Νέα Υόρκη. Την τελευταία του πνοή άφησε σε ηλικία 74 ετών ο σκηνοθέτης και παραγωγός Σίντνεϊ Πόλακ. Είχε τιμηθεί με Όσκαρ για την ταινία Πέρα από την Αφρική, ενώ από τις πιο γνωστές ταινίες το ήταν η Τούτσι με τον Ντάστιν Χόφμαν και Τα καλύτερά μας χρόνια με τον Ρόμπερτ Ρέντφορντ και την Μπάρμπαρα Στρέιζαντ.Ο Πόλακ είχε χτυπηθεί από καρκίνο, ασθένεια για την οποία εγκατέλειψε τη σκηνοθεσία μιας ταινίας για λόγους υγείας. Όπως είπε η εκπρόσωπος της οικογένειας, Λέσλι Νταρτ, ο Πόλακ άφησε την τελευταία του πνοή στο σπίτι του, στο Πασίφικ Πάλισεϊντς του Λος Αντζελες.
Ο σκηνοθέτης γεννήθηκε την 1η Ιουλίου 1934 στο Λαφαγιέτ της Ιντιάνα. Ο πατέρας του ήταν φαρμακοποιός και ο ίδιος αρχικά ήθελε να γίνει οδοντίατρος. Στα 17 του χρόνια όμως ανακάλυψε τη Νέα Υόρκη και τον κόσμο του θεάματος, ενώ σε ηλικία μόλις 20 ετών δίδασκε δραματική τέχνη στο Neighborhood Playhouse. Αφήνοντας το θέατρο και την τηλεόραση έφυγε το 1965 για το Λος Άντζελες και πέρασε πίσω από την κάμερα γυρίζοντας ταινίες που θεωρούνται πλέον κλασικές:
Σκοτώνουν τ' άλογα όταν γεράσουν (1969),
Τζερεμάια Τζόνσον (1972),
Τα καλύτερά μας χρόνια (1973) και
Οι τρεις μέρες του Κόνδορα (1975).
Ήταν υποψήφιος για το Όσκαρ σκηνοθεσίας για την ταινία
Τούτσι το 1982 (όπου έπαιζε και ο ίδιος, στο ρόλο του ατζέντη του Ντάστιν Χόφμαν) αλλά κέρδισε τελικά το πολυπόθητο αγαλματίδιο τέσσερα χρόνια αργότερα για το
Πέρα από την Αφρική. Η ταινία βραβεύτηκε συνολικά με επτά Όσκαρ, μεταξύ των οποίων και αυτό της καλύτερης ταινίας.
Μετά την εμπορική αποτυχία της ταινίας
Αβάνα το 1990, αφοσιώθηκε στην παραγωγή ταινιών όπως
Λογική και ευαισθησία και
Ο ταλαντούχος κύριος Ρίπλεϊ, ενώ υπήρξε και πρωταγωνιστής σε αρκετές ταινίες, όπως στο
Μάτια ερμητικά κλειστά αλλά και στην τηλεοπτική σειρά
Σοπράνος. Η τελευταία σκηνοθετική δουλειά του ήταν το ντοκιμαντέρ που γύρισε το 2005 με θέμα τον περίφημο αρχιτέκτονα Φρανκ Γκέρι, το δημιουργό του μουσείου του Μπιλμπάο.
[Newsroom ΔΟΛ, με πληροφορίες από Associated Press, ΑΠΕ/Reuters/Γαλλικό]
By
Adam Bernstein, Tuesday, May 27, 2008; Page B06. Washington Post Staff Writer
Sydney Pollack, 73, a director and producer of popular Hollywood movies for nearly four decades, including the comedy "Tootsie," and who won Academy Awards for "Out of Africa," died May 26 at his home in Los Angeles. He had cancer. Mr. Pollack, who called himself "Mr. Mainstream," was wildly successful at moviemaking with mass appeal but drew mixed reviews during a prolific career.
His best-remembered work could be provocative, timely and sensitively crafted: "Tootsie" (1982) was hilarious and underscored aspects of the feminist struggle; the taut spy story "Three Days of the Condor" (1975) captured Nixon-era paranoia; "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969), though set at a Depression-era dance marathon, resonated with young ticket buyers who saw the rigged contest as a reflection of modern society.
Mr. Pollack's movies often emphasized the loner at conflict with society, whether a fur trapper in the wilderness in "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972) or a cowboy who tries to recover his soul after selling out in "The Electric Horseman" (1979) with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.
He saw Redford as his ideal collaborator and cast him in seven movies, from "This Property Is Condemned" (1966) to "Havana" (1990), because of what he considered his "very internal, rather understated" acting style as well as a dark undercurrent he found appealing beneath Redford's "golden boy" exterior.
Redford returned the compliment, telling Film Comment magazine, "Sydney's the one director that seems to read me best. . . . Basically he's a romantic."
Audiences embraced two of Mr. Pollack's best-known romance stories: "The Way We Were" (1973) with Redford as a WASP writer and Barbra Streisand as a Jewish political activist during the Hollywood blacklist; and "Out of Africa" (1985), a $30 million production based on Danish author Isak Dinesen's years in Kenya and her complicated affair with a free-spirited and handsome pilot.
The latter film, which earned Oscars for Mr. Pollack for directing and producing, starred Meryl Streep and Redford against a backdrop likened by critics to a National Geographic spread.
Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader complimented Mr. Pollack's craftsmanship and taste, saying that "although the denouement is a bit overextended, he never yields to facile, insistent sentimentality -- his effects are honestly won."
Many others found both films saccharine and ponderous, and Mr. Pollack spoke of his own "tendency by nature to be heavy-handed," which he attributed to his early training as a television director "where you have to grab the audience in the first 10 minutes."
Few disputed that Mr. Pollack was a master of pulling terrific performances from actors. Those who won Oscars under his direction included Gig Young as a cynical dance-marathon announcer in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and Jessica Lange as an emotionally vulnerable actress in "Tootsie."
But even in his less-regarded works, many actors earned Oscar nominations, including Paul Newman and Melinda Dillon in the newspaper libel drama "Absence of Malice" (1981) and Holly Hunter in "The Firm" (1993), based on the John Grisham legal thriller... [article continues]
Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay as director, producer and sometime actor whose star-laden movies like "The Way We Were," "Tootsie" and "Out of Africa" were among the most successful of the 1970s and '80s, died on May 26 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 73. Mr. Pollack's career defined an era in which big stars (Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty) and the filmmakers who knew how to wrangle them (Barry Levinson, Mike Nichols) retooled the Hollywood system. Savvy operators, they played studio against studio, staking their fortunes on pictures that served commerce without wholly abandoning art. Hollywood honored Mr. Pollack in return. His movies received multiple Academy Award nominations, and as a director he won an Oscar for his work on the 1985 film "Out of Africa" as well as nominations for directing "They Shoot Horses, Don't They" (1969) and "Tootsie" (1982).
Read More... [The New York Times]
A list of resources from around the Web about Sydney Pollack as selected by researchers and editors of The New York Times.
Other Content
Selected Movies Directed by Sydney Pollack with Times Reviews
Highlights From the Archives
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
Mr. Pollack’s star-laden movies like “The Way We Were,” “Tootsie” and “Out of Africa” were among the most successful of the 1970s and ’80s.
May 27, 2008MoviesObituary (Obit) Movie Review
By A. O. SCOTT
Sydney Pollack's absorbing documentary respects the essential enigma of its subject even as it illuminates his ways of thinking about form, space and construction.
May 12, 2006MoviesReviewMagazine Desk
By JANET MASLIN
The rarefied, controlled tone of Isak Dinesen's classic memoir "Out of Africa" masks exactly the kinds of ambivalence, regret and longing to which Sydney Pollack has always been drawn. In the words of his close friend, Robert Redford, ''Sydney sees both sides of everything, he really does. If he's committed to anything, it's to a center line. He lives in the gray zone.''
December 15, 1985ARTICLES ABOUT SYDNEY POLLACK
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
The indelible Hollywood comedy like so much great art was practically made to be memorized.
March 2, 2008 By MANOHLA DARGIS
Dark in color, mood and outraged worldview, “Michael Clayton” is a film that speaks to the way we live now.
October 5, 2007 By A. O. SCOTT
Sydney Pollack's absorbing documentary respects the essential enigma of its subject even as it illuminates his ways of thinking about form, space and construction.
May 12, 2006 By CARYN JAMES
The heavily publicized United Nations setting for Sydney Pollack's new thriller, "The Interpreter," promises an authenticity that the movie never approaches.
April 28, 2005 By SAM KNIGHT
WHEN Sydney Pollack shot his new thriller
April 24, 2005 By A.O. SCOTT
Sydney Pollack's new film is described as a political thriller, but it is as apolitical as it is unthrilling.
April 22, 2005 MORE ON SYDNEY POLLACK AND:
MOTION PICTURES,
REVIEWS,
UNITED NATIONS,
KEENER, CATHERINE,
KIDMAN, NICOLE,
ZAILLIAN, STEVEN,
PENN, SEAN By WARREN HOGE
Sydney Pollack has managed to succeed where many filmmakers have failed, in getting permission to shoot at the United Nations for his upcoming film, "The Interpreter."
August 2, 2004 By SAM DILLON
America's debate over the Iraq war continued at colleges and universities this spring, as commencement speakers weighed in with reflections on the conflict.
June 1, 2003 MORE ON SYDNEY POLLACK AND:
EDUCATION AND SCHOOLS,
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES,
TRINITY COLLEGE,
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY,
EMORY UNIVERSITY,
NORWICH UNIVERSITY,
BARD COLLEGE,
SUSQUEHANNA UNIVERSITY,
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY,
DUKE UNIVERSITY,
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY,
JUILLIARD SCHOOL,
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-EAU CLAIRE,
UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY,
FASHION INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,
CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY,
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BINGHAMTON,
VASSAR COLLEGE,
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA,
URSINUS COLLEGE By DAVE KEHR
This documentary about 1970's filmmaking is a standard-issue parade of talking heads interspersed with film clips.
April 25, 2003 By JESSE MCKINLEY
Enough about Broadway. The big boys have their spring schedule almost complete anyway, so let's look at the lands of Off, where times have been tough lately.
January 18, 2002 MORE ON SYDNEY POLLACK AND:
TELEVISION,
THEATER,
BROADWAY (NYC),
LINCOLN CENTER THEATER,
HOME BOX OFFICE,
VRADENBURG, TRISH,
ENSLER, EVE,
CUNNINGHAM, ALEXANDRA,
KEANE, JOHN B,
MATCHMAKER, THE,
MANAHAN, ANNA By JANET MASLIN
Janet Maslin reviews Sydney Pollack movie Random Hearts, starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas; photo
October 8, 1999 By RICK LYMAN
At the Movies column; Dreamworks has high hopes for American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes, which opened to good reviews and good box office in selected theaters; Sydney Pollack discusses newest film, Random Hearts; director Steven Soderbergh and actor Terence Stamp attend Toronto International Film Festival to promote The Limey; Steve Zahn, also in Toronto, promotes new movie Happy, Texas; photos
October 1, 1999 MORE ON SYDNEY POLLACK AND:
TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL,
MOTION PICTURES,
DREAMWORKS SKG,
STAMP, TERENCE,
ZAHN, STEVE,
SODERBERGH, STEVEN,
MENDES, SAM The son of the film maker Sydney Pollack was one of two student pilots who was killed on Friday when a single-engine plane crashed into a two-story apartment building and burst into flames. The body of Steven Pollack, 34, was identified by the county coroner's office, The Los Angeles Times reported.
November 28, 1993 By BERNARD WEINRAUB,
Sydney Pollack is nervous. Although he's one of Hollywood's foremost film makers and has a remarkably successful track record as director of movies like "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" "Tootsie" and "Out of Africa," Mr. Pollack acknowledges that the failure of his last film, "Havana," several years ago left him reeling and scared. Now he anxiously awaits the reaction to his newest movie, "The Firm," which opens on Wednesday, one day before his 60th birthday.
June 28, 1993 By IRVIN MOLOTSKY, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
LEAD: Representatives of movie directors, screen writers and painters urged Congress today to adopt an international copyright convention that grants ''moral rights'' to artists and forbids changes in their works without their consent.
October 1, 1987
