Sydney Pollack Dies

[Mulboyne]

Director, actor and producer Sydney Pollack has died. His Japan connection is through the 1974 film "The Yakuza" which he directed. It starred Robert Mitchum alongside Ken Takakura and was written by "Taxi Driver" writer Paul Schrader, together with his brother Leonard Schrader and Leonard's wife, Chieko. Warner Brothers paid a record $325,000 for the script and had assigned Robert Aldrich to direct the film but Mitchum insisted on working with Sydney Pollack. There are some other pictures from the set here.

Clip from the final fight scene of "The Yakuza" (violent)
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[gkanai]

Who knew that Schrader's brother's wife is/was Japanese...interesting.

[Mulboyne]

Sadly, Leonard made it into the Dead Gaijins thread before we got around to putting him in the Japanese Spouses thread. He and his wife worked on a number of films and there are quite a few shots of them together on various sets here.

[Charles]

I loved "The Yakuza," what's not to like about it? Robert Mitchum and Takakura Ken in the same movie, cheezy swordfight scenes, and a setting in the 1970s that is just old enough to make us nostalgic.

Sydney Pollack was best known as a producer rather than a filmmaker, someone who could consistently make money off mediocre material, a rare commodity in Hollywood. Most of the films he personally directed were mass culture rubbish like Tootsie and The Electric Horseman. This has unfortunately drawn attention away from what I consider his unknown masterpiece: Castle Keep.

Castle Keep, in my opinion, is one of the greatest war films ever made. Released in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, when war films were extremely unpopular, it is a film set in WWII but it's about Vietnam. As an antiwar film, it is probably the best thing I've ever seen, right up there with Paths of Glory. But what sets this film apart is its sense of the absurd, and its consistent mutilation of the cliches of the war film genre.

Every war film has a series of cliches, the really bad ones have ALL the cliches. You know them well. The march to battle, with obligatory buddy bonding scenes. The hours of boredom waiting for battle. The struggle with the cranky war vehicle. The whorehouse scene. The sexy woman collaborator who is faced with switching sides. The stirring call to arms for the ultimate battle. Etc. Etc. And Pollack just mercilessly spoofs them all, stomping them into the ground. If there is ever one war film made FOR war film watchers, this is it. And it all ads up to one hell of a funny war film, with a poignant antiwar message. If you ever get a chance to see this rarely seen classic, do not miss it.

[amdg]

I loved "The Yakuza," what's not to like about it? Robert Mitchum and Takakura Ken in the same movie, cheezy swordfight scenes, and a setting in the 1970s that is just old enough to make us nostalgic.

Sydney Pollack was best known as a producer rather than a filmmaker, someone who could consistently make money off mediocre material, a rare commodity in Hollywood. Most of the films he personally directed were mass culture rubbish like Tootsie and The Electric Horseman. This has unfortunately drawn attention away from what I consider his unknown masterpiece: Castle Keep.

Castle Keep, in my opinion, is one of the greatest war films ever made. Released in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, when war films were extremely unpopular, it is a film set in WWII but it's about Vietnam. As an antiwar film, it is probably the best thing I've ever seen, right up there with Paths of Glory. But what sets this film apart is its sense of the absurd, and its consistent mutilation of the cliches of the war film genre.

Every war film has a series of cliches, the really bad ones have ALL the cliches. You know them well. The march to battle, with obligatory buddy bonding scenes. The hours of boredom waiting for battle. The struggle with the cranky war vehicle. The whorehouse scene. The sexy woman collaborator who is faced with switching sides. The stirring call to arms for the ultimate battle. Etc. Etc. And Pollack just mercilessly spoofs them all, stomping them into the ground. If there is ever one war film made FOR war film watchers, this is it. And it all ads up to one hell of a funny war film, with a poignant antiwar message. If you ever get a chance to see this rarely seen classic, do not miss it.

Castle Keep huh? Never heard of it before but will look out for it.

[Hokgwai]

The Yakuza:

Thats scene was Japanese machismo at it's best. Yukio Mishima would be pleased. (Minus Bob Mitchum of course)

[Mulboyne]

Here's a picture of Mitchum taken during filming of "The Yakuza". It's from the Tokyo Weekender archives.