Sydney Pollack

  • They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969)

    They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, August 2021) It’s easy to be fascinated by the concept of 1930s dance marathons — well before reality TV invaded homes, there were weeks-long contests in which various hopefuls we asked to dance for as long as they could, and audiences paid to see such things. It sounds funny to us (dance marathons? For weeks?!?), but They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? takes us backstage for a particularly dark take on the concept. Venal producers, sadistic special events, manipulated plotlines — am I watching something modern or not? Compared to the setting, the story of the film is humdrum at best — a troubled young man and an equally-troubled young woman meeting on the gruelling dance floor, and being manipulated by the show’s producers… except that they have nothing to lose. The ending is particularly grim. Still, the setting is more than worth a look: director Sydney Pollack was clearly part of the New Hollywood at the time, and there’s a streak of nihilistic meanness that permeates the entire film. As contestants drop dead (this is not a figure of speech), the endurance contest becomes inhumane and our characters start looking for a way out. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is not a fun or easy film — some will even call it pointless with some justification. But there’s something both novel and familiar to the dance marathon that, to my knowledge, hasn’t been captured in another film. They may or may not shoot horses, but they don’t shoot movies like this one any more. Perhaps that’s for the best.

  • The Scalphunters (1968)

    The Scalphunters (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2021) The civil rights movement finally makes its way to the western genre in The Scalphunters, a film based on the relationship between a badly-educated white trapper and an escaped black slave as they confront Native Americans and scalp-hunters. Burt Lancaster once again stars in a film that pokes at his own image as a leading man — his character isn’t particularly smart, and he obviously starts out as a complete racist before learning better. Ossie Davis has a more likable role as a well-read runaway slave heading to Mexico but being treated as property by everyone he encounters, white or native. Telly Savalas (the only bald man in 1960s Hollywood!) rounds up the headliners as an antagonist to them both. The Scalphunters isn’t as preachy as many of its contemporaries, with enough humour and action to keep the lulls low. The sunny landscape is more serviceable than spectacular, but those were the 1960s — audiences knew what the west looked like, and focused more on what else the genre could do than show widescreen vistas. The Scalphunters, typically for a film directed by Sydney Pollack, was very much a film of its moments, using the western tropes to work out current events of the time.

  • The Swimmer (1968)

    The Swimmer (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2021) For a superstar actor with great looks and a commanding presence, Burt Lancaster spent a good chunk of his career undermining his own screen persona and kicking around the idea of what a man’s man could be. The Swimmer is a surprisingly twisted film, but it does take a while to realize how much so. It starts with a scene that almost feels normal—a pool party, with a guy (Lancaster) making an unusual promise to his guests to “swim his way home,” going from one pool to another as he walks back to his house in his upscale neighbourhood. The stage is thus set for an episodic film in which every pool becomes a scene, our protagonist meeting acquaintances and strangers along the way. If the impressionistic cinematography between those pool scenes doesn’t clue you that something else is happening, then the various elliptical references to the protagonist’s past accumulate until there’s a definite mystery at the end of the road—what will be at the house once all the pool-hopping is done? It’s not a coincidence if characters keep commenting that the sunshine is going to be replaced by clouds and rain. As the film goes on, we piece enough things together to realize that the protagonist is cheerfully lying to himself and others, and by the time the final sequence hits, well, it’s not as if we’re surprised. (Still, the film could have done with an extra coda or two to explain things, such as how did he end up in the opening scene in the first place?) Directed with some nascent New Hollywood style by Frank Perry then Sydney Pollack, The Swimmer strikes me as the kind of film that could not have been made in Hollywood just a few years earlier—psychologically twisted, surprisingly dark and not entirely realistic despite being grounded in solid landscapes. Keep your eyes open for a first screen role for comedienne Joan Rivers.

  • This Property Is Condemned (1966)

    This Property Is Condemned (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) At first glance, there isn’t much in This Property is Condemned to make for compelling viewing. It takes place in a small town whose main attraction remains the railway, features a young woman taking conscious advantage of her beauty to find a way out of town, and ends on an immense downer of an ending made even worse by how it’s casually revealed in voiceover by a minor character. But here’s the thing: The film features Nathalie Wood at her most beautiful, and a very young Robert Redford in full worldly charmer mode. Plus, it’s the second feature film directed by Sydney Pollack, right before becoming a defining filmmaker of the 1970s and 1980s. It’s an impressive pedigree, but it understates the well-oiled nature of the script, which manages to create a captivating atmosphere and compelling characters. This Property Is Condemned is still a sad love story, but there’s plenty to watch along the way as Wood and Redford push and pull, with her character’s mom meddling as much as she can and true love being no match for desperate circumstances. Despite a similar thematic concern of a young woman using her charms to get ahead, there’s a world of difference between this and Breakfast and Tiffany’s, for instance, and you can just feel the disillusionment of New Hollywood peeking through This Property is Condemned, barely a year before Hollywood shifted forever. I may not like the entire film, but there are some really interesting moments along the way to its sombre conclusion.

  • Out of Africa (1985)

    Out of Africa (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2017) A big-budget dramatic romance set in Africa, featuring two megastars and a credible historical recreation without the tiniest bit of genre elements? No, they don’t make them like this anymore. Out of Africa is more than thirty years old and it often feels even older, what with its languid pacing, lush location shooting, and its young-looking Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Director Sydney Pollack clearly understand the film he’s trying to make, and the African locations are impressive in their own right. Streep is terrific in an Oscar-winning performance, Redford tempers his natural charm with a not-entirely admirable character and the complex story is a cut above the formulaic notion of “romance” that has dominated the genre over the past decades. (It helps that it adapted from a book.) While I’m not sure it’s possible to be enthusiastic about Out of Africa nowadays, it’s not that hard to understand why it swept the Academy Awards that year: This is big-budget respectable filmmaking in the classical mould. A modern version would be about 20 minutes shorter, but then again a modern version would be rewritten (for better or worse) by Nicholas Spark, make extensive use of CGI, probably feature a biplane/car chase and co-star Vanessa Hudgens and Channing Tatum (again, for better or worse). Perhaps it’s best if they don’t make them like this anymore.