The Power of Gene Hackman, a Movie Star Who Didn’t Want To Be Treated Like One, Is on Display at Film at Lincoln Center

The American actor Gene Hackman and his wife of 34 years, Betsy Arakawa, die under circumstances that would have beggared the imaginations of William Faulkner and Michael Haneke, and the best Film at Lincoln Center can do is offer tribute by way of referencing a second-tier David Bowie song? To be fair, the organizers of “Gene Hackman: A Week with Gene Genie,” Florence Almozini and Tyler Wilson, likely did so to underline the transformative power of the late actor’s best performances. More importantly, there are the movies lined up for this week’s program, a “tribute to some of Hackman’s most treasured performances, tracing the evolution of an actor who never struck a false note.” In that regard, Ms. Almozini and Mr. Wilson have done well by an actor who never comfortably carried the mantle of movie star even as he starred in more than a few movies. “Overall,” Hackman stated, “I’m pretty satisfied that I made the right choice when I decided to be an actor.” That lone qualifier speaks, I think, to Hackman’s integrity as a craftsman.One of my favorite Hackman moments is small and uncredited; another is unguarded and by chance. His turn as the blind man in Mel Brooks’s “Young Frankenstein” (1974) was the result of a question Hackman broached to his regular tennis partner, Gene Wilder: “Do you think Mel would let me play it?” Hankering for comedy, Hackman knew well enough to play it straight as a lonely soul seeking companionship. Mr. Brooks’s estimation of the performance? “Perfect.” The movie, I am happy to report, is on the docket.The other appearance wasn’t a performance but was, in its own way, perfect. Guy Fieri caught up with Hackman by happenstance at Harry’s Roadhouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico, while filming a segment for his television series “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” What was ordered for breakfast wasn’t elaborated on, but Hackman did reveal that a reason he frequented Harry’s was that the other diners treated him like a local. No starry-eyed adulation for the Oscar winner, just a seat at the counter, a paper napkin, and something good-and-greasy to eat.A friend suggests that if burgeoning cineastes want a taste of 1970s American cinema, their best option is “any film starring Gene Hackman or Jack Nicholson.” It’s not a bad bit of advice. For Hackman, the decade started off with Gilbert Cates’s adaptation of Robert Anderson’s Broadway play, “I Never Sang For My Father” (1970), and ended with a double serving of ham, Richard Donner’s “Superman” (1978) and Richard Lester’s sequel, “Superman II” (1980). Hackman clearly had a fine old time playing our hero’s arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor.From left, Jack Albertson, Red Buttons, Ronald Neame, Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, and Ernest Borgnine at the 1973 Academy Awards. Via Wikimedia CommonsHackman’s childhood left a lot to be desired. The family was peripatetic, the patriarch abusive and then gone: Eugene Ezra Hackman abandoned the family by the time Gene reached age 13. Three years later, Hackman joined the Marines, spending part of his four-and-a-half year tenure stationed in China. After a brief stint at the University of Illinois, Hackman moved to Pasadena, California, took acting lessons, befriended a fellow thespian, Dustin Hoffman, and was told by an instructor that he “wouldn’t amount to anything.” While later working as a Manhattan doorman, Hackman bumped into a former officer who dismissed the burgeoning actor as a “sorry son of a bitch.” An abundance of determination, and not a little spite, proved otherwise.Where to start at Film at Lincoln Center? It’s impossible to imagine Paul Newman essaying the role of New York City cop Popeye Doyle in William Friedkin’s “The French Connection” (1971) — really, the blue-eyed hunk was Friedkin’s first choice. Hackman’s performance is relentless as he channels the energy, if not the charm, of his hero, James Cagney. The nine-minute sequence in which Doyle careens through the streets of Brooklyn in a requisitioned car chasing a bad guy who’s ensconced on an elevated D-train is justifiably famous and thrillingly ridiculous.John Frankenheimer’s follow-up, “French Connection II” (1975), is a different and not altogether coherent animal, though it is by no stretch of the imagination a bad movie. Arthur Penn’s sometimes confusing and consistently lachrymose “Night Moves” (1975) is worth attending to, as is Hackman’s portrayal of “Little Bill” Daggett, the villainous sheriff in Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” (1992).The cloistered formalism of director Wes Anderson runs contrary to the “raw and real” grit of Hackman’s style of acting, but the erstwhile actor gave his all in “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001), just as he proved a consummate professional in the schlock powerhouse that is Ronald Neame’s “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972). Other Hackman showpieces, both mainstream and off-center, will be seen in gratifying plenitude at Film at Lincoln Center, offering testament to a talent as rare as it was unassuming.

The Power of Gene Hackman, a Movie Star Who Didn’t Want To Be Treated Like One, Is on Display at Film at Lincoln Center

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