Pollack (1934-2008) was that rare Hollywood figure who was gifted at directing, acting, and producing. In this incisive collection of interviews, film scholars McGilligan and Cronin convincingly argue that “for forty years, from his first picture to his last, Pollack sustained a busier, longer, more fruitful, and more consistent career than many in his peer generation.” The interviews, which ran in publications around the world, range from 1970 to 2007. Readers learn of his youth in Indiana; Casablanca, he says, “gave my life meaning. I’m sure my entire style comes from the fact that I found nothing in the Midwest to sustain me.” After a couple years in the Army, he got his start acting in TV shows in New York City. A job as the dialogue coach for John Frankenheimer’s The Young Savages, starring Burt Lancaster, prompted his move to Los Angeles in 1960. “At the end of the picture,” he recounts, “I was packing my bags when I got a call from Lancaster’s secretary. ‘Mr. Lancaster would like to see you.’ I went over to his offices, and he said, ‘Listen, stop screwing around. You should become a director.’” It was good advice. Pollack’s movies include such successes as They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), Three Days of the Condor (1975), Tootsie (1982), Out of Africa (1985), and The Firm (1993). As McGilligan and Cronin write, “He reliably gave motion picture fans…major stars in superbly crafted entertainment, undergirded by serious themes.” Film buffs will enjoy Pollack getting into the technical details of directing: “Panavision is the only medium you can work in where you never lose the sense of environment.” And his frank take on Hollywood has aged well: “I am part of this institutionalization now in the film business.” One once had “the satisfaction of yelling” at someone who owned a studio, but corporations took over—and “you can’t argue with an institution.”
