Sydney Pollack hosts 'The Essentials' on Turner Classic Movies
CULVER CITY, Calif. -- Sydney Pollack won the best-director Oscar for "Out of Africa," and his 1982 film, "Tootsie," has been rated the second best comedy of all-time by the American Film Institute.
But you won't see any of his work, which also includes "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and "Three Days of the Condor," while he's hosting "The Essentials," a collection of must-see films on the Turner Classic Movies channel.
The producers tried to persuade him to include a few, but he refused.
"Think how it would look standing there saying, 'Here's a classic. Here's one of the essentials and this is why,"' Pollack chuckles.
Rob Reiner hosted the first two seasons of the anthology series. The third season, hosted by Pollack, began April 6 with "The Philadelphia Story," directed by George Cukor and starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. That was followed by "Stagecoach" on April 13, the first two of the 26 movies Pollack has deemed mandatory viewing.
His list has some films he'd never seen before, including Frank Capra's "It Happened One Night."
Pollack compiled the list in collaboration with Tom Brown, TCM's vice president of program production, and Charlie Coates, the series' writer-director.
The 68-year-old actor-director-producer said he took this gig "as much as an educational thing as anything" because he didn't see many films while growing up in Indiana.
"I couldn't afford it often," he said. "I went to 'The Lone Ranger' on Saturdays, but I was never really a moviegoer. I loved movies, but I wasn't a scholar ... all the people I work with know way more about film history than I do."
Modern technology -- DVDs, laptop players and so on -- made it easy for him to fill the void. He watched each selected movie "over and over and over."
For example, in screening David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia," his eye caught a particularly creative transition, "so I went back over that a couple of times."
He made notes about his viewing observations, then talked with writer-director Coates. "I didn't try to be conclusive in any way. I just jabbered like a fan over what I liked ... I would say this scene knocked me out, or whatever."
"We wanted to make this very accessible, not too much scholarship," says Coates, acknowledging that TCM hopes "The Essentials" will have appeal beyond the devoted movie buffs who traditionally tune in to see classics. "Sydney has a fresh take, very modern, very different, not just stuff you get out of books."
Coates filmed Pollack on a sound stage in Culver City, talking against a ripple of giant screens containing vivid moving images from the selected movies.
Pollack knew some of those "director superstars." He appeared in "Eyes Wide Shut," the final film by Stanley Kubrick, whose "2001: A Space Odyssey" is one of his "essentials."
His other film roles include the agent to the cross-dressing actor in his own "Tootsie," and one of the spouses in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives." He also shows up occasionally as Will's philandering father, George Truman, on the NBC sitcom "Will & Grace."
"Acting, quite honestly, I usually do because I'm curious about other directors. It's a way of spying on other directors," he says.
Pollack's other directing credits include "The Way We Were," "Absence of Malice" and "Random Hearts."
He also heads up Mirage Productions, in partnership with Anthony Minghella, the English director of "The Talented Mr. Ripley." Their upcoming "Cold Mountain," directed by Minghella, stars Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellweger.
Pollack describes his taste as a producer as "oddball." His goal is to provide opportunities for new talent and raise money for non-mainstream projects.
"When I started in movies, each movie was a like a fingerprint," he says, decrying today's ultracommercial sensibilities.
"There are movies that are being made every year which will last, but I think it is getting harder, mostly because there is a real demand for what I would call the 'disposable movie' that is essentially designed for a big opening weekend and not much more."
Additional Information:
Details
'The Essentials'
6 p.m. Sundays, TCM
Upcoming Films:
Tonight: 'Bonnie & Clyde' (1967)
April 27: 'Wuthering Heights' (1939)
May 4: 'The Wild One' (1953)
May 11: 'The Magnificent Seven' (1960)
May 18: 'Guys & Dolls' (1955)
May 25: 'Touch of Evil' (1958)
June 1: '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968)
June 8: 'Force of Evil' (1948)
June 15: 'It Happened One Night' (1934)
June 22: 'Once Upon A Time in the West' (1968)
June 29: 'Champion' (1949)
July 6: 'Pillow Talk' (1959)
July 13: 'A Star is Born' (1959)
July 20: 'Strangers on a Train' (1951)
July 27: 'The Shop Around the Corner' (1940)
Aug. 3: 'Lawrence of Arabia' (1962)
Aug. 10: 'The Apartment' (1960)
Aug. 17: 'An American in Paris' (1951)
Aug. 24: 'The Best Years of Our Lives' (1946)
Aug. 31: 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' (1957)
Sept. 7: 'Rebel Without a Cause' (1955)
Sept. 14: 'Brining Up Baby' (1938)
Sept. 21: 'Notorious' (1946)
Sept. 28: 'On the Waterfront' (1954)
