Maybe because I didn't grow up in the seventies, I always thought of Donald Sutherland as more timeless than a product of the midcentury. His strange performance in Backdraft to me wasn't a callback to a different time, but something that could work in any era. Not to mention the great vocal performance he did for The Simpsons. Even when he appeared on talk shows, he always seemed a little otherworldly - a man out of time, rather than a product of his time. Same went for Alan Arkin.
That's funny, because Alan Arkin -- to ME -- is almost primordially a product of a slightly earlier era; say 1955-1970. The same era as Mike Nichols and Elaine May. And like Nichols and May in their ways, Arkin brought that time, and the values of that time, and the skills and influences and priorities of that time, to everything he did. If you watch Alan Arkin in "Simon," for example, he's doing pure pre-Del Close improv. Now compare say John Belushi in that same role, or even Gene Wilder -- very different.
I first became familiar with Elaine May through seeing A New Leaf. Having not been familiar with her work in the previous decade with Mike Nichols, I always think of her as a product of the seventies, mostly because of the run of movies starting with A New Leaf. I guess it's all perspective. Kind of like how whatever season of Saturday Night Live you started with is the "good" one.
I’m not as much talking about generational cohorts of preferences, as how creative people from different eras seem to have a common approach and texture to their work. Nichols and May and Arkin and the other people from 1959-67 or so did improv differently than Belushi, Ramis, etc. They were products of a different time, taught by different teachers, performing for a different audience. May is fiercely intellectual and eternally located in character, for example, where Belushi is inevitably Belushi. Sutherland seems to me to be quite similar to his contemporary gene wilder in some aspects; and both men really carried films after 1970, but that stopped pretty abruptly in 1980 or so.
The combination of Jeff Goldblum, Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy in one movie is so perfect, its almost as though somebody went back in time and engineered it as a false memory.
Well said. Even in the lousy movies he did, it was still enjoyable to watch his performance. I particularly enjoyed him in all the horror/scifi films he was in. His looks and acting style worked in those films and made them so much creepier.
His wonderfully understated, almost spooky performance (he never raises his voice, even when physically attacked) in "Klute" is so crucial to the film's mood. Clearly a fish out of water and not particularly concerned with fitting in to Jane Fonda's dark, 'hip' milieu. I liked him in other movies, but this is the one I keep coming back to
Perversely (as is only appropriate) "Casanova" is the only Fellini movie I enjoyed between "Satyricon" and "City of Women". For me the sloppy 1960s womanizer's disapproval of the calculating 1700s womanizer squared perfectly with Sutherland's cold-fish-out-of-warm-water displacement, making for one of movies' best source-hostile literary adaptations. Whereas Nicolas Roeg's frigid Joy-of-Sex-highlights sequence in "Don't Look Now" seemed completely at odds with his intentions.
(The very best source-hostile literary adaptation is Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly", which reminded me that Sutherland was the only actor recruited for both "The Dirty Dozen" AND "Kelly's Heroes". Sadly, he wasn't available for "Which Way to the Front?")
Maybe because I didn't grow up in the seventies, I always thought of Donald Sutherland as more timeless than a product of the midcentury. His strange performance in Backdraft to me wasn't a callback to a different time, but something that could work in any era. Not to mention the great vocal performance he did for The Simpsons. Even when he appeared on talk shows, he always seemed a little otherworldly - a man out of time, rather than a product of his time. Same went for Alan Arkin.
That's funny, because Alan Arkin -- to ME -- is almost primordially a product of a slightly earlier era; say 1955-1970. The same era as Mike Nichols and Elaine May. And like Nichols and May in their ways, Arkin brought that time, and the values of that time, and the skills and influences and priorities of that time, to everything he did. If you watch Alan Arkin in "Simon," for example, he's doing pure pre-Del Close improv. Now compare say John Belushi in that same role, or even Gene Wilder -- very different.
I first became familiar with Elaine May through seeing A New Leaf. Having not been familiar with her work in the previous decade with Mike Nichols, I always think of her as a product of the seventies, mostly because of the run of movies starting with A New Leaf. I guess it's all perspective. Kind of like how whatever season of Saturday Night Live you started with is the "good" one.
I’m not as much talking about generational cohorts of preferences, as how creative people from different eras seem to have a common approach and texture to their work. Nichols and May and Arkin and the other people from 1959-67 or so did improv differently than Belushi, Ramis, etc. They were products of a different time, taught by different teachers, performing for a different audience. May is fiercely intellectual and eternally located in character, for example, where Belushi is inevitably Belushi. Sutherland seems to me to be quite similar to his contemporary gene wilder in some aspects; and both men really carried films after 1970, but that stopped pretty abruptly in 1980 or so.
Ok, but my favorite period piece of his was Start the Revolution Without Me. I feel like I was there.
I have always preferred his version of BODY SNATCHERS to the original
The combination of Jeff Goldblum, Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy in one movie is so perfect, its almost as though somebody went back in time and engineered it as a false memory.
"characterized by intelligence, paranoia, wide education, casual cynicism, even more casual sexuality...." Klute was all of that.
I haven't watched it for years, but remember liking it when I did.
He just makes everything he's in *different*: https://youtu.be/pllRW9wETzw?si=rFOS3JDraefOqOl4
Well said. Even in the lousy movies he did, it was still enjoyable to watch his performance. I particularly enjoyed him in all the horror/scifi films he was in. His looks and acting style worked in those films and made them so much creepier.
His wonderfully understated, almost spooky performance (he never raises his voice, even when physically attacked) in "Klute" is so crucial to the film's mood. Clearly a fish out of water and not particularly concerned with fitting in to Jane Fonda's dark, 'hip' milieu. I liked him in other movies, but this is the one I keep coming back to
RIP, sir.
Perversely (as is only appropriate) "Casanova" is the only Fellini movie I enjoyed between "Satyricon" and "City of Women". For me the sloppy 1960s womanizer's disapproval of the calculating 1700s womanizer squared perfectly with Sutherland's cold-fish-out-of-warm-water displacement, making for one of movies' best source-hostile literary adaptations. Whereas Nicolas Roeg's frigid Joy-of-Sex-highlights sequence in "Don't Look Now" seemed completely at odds with his intentions.
(The very best source-hostile literary adaptation is Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly", which reminded me that Sutherland was the only actor recruited for both "The Dirty Dozen" AND "Kelly's Heroes". Sadly, he wasn't available for "Which Way to the Front?")