R.I.P. Jules Dassin
Aged 96. Damn, I was looking for a Jewish filmmaker to outlive Leni Riefenstahl. First Billy Wilder let me down, now this.
And yes, I let Richard Widmark’s death go unmentioned (but was gratified to see him get his due all over the blogosphere) but I’m glad I wrote about Widmark and Dassin when they were both very much alive.
My friend Duncan suggests that what with this and the passing of Abby Mann, it’s time for anybody closely associated with Widmark to worry.
A while back I gave a copy of NIGHT AND THE CITY to a friend on his birthday. Said friend had complained of an aversion to noir, and I wasn’t going to let that stand. Months later, you’ll be happy to know, Dassin’s film had cured him entirely, and he was watching it regularly with friends — it had become “like STAR WARS or something.” (You maybe have to be able to conceive of people watching STAR WARS regularly to be able to get that image, and I confess it’s a stretch for me, too.)
Here is a somewhat mysterious image of Dassin (the one with the flag) disguised as a beaver. It isn’t how *I* will be choosing to remember him, but for those of you who don’t know his work, this will LODGE IN YOUR BRAINS and force you to seek out NIGHT AND THE CITY and RIFIFI etc. The gain will be entirely yours.
April 1, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Because of Widmark’s death Dassin died just as the entire movie-loving world was talking about Night and the City — the obvious masterpiece of both director and star.
April 1, 2008 at 2:12 pm
If one good thing comes of it, maybe a few more of Dassins’ European films will be made available. Pretty much all the good stuff has been mined from the American period, and fine as Brute Force and Thieves’ Highway are, I have hopes that some of the unavailable stuff post-Rififi might be even better.
I will continue to shout my love of 1030pm Summer from the rooftops, but I want to see Phaedra, a non-dubbed version of The Law, Promise at Dawn, The Rehearsal and He Who Must Die.
April 1, 2008 at 3:38 pm
That’s fucked up! I only watched BRUTE FORCE last night (my first Dassin, in fact).. and he goes and dies shortly afterwards!!
*contemplates watching JAWS tonight.
R.I.P. indeed.
April 1, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Brute Force is pretty damn good, though Dassin was a little scornful of it himself: “All those convicts were so NICE,” but you have to see more. Night and the City certainly merits its rep, in fact it merits a higher one. And I wish Criterion had included both cuts on their issue of it, there are scenes present in each that are absent in the other, and they have two different but effective scores.
More on Dassin soon, I suspect.
April 1, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Lenny Bruce’s classic routine “Father Flotsky’s Triumph” is basically a riff on Brute Force.
April 1, 2008 at 11:04 pm
["O.T." Comment]
I always thought of “Shawshank Redemption,” which I’ve been unable to watch without giggling, as “Father Flotsky’s Triumph” played straight. As it were.
April 1, 2008 at 11:19 pm
It’s kind of ridiculous that I’ve reached my advanced age without any experience of Lenny beyond the Bob Fosse film. I should get my hands on some of his stuff soon.
April 2, 2008 at 2:18 am
Well, it’s got to qualify as odd that these two noir greats die within days of each other — though not as strange as Bergman and Antonioni dying basically on the same day. This is the end of all living touchstones to that great period, unless you count Kirk Douglas, which even given his prominence (and great work) in Out of the Past, etc. is a stretch.
A sad week. The fact that they both achieved greatness without selling their souls to the Hollywoood fame demons makes it all the more poignant.
April 2, 2008 at 9:08 am
Oh, I count Douglas. Not the loveliest of human beings, and a latecomer to ’40s cinema, but an icon.
And we shouldn’t forget Joan Fontaine and Olivia DeHavilland, sisters who no longer speak to each other, but GREAT stars both and links to the ’30s!
Dassin had real Integrity. To hear him speak about Kazan is always illuminating, although you can see the pain it causes him in these interviews.
April 2, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Googie Withers (the ff in Night and the City) is still with us aged 91.
JL
April 2, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Good thought! A remarkable player with a truly amazing career. I hope she’s with us for a long time to come.