Gene Hackman’s 15 unforgettable performances
Intense and versatile actor, he marked the cinema by his uncompromising performances. Disilling cop, crime of crime or implacable military, he was able to impose a style. Gene Hackman has just left us, we remember her strongest roles (in chronological order).
Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde, d’Arthur Penn (1967)
Gene Hackman started late at the cinema late, and he had only a handful of appearances to his credit when he was chosen by Warren Beatty to play his big brother at Arthur Penn. With his face of “trucker” (dixit Dustin Hoffman’s father) and his Frisottating hair, Hackman forges his legend with his first striking role. He shows an overflowing charismatic energy and created a perfect alchemy with Estelle Parsons, who plays his white wife. A few scenes of breakage, a spectacular confrontation with the police and a cruel end: Gene wins her first native nomination and imposes her inimitable presence.
Popeye Doyle in French connection, by William Friedkin (1971)
The cop Popeye Doyle and his teammate go to war against an international drug trafficker and go up the Marseille sector. With this film, Friedkin signs the singing of the swan of social polars produced by the warner in the 40s. Same documentary realism, same concern in the progression of the survey and the description of police methods, even dry violence. But Popeye Doyle also embodies the disenchantment and weariness of the 70s. With his little Pork Pie Hat and his approach under Octane, his cynical or racist projections, Gene Hackman brings American cinema definitively into the era of doubt and ambiguity. This subjugating performance earned him his first Oscar.
Mary Ann in Prime cut, by Michael Ritchie (1972)
In this completely crazy rural thriller, Gene Hackman Camps Mary Ann, a sadistic livestock breeder who recycles his enemies in sausages – literally. Faced with the veteran Lee Marvin, he infused a Dingo perversity and his disturbing mustache allows him to dress this bastard that is both folk and deeply creepy. His ugly “ugly back” maliciously gives the film a perfectly calibrated grotesque dimension. This performance, often forgotten in his filmography, reveals the extraordinary capacity of the actor to immerse himself in repugnant characters without ever sinking into caricature – the brand of very great.
Max in The scarecrow, by Jerry Schatzberg (1973)
His most beautiful appearance in a film. A distant silhouette that descends an ocher hill. The man approaches, determined, with his only luggage his little suitcase, to the barbed wire he tries to cross. The barrier resists him and we see the man clumsily twisting, hanging his overcoat, his cap before extricating as he can … between lyrical classicism and slapstick modern, Gene Hackman Announces the color of the film with this perfect metaphor of a man who never can completely free himself from his channels. In this melancholy road movie crowned by the Palme d’Or, he plays Max, a blurred vagabond freshly out of prison which dreams of opening a washing station. Faced with the lunar lion ofAl Pacinohis perf is a masterpiece of masked vulnerability, between modest dreams and anger on edge. If the film has aged a little, Hackman composes a striking portrait of flayed dignity.
Harry caul in Secret conversation, by Francis Ford Coppola (1974)
A private detective, a specialist in surveillance, records on behalf of a mysterious industrialist the words of a young couple surprised in a park in San Francisco. Tormented by a dark story, Harry is gradually afraid of becoming the instrument of a programmed murder. In this variation on the Work up Antonioni, Gene Hackman embodies a man torn by solitude and paranoia, very far from his usual image of an authoritarian man. Two years after the sponsor of the godfather, Coppola combines hypersensitivity, nightmare and elegance. No pyrotechnics or grimaces: just a complex soundtrack, worrying framing and an extraordinary actor. Each measured gesture, each fleeing gaze translates the isolation of this agent prisoner of his own listening. It is in the silences that Hackman excels, especially in this legendary scene where, curled up near the toilets of a hotel, it reveals the cracks of a soul dehumanized by technology. With this capital letter, he undoubtedly reached the top of his career.
Harry Moseby in Fugue, d’Arthur Penn (1975)
The Mitan of the 1970s was definitely the most beautiful period of the actor. In this unjustly unknown thriller, Gene Hackman Play Harry Moseby, ex-footballer converted into a private detective who must find the young fugueuse Delly. The kid goes from one stuntman to the other to settle her accounts with her mother, a former universal actress without talent. Night Moves (VO) is above all the story of a private man who stumbles on the truth more than he deduces it, and who discovers more things about her own life than that of her customers. Hackman gives life to a perfectly imperfect anti-hero: competent but not brilliant, insightful but blind to his own flaws, and lost in a labyrinth of deceptions where each truth hides another. Lassive America had just found his incarnation.
Lex Luthor in Superman, de Richard Don (1978)
Long before Jesse Eisenberg, John Shea or Jon Cryer, it was him, Lex Luthor! Gene Hackman In Donen to the face to the light villain of comics, both Machiavellian and eccentric. With his natural presence, the actor gave the character a sophisticated malice, mixing humor and threatens. His subtle interpretation of a megalomaniac criminal genius brings a unique touch to the film, making his luthor a memorable antagonist of the three of the four films carried by Christopher Reeve.
David Brice in One Way, by Roger Donaldson (1987)
From the mid -80s, Gene Hackman Brades his mustache in wheelbarrows B. He skims thrillers and war films with some pocket classics (Narrow Margin, return to hell…) Including this tense spy thriller, where he shines in the role of David Brice, defense secretary as powerful as corrupt. Jealous and manipulator, he orchestrates a manhunt to hide his own crime, using the whole government apparatus as a personal weapon. The performance of the actor is on the threat contained – behind the impeccable costume hides barely veiled violence. Facing a Kevin Costner Still juvenile, Hackman plays the establishment in what is most toxic. He will also do it again (even better) in Full powers.
Agent Rupert Anderson in Mississippi Burning, d’Alan Parker (1988)
This anti-racist manifesto of Alan Parker, inspired by the real murders of young civil rights activists perpetrated in 1964, is filled with memorable “gules” of American cinema. Actors accustomed to the roles of Bad Guys: Brad Dourif (Chucky),, Tobin Bell (future killer of Saw),, Michael Rooker (Merle Dixon in The Walking Dead) … Ten years after Lex Luthor and well before the Green Bouffon, Gene Hackman And Willem Dafoe could have just as well able to join the Vilains camp, but to see them forcefully oppose the members of the Ku Klux Klan is just as striking. Gene was also appointed to the Oscars for her role as an investigator, for the fourth time in her career.
Little Bill Daggett in Ruthless, by Clint Eastwood (1992)
Second Oscar in his career, twenty years after that of French Connection. With the role of the sheriff Little Bill Daggett, Gene Hackman Book an impressive interpretation that seems to synthesize everything he has done best through his long filmography – crazy authoritarianism, corruption, zealot justice and Redneck America. Its strength lies in this unique ability to switch into a simple grin of the sheriff man with a methodical monster. Under the outside of vigilante hides a calculated brutality which ices the blood. As usual, Hackman deploys an overwhelming physical presence – his massive silhouette becoming the very embodiment of corrupt authority. The scene in the prison, where he goes from paternalism to furious madness in one click of revolver, remains the top of a role where Hackman makes everyday life and horror coexist without apparent transition. His last support, after the saloon bloodbath – “I don’t deserve to die like that, I was building a house “ – is a masterpiece of moral ambiguity.
Avery tolar in The firm, from Sydney Pollack (1993)
Facing Tom Cruise,, Gene Hackman embodies a troubled mentor, oscillating between benevolence and manipulation. Their clashes, with palpable tension, punctuate the film as a game of chess. His step of two with Jeanne Tripplehornbetween seduction and cynicism, strengthens the ambiguity of his character. Manipulator but human, it imposes a formidable presence without ever forcing the line.
John Herod in Dead or lively, from Sam Raimi (1995)
At the top of the delusional Gunfight Orchestrated by Raimi, there is the Valkyrie Avenge embodied by Sharon Stone in front of an ex-bandit who became mayor and played by Gene Hackman. And who is rightly called Herod, like the King of Judea who (according to the Bible) massacred all the children of Bethlehem in the hope of killing the Messiah. This character is a cartoonian reflection of his Little Bill in merciless released three years earlier. Hackman is immense even in Raimi, concentrating the hatred of the trio of shooters (Stone, Crowe, DiCaprio) with biblical intensity. Amen.
Captain Frank Ramsey in USS Alabama, by Tony Scott (1995)
Tyrannical captain facing Denzel Washingtonhis intense game, oscillating between charisma and brutality, perfectly embodies the paw Gene Hackmangiving the tempo to the electrical tension of the film. The actor imposes his presence, making each confrontation captivating, uncompromising master aboard this nuclear submarine. Gene Hackman Give body to the moral conflict that is played out on board the vessel, permeating the bridge of its raw and unpredictable and charismatic authority.
President Allen Richmond in Full powersby Clint Eastwood (1997)
A year after playing in the American remake of The Cage aux Folles, Gene Hackman proves once again its versatility by embodying … The President of the United States. However, he is not the hero of the film, since it is Eastwood. Clint embodies Luther, a safe perceur, who will become the accidental witness of a murder committed by the president, and who at the same time tries to reconnect with his daughter. In this explosive mixture of thriller and family melo, Hackman gives himself to heart, playing with delicious irony this pervert polymorphic with a carnivorous smile. With the added bonus, one of the great moments of his career, the number of Paso Doble with his communication advisor (Judy Davis brilliant), a sort of choreography of political Machiavellianism which is really cold in the back
Royal Tenenbaum in The Tenenbaum family, de Wes Anderson (2001)
In a genre that he will have finally experienced little over his career, comedy, Hackman embodies Royal Tenenbaum, an eccentric and disconnected father, who seeks to redeem himself from his children after years of negligence. Without falling into the wacky farce, he plays this complex character with great subtlety, evolving in the quirky and lunar atmosphere specific to the universe of Wes Anderson. Through his interactions with the amazing casting composing the family gallery, he captures the absurdity of their lives, mixing despair and comic moments to create a portrait that is both poignant and strange.
