Thanks for the nice post on Sydney Pollack, Isaac. The Way We Were is such a fabulous movie. Talents tend to decline over time but even so, Pollack was one of the best.

Without first checking IMDB, I think Pollack actually did more acting in the '90s and '00s than he did directing. I think he was a great, underrated actor, particularly in "Husbands and Wives," "Michael Clayton" and a one-time shot on "The Sopranos." In H&W, there's a couple of scenes where he's embarrassed by his bimbo girlfriend after taking her to a party filled with intellectuals in which he just burns the place down.

The shadow of Three Days of the Condor falls across The X-Files, The Bourne Identity, and others.  Just one example:  the scene with the fake mailman at the door of Faye Dunaway's apartment in 3 Days still never fails to set a spinal tingle going.  Nobody's done it as effectively.

Of course _Three Days_  was amazing, of course _Out of Africa_ was evocative (and a bit sodden), and of course _Tootsie_ was just godawful but apparently some sort of bizarre cultural milestone.

Me? I look back to _The Swimmer_, a movie starring Burt Lancaster, which Sydney co-directed, and which drove a stake right through the sordid, squalid heart of American suburbia (and still does). I owe Sydney for _The Legend of Jeremiah Johnson_, surely one of the most beautiful allegories in the history of cinema--and a damn good Western to boot.

Mostly, though, I would like to thank Sydney for his brooding 1975 masterpiece of honor and violence, _The Yakuza_. It spawned countless vapid imitations and clearly influenced Tarantino, but its magic has never been replicated. The performances of Mitchum and Ken, both actors of great gravitas and melancholy, are perfectly balanced to create a wonderful, bittersweet chemistry of regret, reconciliation and friendship. And the climactic scene at Tono's headquarters, alternating between Mitchum's gunfighting and Ken's authentic swordplay, is simply one of the two or three best action sequences ever committed to celluloid. This set piece isn't just exciting and exotic and perfectly paced--it's actually beautiful.

Thanks for the good times, Sydney.

I loved his embrace of popular filmmaking and oldfashioned (not dumbed-down) storeytelling, loved his acting, loved his promotion of good filmmaking by others, and easy sense of himself. My husband always says, "Hey, I love that guy!" whenever he appeared on screen. We always joked that he was the world's only active Sydney Pollack fan. Nice to see that he isn't.

Well, epicciuto, tell your husband he has company.  I've been an active Sydney Pollock fan ever since his famous scene in "Tootsie" as Dustin Hoffman's agent containing the still hilarious line, "You were a tomato!!!"  Who could have been funnier in that scene?

I'll miss him.

I found myself feeling genuinely saddened at the death of Sydney Pollack.  Whether playing good guys or bad guys, his was a powerful and engaging presence in any picture when he appeared.

Hid dedication to large screen, high quality pictures meant to communicate with adults is now very unusual from the major studios.  It is both a tragedy and a catastrophe that his younger partner, Anthony Minghella, similarly dedicated and talented died just two months ago.  

I must assume that their production company, Mirage, likely dies with them.  The writer of the novel Cold Mountain, in his remembrance of Minghella pointed out that it is selfish to feel badly for the things the mourned man might have created that we will now never enjoy.

But, I can't help feeling that regret.  And, also a deep sadness that a kind of intelligence and civility of sensibility died also with these two men.  And that a connection to a better era in our cultural history died with them, too.

I hope that there are those in succeeding generations who will have its equivalent to bring forward.