola describes that scene as an example of Harry's paranoia, not that he's somehow not as good at his job as he thinks he is. In fact, Harry never says he's good at what he does, it's other people who continually say that about him.

I don't recall the mail scene.

But honestly, what do you care what I think? Do we have to see the film the same way? Get over yourself, Todd.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

So all that stuff is just in the film accidentally. It doesn't mean anything?

Anyhow - I don't care what you think. You were the one who disagreed with my interpretation, dummy.

[Matt Wilson]

So all that stuff is just in the film accidentally. It doesn't mean anything?

Anyhow - I don't care what you think. You were the one who disagreed with my interpretation, dummy.

I guess Coppola doesn't see it your way either then since he never once mentions what you consider to be the primary theme of the film.

But who is he compared to you? Fuck him.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

I doubt he's in the habit of discussing the meaning of his films in general. I've never seen him do that. Most filmmakers don't.

But boy...you really are into received wisdom, aren't you!

[Matt Wilson]

You do know what received wisdom means, right? He's right there on the commentary track explaining everything about the film, including the meaning. Perhaps if you listened to him, rather than dismiss the thoughts of the filmmaker himself, you might actually understand his intentions rather than posit your own above his.

Hey, if you want to see the picture as being about a guy who no longer is the best at what he does and is slipping rather than an exercise in paranoia and the effects of Catholicism on a man who was instrumental in the deaths of people in the past and who doesn't want that to happen again, then by all means, knock yourself out.