Donner Party

[flyonthewall2983]

I don't think Pollack ever directed a great film, but I'll take his body of work over Donner's or Mangold's.

I think he's a fine character actor (in his own film Tootsie but also in The Player, Husbands and Wives and Eyes Wide Shut), and he's a distinguished producer, with an executive producer credit on at least two excellent films (The Fabulous Baker Boys and Searching for Bobby Fischer) and a producer credit on IMHO one of the greatest American films of the past 25 years, Margaret (which sadly he couldn't help out of its troubles with Gary Gilbert after he died from cancer just ten months after his diagnosis). He also directed an invaluable concert film, Amazing Grace (basically the live performances that made up what was arguably Aretha Franklin's last truly great album), and even though an enormous technical oversight meant it couldn't be completed until years after his death, he still deserves a lot of credit for it.

Brilliant in Michael Clayton but who isn’t.

I liked him a lot in interviews and talking head pieces about Hollywood, he seemed to have a balanced perspective on the business that maybe few on his level could articulate. This interview he conducted with Harrison Ford, filling in for Charlie Rose, is such proof of this that it speaks to all this on its own.

[beamish14]

Pollack’s greatest achievement was co-founding the American Cinematheque in 1984, which he intended to model after the Cinémathèque française

[The Curious Sofa]

FWIW, this is Dave Kehr's original review of Tootsie when it opened in Chicago:

With most of the humor predicated on homosexual panic, this Dustin Hoffman drag comedy plays like the reactionary inverse of Blake Edwards’s Victor/Victoria: it’s a film about sex roles that upholds and solidifies strict polarities, styled as safe situation comedy rather than Edwards’s rousing, vulgar farce. Just as Kramer vs. Kramer carried the subliminal point that fathers make the best mothers, so does Tootsie (1982) suggest that men—given the chance—make the best women. As an unsuccessful actor who lands a female part on a soap opera, Hoffman learns a firsthand lesson in chauvinism, an experience that allows him to lecture his costars—Jessica Lange, Teri Garr—on women’s rights. Sydney Pollack’s professional direction gives the choppy, errant material the appearance of smoothness and integrity, and there are several solid laughs and some excellent supporting performances. But this is a film to be wary of.

I remember that you used Kehr's review before as a case for the prosecution, but I'd still rather watch Tootsie on repeat than ever dust the cobwebs off Victor/Victoria again. I'm not saying Tootsie would be made the same way today, but Victor/Victoria is not without its own problems. The movie quickly sidesteps any possibility that James Garner might develop a homosexual attraction to "Victor" after he peeps at a naked Andrews early on.

Kehr's take remindes me of Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet, which was an important book for its time, but now comes across as overly didactic, focusing exclusively on the portrayal of gay and lesbian characters at the expense of anything else. The documentary adaptation, which came out 15 years later, adds much needed nuance by drawing from different perspectives through interviewees. I also believe Kehr misrepresents the film to make his point:

It is a gross exaggeration to say that "most of the humor is based on homosexual panic. There are two scenes where this could be argued, but there is much more going on in them than homosexual panic. Tootsie attracts two suitors: the storyline with George Gaynes as her colleague ends with a scene that could be considered sexual assault, is played for genuine awkwardness, and would have played out the same way had Tootsie been a actual woman. It's not about homosexual panic, it's about sexual harassment, and it puts Michael in the shoes of millions of women who have experienced it, leaving him in genuine distress. The other subplot with Charles Durning, a widower and the father of Michael's romantic interest, is played for pathos rather than comedy. It is about the deception at the center of the movie that gets out of hand and starts hurting people. It's understandable that Durning feels humiliated, and in the end he deals with it quite well and makes up with Michael. Both storylines are handled with some nuance and sensitivity, and neither ends on a comedic note (or with violence), both end in confusion and hurt.

As for Michael lecturing feminism to the female characters, that comes from a place of socialization and privilege and strikes me as realistic. He is personally affronted going from a position of privilege to one of subservience and he acts like he someone who just discovered this, while for women its an everday reality. Michael is far from an entirely sympathetic character in the first place, it's made clear that he's a pain-in-the-ass with an outsized ego (Hoffman gamely playing up his reputation).

[Mr Sausage]

I also believe Kehr misrepresents the film to make his point, which is not nearly as problematic as he makes it out to be.

It's been a long time since I saw it, but surely he's misrepresenting Kramer vs Kramer as well? I mean, no doubt it's open to criticism, especially over its engagement with feminism, but the idea it's an argument for male supremacy is unreasonable for all sorts of reasons (not least: he's somehow taking a specific case to be a general one). Surely the movie is just flipping gender assumptions that women and men have roles nature makes them ideally suited to by having a man and a woman behave the opposite as expected. Assuming that Dustin Hoffman successfully being parental means men are better 'mothers' would play into the very gender assumptions the movie was subverting, right? That caregiving and nurturing is feminine and therefore befits mothers?

[The Curious Sofa]

I haven't seen Kramer vs. Kramer in a long time, and I have to admit that I'm not that big a fan of the movie. I suppose it all has to do with the context of when these movies came out. After second-wave feminism had made great strides, there was a conservative backlash in the 80s and Streep was seen as too much of the villain of the piece. It's the same with LGBT+ issues, there were almost no positive portrayals of gay characters, so Robert Preston's character in Victor/Victoria was a rare exception. But in retrospect, that is not as important to me anymore. What sits wrong with me about the criticism of Tootsie is that it is not a movie that was ever intended to deal with gay characters or issues, and when it brushes up against them, it does so with more grace than Kehr gives it credit for.

:edit:

But, yes, it could be argued that Kramer vs Kramer and Tootsie are movies about feminism with a Dustin Hoffman in the traidtionally female role, which I suppose is both problematic in terms of feminism, but progessive in terms of challenging gender norms.

[Mr Sausage]

After second-wave feminism had made great strides, there was a conservative backlash in the 80s and Streep was seen as too much of the villain of the piece.

I can see that. I seem to remember the context of her abandoning her family being vaguely feminist, which would make the movie a conservative view on how second-wave feminism was breaking up families or some such. But then I also remember the film was quite gentle to her, given that she'd done something Hollywood usually finds unforgivable, abandoning her family. I remember a moment where she's castigating herself on the stand, and Hoffman, distraught, is shaking his head and mouthing 'no!' at her. And the end has a kind of reconciliation.

So I'm sure there's plenty you could hammer the film for, but that it's an argument for male supremacy just seems like ideological critique of a lazy kind.

[brundlefly]

After second-wave feminism had made great strides, there was a conservative backlash in the 80s and Streep was seen as too much of the villain of the piece.

I can see that. I seem to remember the context of her abandoning her family being vaguely feminist, which would make the movie a conservative view on how second-wave feminism was breaking up families or some such. But then I also remember the film was quite gentle to her, given that she'd done something Hollywood usually finds unforgivable, abandoning her family. I remember a moment where she's castigating herself on the stand, and Hoffman, distraught, is shaking his head and mouthing 'no!' at her. And the end has a kind of reconciliation.

So I'm sure there's plenty you could hammer the film for, but that it's an argument for male supremacy just seems like ideological critique of a lazy kind.

Hoffman's mouthed "No" comes while his lawyer is berating her about whether she was a failure at their marriage, but she eventually agrees. Hoffman is also shown rolling his eyes when she mentions going to therapy. A lot of the Hoffman character is about self-sufficiency; he doesn't seek support groups or child care help or even use contacts while looking for a job. (He does adopt Streep's best friend as his own, and becomes an even bester friend to her.) Streep's character is painted as unstable, and their last scene isn't so much reconciliation as her tearful capitulation.

A lot of this, as with Tootsie, goes toward the Hoffman character's flaws. She left and got the help she felt she needed; he didn't think he needed to change and has to grow by going through the film. There's enough wiggle room to make it a movie about messy people experiencing the breakdown of the American family, and it certainly is about work/life balance (though I don't think Hoffman's character ever reckons that his new conflicts are what every working mother faces). But there's definitely more than a whiff of male righteousness about this, and I think it's always had the aura of a social issues film.

[hearthesilence]

brundlefly nailed it but I'll add the the original book was disgustingly worse. (Mental health struggles originally weren't the problem. The problem was that Joanna Kramer found motherhood boring.) Meryl Streep was very open about everything wrong with her character and got permission to completely change her. She came up with the mental health struggles, but as mentioned above, with the rest of the film left in place, it can't escape a context that still comes off as being reactionary. And sadly, you see this pop up in politics all the time - the most blatant example I can think of is when Mitch McConnell's campaign was preparing for a potential face-off with Ashley Judd, and even though she declined to run, details leaked out showing how McConnell was going to focus on depicting her as a weak person. Why? Because she sought help for mental health struggles. Bear in mind, this is a woman who had to go through a TON of shit, whose family has a sad history of personal struggles with her mother eventually committing suicide. Everything implied by their game plan and their confidence in its effectiveness says a lot, and it's horrendous.

I'm not sure how much of an exaggeration it is to say that "most" of Tootsie's humor is based on homosexual panic. I haven't seen it in a while but here's what I posted nearly TEN years ago. (Again, time flies...)

I'm surprised no one else feels the same way. It's not overt - I saw this film numerous times before high school, then didn't see it again until after college, and while nothing was forgotten, it felt like there was a homophobic subtext under a lot of the material. I recall this coming primarily whenever Michael has to explain/defend why he's dressing up as a woman (which to be clear is constantly equated with homosexuality by most of the film's characters), especially when Les is angry at him - I think the first thing he does after Michael returns the ring is ask if he's gay, and there was something about that line of thought that suggested something I didn't like. Also I was bothered by how the film portrays Julie's initial shock that Dorothy is attracted to her (mostly as it was written - Lange's performance does invest it with pathos). It's not enough to single out moments, I felt like over and over again there was comedic tension in scene after scene built out of gay panic, and by the end, cumulatively it didn't really sit well with me.

I'll add that I don't recall any depiction of gay culture or any gay characters in the film, and it may be why the frequent mentions of homosexuality played less well with me. The absence of that culture in a film taking place in New York City, among the acting and especially the theater community, made gay culture feel all the more fringe and marginalized even though this was a part of the world where it was more open and accepted. On some level, it implies that it really was shameful and something that should be underground or practiced in secret, and while I don't think that was the intention at all, it's hard for me to shake off.

And I'm not sure I can ever process Michael's lecturing of feminism the same way. In fairness, I think Hoffman views the film along these lines - he's made a point that he came out of the film a better person because it made him realize how judgmental he was of women in a very shallow and superficial way. But it does stick out that so many of the women in the film tend to be pushovers. The one exception is Rita, the producer on the soap opera, but I don't recall her getting any real dialogue with anyone outside of her interactions with Michael, so it sticks out that someone like her is never seen as dispensing guidance or advice to any of the women on the show or standing up to the men like Ron or openly challenging them. She hires Michael, presumably over Ron's objections, but we never see that play out between Rita and Ron or any other possible disagreement, which feels strange.

Also re: another post upthread, plenty of other hilarious moments are now coming to mind: "You were a tomato!" "Taxi!" And of course Bill Murray being his usual deadpan self. ("That's one nutty hospital.")

[jazzo]

Let’s not forget this, buried halfway through the clip, and one of my favourite jokes in a movie, ever:

https://youtu.be/Oob5Pla6gv4?si=SzYwXK7Z8Bq6PHMa