Nice deep dive on one of my favorite films. But I feel Kamal is more gifted than Hoffman, Ok jayram. Doc Levy (Roy Scheider) is an American secret agent who has been running interference between the US government and escaped Nazi war criminal Szell (Laurence Olivier). And thus, with minimum effort, he successfully brings out the character, and his performance is absolutely chilling, brilliant enough to win an Oscar nomination for support actor. But a closure to the character doesn’t mean all the loose ends in the plot are tied up. Also, in the form of corrupt government agent, Janeway, who joins hands with Nazi, Szell, we get a modern representation of McCarthyism. One of the most famous, real-life Hollywood stories of generational clash between actors, which was… Hoffman told him, to which Olivier replied in jest “Why not try acting? Marathon Man: Method-maestro Dustin Hoffman battles the great thespian Laurence Olivier in this pulse-pounding thriller that’s basically a ‘coming of age’ story and tackles deeper themes like anti-Semitism, Follow MANK'S MOVIE MUSINGS on WordPress.com. A Nazi hunter in Paraguay discovers a sinister and bizarre plot to rekindle the Third Reich. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Also, a lot of the explanation for the stuff that happens in the first act actually comes only in the second and third acts (for some mysteries, there’re no explanation at all). The best GIFs are on GIPHY. The Invisible Man. I hope all is well with you. Babe is paying homage to his deceased father, H.B. Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man. Marathon man was a 'pleasant' surprise with its downright macabre tone and high body count. With Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane. One of the biggest grouses i have is regards to Dustin Hoffman’s performance, which comes across as too labored and over the top. While at Columbia, Babe meets and begins to date Elsa Opel, a foreign exchange student also in History. When I get time, I’ll read your Heat piece. Szell then takes Doc by surprise and stabs him with a blade concealed in his sleeve. Hoffman has repeatedly denied the story, and blamed this on a journalist who interviewed him on the set of the film for misquoting him; according to him: The torture scene was filmed early in the morning, Hoffman was going through a divorce from his first wife and was depressed, and had spent the previous two nights partying hard. The beginning of the film is particularly well-written and intriguing, since it's full of creepy and cryptic events that are not immediately explained. Babe will learn that the mugging was not a random attack after someone close to Babe is found murdered, the deceased who was not who he purported to be. Add to that Laurence Olivier’s performance, which is great all round, but is particularly effective in this sequence: his cold, detached demeanor, his artist like care and temperament while using his tools, and his utter contempt for human life – he holds his probes in one one hand and clove oil in another to prove to Babe how easily interchangeable pain and relief, life and death is. Laurence Olivier (1907–1989) was an English actor who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, ... Marathon Man (1976) and The Boys from Brazil (1978). You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Let’s agree to disagree on Hoffman! The scenes of Babe running is intercut with Szell’s brother retrieving the diamonds from the bank. Then, Babe has a confrontation with Janeway and Szell’s henchman at Szell’s brother’s house, where Janeway offers to let Babe kill Szell in revenge for Doc’s death, if Janeway can have the diamonds; he also gives Babe the location of Szell’s bank. But these issues aside, the film still works for me; purely on a visceral level, it’s thrilling and engrossing, and on an intellectual level, it may not be fully convincing, but i find it ambitious and thought provoking. Although Marathon Man takes place in New York and most of the movie was filmed there, some scenes were … But, alas, I find the ultimate explanation of these events to be rather prosaic and disappointing.So, I think the movie's strengths lie in the acting and directing, more so than the story. This is almost like a time-travel moment. I can watch it numerous times and never get bored. He performed the role while undergoing treatment for his cancer, which included heavy doses of painkillers to allow him to work every day. In the ensuing gunfight, Janeway, Elsa and the two henchman are killed, while Babe escapes. Devane too is sinister and despite playing presidents, he has that untrustworthy look and demeanor that makes one instantly suspect him to be a traitor. Know what I mean?William Goldman, one of Hollywood's few celebrity screenwriters, wrote both the original novel and the script for this film version. And sorry to disappoint you and Schlesinger, but Pacino would have been a misfit for the role. I’m going to have to strongly disagree with you on Hoffman. The scene where Babe is kidnapped by Szell’s thugs is brilliantly set up by Schlesinger and the great cinematographer, Conrad L. Hall. Especially during the scenes when they return to the hideout and Janeway is revealed to be an accomplice to Szell and the escape from Szell’s hideout where he could have been totally naked (as a runner myself, I know the feeling of running for your life). "Marathon Man" fits that description. Change ). Regarding Kamal and Hoffman, what he meant I think is that they’re not naturally as talented as Brando. To play this role, he lost fifteen pounds, he ran up to four miles a day to get into shape; Even in scenes where there’s no running, but has to show the after effects of long running, there’s no faking of heavy breathing. Directed by John Schlesinger. pour télécharger et voir les films en streaming gratuitement sur notre site enregistrer vous gratuitement . Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. )In the end, "Marathon Man" isn't quite another "French Connection," but it's got more than enough suspense to crush a lot of the dross that infests theaters today. Babe has been tormented about this all his life, and his running and his obsession with attaining a PhD. Doc reports these incidents to his superior Peter Janeway(William Devane), who’s rather nonchalant in his response. One of the most famous, real-life Hollywood stories of generational clash between actors, which was later found to be more apocryphal, is the one involving the great British thespian, Sir Laurence Olivier, and new age method-wiz kid, Dustin Hoffman, on the sets of Director John Schlesinger’s 1976 thriller, Marathon Man. Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (/ ˈ l ɒr ə n s ˈ k ɜːr ə ˈ l ɪ v i eɪ /; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trinity of male actors who dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. [after Szell tortures Babe by drilling into a healthy tooth, he still gets no information about Babe's brother, frustrating Szell] There are quite a lot of stuff kept hanging. The film benefits immensely from being shot on real locations in New York city, it has the same decaying feel of the city that can be seen in many New York set films of the 1970s, like Taxi Driver(1976), though this film has the look and feel of the gritty, street thrillers of Sidney Lumet like Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon. One of the reasons for this is that as a new-Hollywood director, Schlesinger is more concerned with character rather than plot, but in a mystery\thriller the plot is of paramount importance, and the source novel has a hell of a lot of plot. Laurence Olivier could speak William Shakespeare's lines as naturally as if he were "actually thinking them", said English playwright Charles Bennett, who met Olivier in 1927. Title: Being a dentist, he used to takeout the golden tooth of the Jews before he burned them, and thereby collected a nice fortune. Whatever the truth of the matter, the story is a good reflection on the acting styles of the two actors; Sir Olivier is a British stage actor, who looked at acting as an act of creating an illusion of the character he’s playing; the chief tools for which are accents, makeup, costumes etc. He is also training as a marathon runner. student in Columbia university, who is also training to be a Marathon runner. Use the HTML below. Marthe Keller. He’s beaten up in the park, his girlfriend turns out to be phony, his brother dies, he’s kidnapped and tortured, then he escapes and starts his quest for vengeance. This means that Szell will have to come out of hiding to get his diamonds, but he’s suspicious of the network of couriers he had employed in the past; that they would track him down and steal the diamonds. About this all his co-workers dead, and not stylized at all to retrieve the fortune diamonds. 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