Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Anyone whose favorite actor was Robert Mitchum is okay by me.
According to the Associated Press story I read first, Frankenheimer died from a stroke that was brought on by complications from a spinal surgery he was undergoing at Cedar-Sinai. He was 72 years old, and I would argue that he still had great work in him, unlike many of his peers who have already quietly retreated from the business. Anyone who saw the incredible car chase in RONIN in 1998 knows that he was still capable of crafting cutting-edge action sequences, something that is considered a young man’s game. Hell, even his film that was part of the BMW short series last year was insanely kick-ass. There was an elegance to it that younger action directors would do well to observe and emulate.
More than that, though, Frankenheimer had a long and important career as a filmmaker, and leaves a filmography that should make most young filmmakers today tremble in awe. This is the guy who directed BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and SEVEN DAYS IN MAY and THE TRAIN and SECONDS. Any one of those movies would be enough to cement his name, but to have essentially directed them back to back to back is staggering.
SECONDS, in particular, stands as one of the most intelligent and effective SF thrillers I’ve ever seen. I don’t want to detail it, since I know many of you haven’t seen it, but I will say that if you complain about lack of characterization in films or that no one writes for adults, you owe it to yourself to search out SECONDS. It touches on fear of aging, on the destructive nature of vanity, and on the notion of second chances. It is also a haunting story about love that I found nearly impossible to shake after the first time I saw it.
His cable biopic GEORGE WALLACE won him a slew of awards a few years back, and they were well-deserved. He was a man of enormous social conscience, and the film was heartfelt and thoughtful in equal measure. Frankenheimer had been politically active over the years. On the day Robert Kennedy was shot, it was Frankenheimer who drove him to the Ambassador Hotel.
Was his work uniformly brilliant? No. Like many directors, he had stretches of uneven work. In particular, the ‘70s seemed to be hard on him. He wasn’t a writer, though, and was basically subject to whatever material he could get his hands on. If there’s any one experience he must have regretted, ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU would be it. He was famously quoted in PREMIERE magazine as saying, "There are two things I will never do in my life. I will never climb Mount Everest, and I will never work with Val Kilmer again. There isn't enough money in the world." Kilmer is notorious for testing directors, as is Marlon Brando, and when Frankenheimer was called in to take over for the missing-in-action Richard Stanley on MOREAU, he got eaten alive. It’s a shame, too, because even amidst the madness and chaos of that film, there are things to like. In fact, some of what works is the pervasive sense that the people you’re watching are genuinely deranged.
He just left the director’s seat of the new EXORCIST prequel a few weeks back, something I didn’t get at the time. It’s actually a very solid script, and Frankenheimer seemed to be appropriate for the material. Liam Neeson commented at the time that he only signed on to work with the veteran director, and that he was saddened to have lost that opportunity.
Today, I think all of Hollywood understands how he feels.
Our condolences to the friends and family of this filmmaking legend, and our best wishes to them in this difficult time.
"Moriarty" out.
