i am a huge movie fan. considering the list of my favorite movies, i realize no one may have been involved with more of them than sydney pollack. i knew his influence before i knew i loved movies. i would listen to my mother talk about how much ”the way we were” touched her, and was forced to listen to babs sing about scattered pictures becuase of it. the first movie my father and i both agreed was fantastic was “tootsie”, and we still quote lines from it to each other when an applicable moment has been reached (ask for one now and i’ll tell you “my mind is a blank”). i savored my first excellent spy thriller watching “three days of the condor”, and was amazed at the twists in “absence of malice”. in my opinion the best film pollack ever directed is one i haven’t even seen mentioned in the write-ups i’ve read about his career, and that is “the firm”. i identify with at least part of almost every character in that movie, and it is the only example i can think of where a film has been better than the novel on which it was based. it was better becuase pollack brought to it the trait i see running through most, if not all, of his movies…thinking one’s way out of a mess. in the book, mitch mcdeer gets away from the mob becuase he is lucky. in the film, mitch gets away becuase he is smart.
the pollack films i know well cover vastly different subject material, but they all make me comfortable in the same way. there is a visual asthetic that entices and soothes…even when what’s happeneing in the storyline is disturbing. perhaps he felt that if he could make the viewer comfortable through cinematography, they would more easily be able to suspend disbelif and accept whatever story was being told. i’m just glad that pollack decided to tell stories. if we are a product of our influences, i know my understanding of beauty, romance and intrigue has been formed, at least in some part, becuase of sydney pollack.
