Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollackwas a United States born film director, producer and actor. Pollack directed more than 21 films and 10 television shows, acted in over 30 films or shows, and produced over 44 films. His 1985 film Out of Africa won him Academy Awards for directing and producing; he was also nominated for Best Director Oscars for They Shoot Horses, Don't They?and Tootsie, in the latter of which he also appeared...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth1 July 1934
CountryUnited States of America
Making a film is a way for me to understand what it's like to be a murderer, to confess, to be a beaten wife, to be a minority, to be a victor, to get the girl, to lose the girl. I can do all of that through the practice of an art form.
For example, a man who might not have enormous charisma, who could be president 40 years ago, and who was a deserving president, I don't know that George Washington would be a president today, I don't know that Abe Lincoln would, I don't know that Roosevelt would.
One wants to be able to experience being other people, remaking a reality, remaking a life, remaking a certain world.
The very reasons sometimes that you make a film are the reasons for its failure.
I have one life. I am a certain age. I'm married to one person. I have a certain number of children. I won't have another life other than that, but I do have many lives through the films.
The dance that happens, between actor and director, is a very delicate thing...it's why people tend to work together on many films over and over.
I think it's a terrible shame that politics has become show business.
I didn't grow up thinking of movies as film, or art, but as movies, something to do on a Saturday afternoon.
When you spend your life acting and being other people, as opposed to being the one person that you are, you learn that life is gray sometimes, not black and white. That what you thought was true isn't necessarily true if you switch sides.
I mean, certainly writing, painting, photography, dance, architecture, there is an aspect of almost every art form that is useful and that merges into film in some way.
Every single art form is involved in film, in a way.
Editing feels almost like sculpting or a form of continuing the writing process.
I'm making a plea for my colleagues and myself, who spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to tell you the story in the best possible way visually. And then someone else has to come in and cut the edges off of all that and pan and scan it. So you're not seeing what story we tried to tell you.
Well, I was born and raised in the Midwest, in Indiana specifically, and my childhood was full of weekend movies, you know, the Saturday and Sunday popcorn movies.