The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (176 page)

Jake Gyllenhaal is the son of the director Stephen Gyllenhaal and the screenwriter Naomi Foner (she wrote
Running on Empty
). That also makes him the younger brother of Maggie Gyllenhaal—and a fairly remote member of the Swedish aristocracy. He was raised in show business and encouraged to join in. Thus, his debut was as Billy Crystal’s son in
City Slickers
(91, Ron Underwood), followed by
A Dangerous Woman
(93, Stephen Gyllenhaal);
Josh and S.A.M
. (93, Billy Weber); and
Homegrown
(98, Gyllenhaal).

That was childhood. Next he was the kid who dreams of rockets in
October Sky
(99, Joe Johnston) and the boy with visions in the cult favorite with teens
Donnie Darko
(01, Richard Kelly). The world then opened up for him:
Bubble Boy
(01, Blair Hayes);
Lovely & Amazing
(01, Nicole Holofcener); with Jennifer Aniston in
The Good Girl
(02, Miguel Arteta);
Moonlight Mile
(02, Brad Silberling);
The Day After Tomorrow
(04, Roland Emmerich). Then he was cast as one of the young shepherds in
Brokeback Mountain
(05, Ang Lee). He was notably more reticent than Heath Ledger. Did that mean less adventurous? His career is building steadily:
Proof
(05, John Madden); strong in
Jarhead
(05, Sam Mendes); as the increasing victim of plot or paranoia in
Zodiac
(07, David Fincher);
Rendition
(07, Gavin Hood);
Brothers
(09, Jim Sheridan);
Nailed
(10, David O. Russell);
Prince of Persia
(10, Mike Newell).

Maggie Gyllenhaal
, b. New York, 1977
Ms. Gyllenhaal is the daughter of screenwriter Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal. She graduated from Columbia, by which time she’d already had a few credits: a debut in her father’s
Waterland
(92) and
A Dangerous Woman
(93), where she and her younger brother, Jake, have small roles alongside Debra Winger; his
Shattered Mind
(96), done for TV, in his
The Patron Saint of Liars
(98),
Homegrown
(98), and
Resurrection
(99). Six credits—all for Dad. Was this encouragement, or his way of seeing her?

She broke the pattern with
Shake, Rattle and Roll: An American Love Story
(99, Mike Robe);
The Photographer
(00, Jeremy Stein);
Cecil B. DeMented
(00, John Waters); and
Donnie Darko
(01, Richard Kelly), a really intriguing picture where she played with her brother. She had a small part in
Riding in Cars with Boys
(01, Penny Marshall), and then she made her best-known film: as
Secretary
(02, Steven Shainberg), an usual sexual comedy about sadomasochistic mischief that showed she had an uncommon, twisted humor.

If nothing since has matched this, the lesson may be that American movies are past the days when a perverse humor could keep a pretty girl in work:
40 Days and 40 Nights
(02, Michael Lehmann);
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
(02, George Clooney);
Adaptation
(02, Spike Jonze);
Casa de los Babys
(03, John Sayles);
Mona Lisa Smile
(03, Mike Newell);
Strip Search
(04, Sidney Lumet) for TV;
The Pornographer: A Love Story
(04, Alan Wade);
Criminal
(04, Gregory Jacobs);
Happy Endings
(05, Don Roos);
The Great New Wonderful
(05, Danny Leiner), about a year after 9/11;
Trust the Man
(05, Bart Freundlich); very good in
SherryBaby
(06, Laurie Collyer), about a young mother on parole;
World Trade Center
(06, Oliver Stone); good in
Stranger Than Fiction
(06, Marc Forster):
High Falls
(07, Andrew Zuckerman);
The Dark Knight
(08, Christopher Nolan);
Away We Go
(09, Sam Mendes); remarkably chemical with Jeff Bridges in
Crazy Heart
(09, Scott Cooper).

H

Taylor Hackford
, b. Santa Barbara, California, 1945
1978:
Teenage Father
(s). 1980:
The Idolmaker
. 1982:
An Officer and a Gentleman
. 1984:
Against All Odds
. 1985:
White Nights
. 1987:
Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’
Roll
. 1988:
Everybody’s All-American
. 1993:
Bound by Honor
. 1995:
Dolores Claiborne
. 1997:
The Devil’s Advocate
. 2000:
Proof of Life
. 2004:
Ray
. 2010:
Love Ranch
.

Taylor Hackford follows his own star, and over the years he has been good value. There isn’t a great film in his list, but there’s so much that is very entertaining.
The Idolmaker
revealed a young man with a rich, comic understanding of show-business fraud, and it sparkles with the best performance by the much lamented Ray Sharkey.
An Officer and a Gentleman
was a big hit in which Hackford managed to make disputing stars seem as if they were crazy about each other.
Against All Odds
is not as good as its basis,
Out of the Past
, but it has some torrid sex scenes in Mexico and a sure eye for Rachel Ward.
White Nights
is pretty silly, but it introduced Hackford to his longtime companion, and now wife, Helen Mirren. Jessica Lange is terrific in
Everybody’s All-American. Bound by Honor
is a study of Chicago gang life; and
Dolores Claiborne
is really a study of heavily spiced acting. As for the delirious
The Devil’s Advocate
, what can one say except that it is very funny and might have been better still if Hackford had trusted the venom of satire.

More than that, Hackford is an enterprising, amiable man ready to try lots of things. He was in the Peace Corps. He did several early documentaries on figures like Charles Bukowski and Budd Boetticher.
Teenage Father
was an Oscar-winning short. And in the eighties, he became a producer:
La Bamba
(87, Luis Valdez);
The Long Walk Home
(90, Richard Pearce);
Sweet Talker
(90, Michael Jenkins);
Queens Logic
(91, Steve Rash);
When We Were Kings
(96, Leon Gast).

Gene Hackman
, b. San Bernardino, California, 1930
In the sixties and early seventies, Hackman forced himself forward by dint of persistent, rowdy work. Sadly, his most celebrated, Oscar-winning performance—as the cop in
The French Connection
(71, William Friedkin)—is a calculated impersonation of hardheadedness that, like the film, stares blindly through all the consequences. Popeye Doyle is vivid and all there: but he does not grow. Indeed, the pitch of Hackman’s mugging goes straight back to Keystone policing. Up to that film, Hackman had established himself as an interesting character actor, capable of grainy authenticity. From the stage, he made a film debut as the grating smalltown husband in
Lilith
(63, Robert Rossen) and, after
A Covenant with Death
(66, Lamont Johnson),
Hawaii
(66, George Roy Hill),
First to Fight
(67, Christian Nyby), and
Banning
(67, Ron Winston), he played Clyde’s older but “junior” brother in
Bonnie and Clyde
(67, Arthur Penn). After that, he mixed tedious cantankerousness in shoddy movies with more thoughtful versions of an abrasive, not readily appealing American seldom offered in the cinema:
The Split
(68, Gordon Flemyng);
Riot!
(69, Buzz Kulik);
The Gypsy Moths
(69, John Frankenheimer);
Downhill Racer
(69, Michael Ritchie);
Marooned
(69, John Sturges);
I Never Sang for My Father
(70, Gilbert Cates);
Doctors’ Wives
(70, George Schaefer);
The Hunting Party
(71, Don Medford);
Cisco Pike
(72, Bill L. Norton);
The Poseidon Adventure
(72, Ronald Neame);
Scarecrow
(73, Jerry Schatzberg); his best performance as the hollowed-out surveillance man, Harry Caul, in
The Conversation
(74, Francis Ford Coppola);
Young Frankenstein
(74, Mel Brooks); and as a private eye whose confidence is undone in
Night Moves
(75, Penn).

In
French Connection II
(75, John Frankenheimer) he made a harrowing portrait of a heroin addict going cold turkey; in
Bite the Bullet
(75, Richard Brooks) he was a routine cowboy; and in the dreadful
Lucky Lady
(75, Stanley Donen) his grin and his scowl seemed set in cement. His energy is most interesting when suppressed—
I Never Sang for My Father, The Conversation
, and
Night Moves
, all studies in anxiety, were his best early films. He was a full eighteen months away from the screen before
March or Die
(77, Dick Richards); a Polish officer in
A Bridge Too Far
(77, Richard Attenborough); a wildly misconceived Lex Luthor in
Superman
(78, Richard Donner).

In the eighties, Hackman had few rivals as hardworking—he did eventually have to go a little slower because of heart problems. But too many of his pictures felt like chores, and too few made full use of his power and range. He stands for that small group of actors who are much better than the films offered to them. Well into his sixties, he struggled to be a hero in adventure films, or search for the few roles that required a mature man:
Superman II
(80, Richard Lester); with Barbra Streisand in
All Night Long
(81, Jean-Claude Tramont);
Reds
(81, Warren Beatty); as the prospector in
Eureka
(81, Nicolas Roeg); a voice-over in
Two of a Kind
(83, John Herzfeld);
Under Fire
(83, Roger Spottiswoode);
Uncommon Valor
(83, Ted Kotcheff);
Misunderstood
(84, Schatzberg);
Twice in a Lifetime
(85, Bud Yorkin);
Target
(85, Penn);
Power
(86, Sidney Lumet); as the basketball coach in
Hoosiers
(86, David Anspaugh); as the Secretary of Defense in
No Way Out
(87, Roger Donaldson);
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
(87, Sidney J. Furie); with one fine scene in
Another Woman
(88, Woody Allen);
Bat 21
(88, Peter Markle);
Full Moon in Blue Water
(88, Peter Masterson);
Split Decisions
(88, David Drury); very good as the illusion-less FBI agent in
Mississippi Burning
(88, Alan Parker), and nominated for best actor;
The Package
(89, Andrew Davis);
Loose Cannons
(90, Bob Clark);
The Narrow Margin
(90, Peter Hyams); as the figure of sanity in
Postcards from the Edge
(90, Mike Nichols); as the father and lawyer in
Class Action
(90, Michael Apted); superb as the sheriff in
Unforgiven
(92, Clint Eastwood), for which he won the supporting actor Oscar; as one of the lawyers in
The Firm
(93, Sydney Pollack); and
Geronimo
(93, Walter Hill).

Anyone now would agree that Hackman is reliable in a film—but so many of his roles take that for granted and do not think to test him. All too often he is asked to deliver little more than a standard version of gruff decency. So it’s no surprise if he’s more interesting when nasty: he was father to all the Earps in
Wyatt Earp
(94, Lawrence Kasdan);
The Quick and the Dead
(95, Sam Raimi);
Get Shorty
(95, Barry Sonnenfeld);
Crimson Tide
(95, Tony Scott);
The Chamber
(96, James Foley);
The Birdcage
(96, Mike Nichols), which gave him a chance to be funny;
Extreme Measures
(96, Apted);
Absolute Power
(97, Eastwood)—as a wicked president;
Twilight
(98, Robert Benton); the voice of General Mandible in
Antz
(98, Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson);
Enemy of the State
(98, Scott);
Under Suspicion
(00, Stephen Hopkins);
The Replacements
(00, Howard Deutch);
The Mexican
(01, Gore Verbinski);
Heartbreakers
(01, David Mirkin);
Heist
(01, David Mamet);
The Royal Tenenbaums
(01, Wes Anderson); and then—with the man over seventy!—
Behind Enemy Lines
(01, John Moore), again!
Runaway Jury
(03, Gary Fleder);
Welcome to Mooseport
(04, Donald Petrie).

These days, living in Santa Fe, he writes novels and says he is retired as an actor.

Paul Haggis
, b. London, Ontario, Canada, 1953
1993:
Red Hot
. 2004:
Crash
. 2007:
In the Valley of Elah
. 2010:
The Next Three Days
.

In the middle of the 2000s, Paul Haggis sprawled cross the Oscars like a Boucher nude on a sofa.
Crash, Million Dollar Baby
and the two Iwo Jima pictures for Clint Eastwood meant that Haggis was always in the hunt. He won for writing
Crash
and the same film won for best picture (though it only got a nomination for direction).
Million Dollar Baby
was nominated in both categories, and won for best picture. And the Iwo Jima pictures—no matter how plodding and pious—were natural recipients for mindless respect. All of a sudden, after years in which he seemed to have written nearly everything on television, Haggis was reckoned in some quarters to be the breakthrough writer of the age largely because parts of Hollywood and Los Angeles mistook the crippling cute overlap-itis in
Crash
as “philosophy” and morality.