THB #680: Gene Hackman

Gene Hackman didn’t need to speak to be heard. He was an actor who told you exactly where he was with a look.

And then, he would add that voice… a little gravelly… not deep, but not high… almost always calmer than seemed appropriate for the moment.

“My motherfucker is so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him.”
- Heist, written by David Mamet

Hackman’s men were strong and sometimes overreaching, but never over the top. He raised his voice, but never to the point of screaming… of losing control. There was always more going on in Hackman’s performances than what was offered in the text.

Hackman’s characters could be heroic… but they were never traditional heroes. And when they were evil, they were never just evil. He always seemed to let us know why he was making the bad choices that we, as an audience, would judge.

The grayer the character, the better Hackman was… with notable exceptions. Popeye Doyle was gritty, but not overly complex… still, Hackman made him real from head to toe… to convince us that his choices were fitting, however nontraditional at times.

“I don’t deserve this.”

But a guy like Little Bill in Unforgiven… a good guy and a bad guy and a guy who you don’t always know where he fits for you. He and Eastwood’s William Munny are mirrors of one another in spirit. Both are men of unconscionable violence who are ready to move on, whether raising children as a sober man or building his own house so he can watch the sunrise with his coffee, but circumstances are not in their favor.

As Harry Caul in The Conversation, he is a man whose life is about listening in on the lives of others while he is profoundly paranoid about anyone knowing anything about him. It’s not a silent performance… but it is very light on dialogue for Hackman as the lead. He speaks by listening.

In Missisippi Burning, he was the old-line FBI guy, Anderson, who is well intended, but still steeped in the racist culture in America that brought us to that moment. Willem Dafoe is his opposite number, in what has turned out to be the “straightest” role he has ever played on film, as the then-new face of anti-racist law. This odd couple goes to Mississipi to investigate a murder of 3 Civil Rights workers who are not named as Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, but basically are. Hackman’s character is so ambivalent and seemingly cheerful at times, on its face, that the movie has become seen as too ambivalent to be admired. Of course, the Hackman character understands the turf and believes as strongly as the Dafoe character in human rights… but in Hackman’s character’s approach, the current politics suggest that he is acquiescing to the hateful side. And then, the story being told from the perspective of white people rankles some. (Frances McDormand has given great performances in 2 movies that have suffered in public perception from touching the third rail of more than one perspective on race in movies, the other being Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.)

In Hoosiers, for which he was, amazingly, not even nominated for an Oscar, he plays Coach Dale, a basketball coach haunted by the mistakes of his past. The money role is Dennis Hopper’s who gets to play a drunk who fully turns his life around during the course of the movie. Even as Coach demands more and more from his team, Hackman anchors his power in his calm, his voice louder, but not out of control.

Crimson Tide put Hackman up against one of the other great low-talking acting powerhouses in Denzel Washington. The film is kind of a low-talking stand-off while director Tony Scott creates all the noise with his high-intensity visuals. You can see when Denzel gets the edge when he actually gets Hackman to raise his voice. But most of the movie is a question about whose perception is right, the old guard or the new.

Hackman got his first Oscar nomination for I Never Sang For My Father, a somewhat old fashioned family story that I haven’t see or thought of for 30+ years. Hackman is one of the stars of the lovingly remembered guilty pleasure that was The Poseidon Adventure, playing a hunky priest. He brilliantly took on the cameo of The Blindman in Young Frankenstein, lighting The Monster’s thumb instead of his cigar and mis-measuring so his lap becomes the place the hot soup goes instead of the bowl. His Lex Luthor in Superman was a perfect reelection of the tone Richard Donner was trying to set, even as he was surrounded by over-the-top sidekicks. He got Meryl Streep into rehab in Postcards from the Edge and Tom Cruise coming for him in The Firm.

On the comedy side, he had back-to-back unforgettable performances in support pretty late in his career, as an over-the-top low-end producer in Get Shorty and the up-tight right wing Senator who ends up having to escape a drag club to save his career in The Birdcage.

He was in 5, count ‘em, 5 movies that were released in 2001. He was in support in The Mexican and Heartbreakers. In Behind Enemy Lines, he spends most of the movie on a set, as he tries to lead Owen Wilson’s character back across enemy lines before getting off his butt in the third act.

I am a great fan of his other 2 movies that year. First was David Mamet’s Heist, a “one last score” movie in which Hackman plays the smoothest of smooth operators, forced into one last score by Danny Devito’s character, who makes is clear with his actions that he is not an honest partner. So every piece of the film is a set-up and cross and a double cross of come kind. Mamet’s extreme dialogue is a hoot, as it is locked into the most clean and clear kind of heist movie structure. Mamet’s dialogue often gets into that Woody Allen thing, where the style eats the delivery. But not with Hackman, who brings it to life like it’s barely stylized at all.

About 6 weeks later landed The Royal Tennenbaums, which features Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum, the deposed (with cause) pater familias of the Tenenbaum clan. It is one of his most complete comic turns and Hackman relishes in throughout, never going over the top even as he is written into being one of the most outrageous characters imaginable at times. The turn reminds me of a last glorious turn in the limelight, in the vein of My Favorite Year, though not nearly as melancholy. It’s like watching one of the greatest athletes ever paying one last game at his highest level, which is also about the highest level of the form overall.

He made a couple more forgettable films bedfore he hung it up for good.

And unlike most famous actors who leave with gas in the tank, he never came back. He didn’t run out of money. He didn’t seem to feel the need for the klieg lights.

Only 10 of his films ever grossed as much as $100 million worldwide, the highest being $300 million (Superman).

I don’t think it’s fair to say that Hackman was a kind of actor who can’t succeed anymore. The great actors who have the great personalities that make them stars come in all shades, all genders, all ages, and all degrees of financially success.

Losing Gene Hackman is - and was - like losing your favorite uncle. He was one of the only people in your life who never failed to be a pleasure to see… to watch… to embrace. I’be already missed him for 20 years. I will miss him all of my days. But his work will be here when I need a shot of that humanity… that faciility with words… and the depth of his eyes, watching the world, seeing the world, helping us see and understand what he saw.

Rest in Peace, sir. Thank you for all you brought us with your work.

Until tomorrow…