Sydney Pollack is, for my money, the greatest actor who just happened to be a world class director. In addition to helming Tootsie, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Three Days of the Condor, and Jeremiah Johnson, he also collected an Academy Award, even if it was for a film (Out of Africa) that didn’t quite measure up to the aforementioned classics. Here’s a man who took Robert Redford (a muse if there ever was one) to new heights, survived an extended shoot with Babs Streisand, and never blinked in the face of Paul Newman or Tom Cruise. But whenever he stepped in front of the camera, he was never less than the most interesting man in the room. A towering presence with sly wit; an underserved talent who could have been a leading man had the stars aligned. From his exasperated agent in Tootsie to the creepy amorality of Eyes Wide Shut, Pollack brought effortless charisma to anything and everything he touched.
But it was his role in Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives where he really took off. Oscar should have been listening, but as usual, it turned its back on the deserving. After all, Pollack’s Jack is the sort of man we instinctively understand. Take his wife, Sally (Judy Davis, who was nominated). She’s cool, reserved, and undeniably brilliant, but she’s also so alarmingly neurotic, she threatens to tear off her own skin. She’s the kind of woman you’d love to hear give a Ted Talk, or lead a tour group through the Guggenheim, but after hours, resting on the couch, she’d be more apt to leave you asking where she kept the knives. She simply cannot relax; not at dinner, nor in bed, and if she managed to dust off the inevitable migraine, you’d finish as quickly as possible, if only to get her post-coital critique out of the way. Any orgasmic high would be immediately replaced by the standard emasculation.
Why Jack married her is obvious, because he’s clearly a man who cherishes the elevated experience. Art, music, travel; all fill a great need, and who better to explain their inherent appeal? And yet, despite the cultured blood that courses through his veins, he’s still a man. An aging man. A man flirting with sixty and all the unavoidable perils that clock in as that difficult age looms. I mean, it’s great to chew over the Mahler concert as the appetizers arrive, but does he really want to spend his waking moments living up to an impossible ideal? And when, exactly, did the innocent flirtations and soothing connections turn into humorless lectures and unending nitpicking? The blowjobs once came early and often, now it’s all he can do to get out the door before being blasted with the latest harangue. It’s gotten so bad, he looks upon being merely henpecked as his salad days.
Naturally, Jack turns to other women. Hookers, to be exact, though his first instinct is to brush off the idea with self-righteous disgust. What kind of a man would resort to prostitution? Turns out, a man like Jack, because office affairs are tacky and fraught with risk, and hookers never ask questions. And they leave right on schedule. So the number he first threw in the trash soon becomes his regular appointment. After all, when your colleague describes the woman as having a mouth “like velvet,” you’re going to place a call. And likely clean out your savings account in the process. Jack soon ups the stakes to include an additional female, because hey, a threesome never hurt anybody. And Sally would no sooner bring home a friend than laugh uproariously. Onward! But hubris, being what it is, soon lands Jack in a medical crisis, and he abruptly ends a session with the panic that stems from a cardiac event. Only it’s not. Jack was simply experiencing uninhibited passion for the first time in years and likely wondered why he wasn’t steeped in boredom by minute three. The confusion makes perfect sense.
Jack could have kept it clean and easy and stuck with escorts, but the middle age crisis won’t allow one to leave well enough alone. A man starts to think he needs love. He does not, I assure you, but the phony heart attack got him thinking – do I really want to die alone? Wouldn’t it be nice to spend my final days with a wink and a smile, instead of thinking of yet another way to apologize? Enter the chippy. A young, hot, stacked-and-packed dope who can take you away from the aging process altogether. A woman into exercise, tight clothes, good food, and vitamins. Sure, she’s also fond of astrology, stupid movies, and unbridled hysteria, but she digs her nails into your back during sex. And Sally gnawed hers off soon after the honeymoon, so you learn to take the good with the bad. And hasn’t she gotten me to jog every morning? Finally, a woman who actually wants me to live and thrive and be the best Jack possible.
But since this is a Woody Allen picture, we know, as night follows day, that chronic dissatisfaction is Jack’s lot. His burden to bear. He will fuck, lose weight, and laugh at “the sort of movie Sally would never allow in the house”, but once too often – here, being a party with people he actually respects – the cackle of buffoonery will drive him to the edge. The old instincts will kick in. And yes, he’ll start to pine for the very thing he so recently considered intolerable. Because, at bottom, Jack can’t stand his own existence. He knows happiness is utterly impossible, but firm tits distracted him from the congenital cynicism that used to define him. He tried the exact opposite of his marriage, only to find that all things being equal, being humiliated, unsatisfied, and bereft is always better than listening to a twenty-something ramble on about crystals. Sally had all the charm of a Nazi guard at Auschwitz, but Christ Almighty, at least she’d mastered the English language.
Maybe it was hearing a respected friend, Gabe (Woody Allen), refer to the new woman as a “cocktail waitress.” Or perhaps it was the temper tantrum outside the party, complete with unholy screams, tears, and veiled threats that turned the tide. And finding a new man over at the house – his house! – certainly didn’t help. Or, at last, the crushing thought that as he lay dying, the last thing he’d hear was some conspiracy theory linking fluoride to a faked moon landing. Whatever it was, Jack blinked. Blinked hard. Knowing he’d be committing slow suicide, he returns to Sally. Sure, he’ll miss the laughter, joy, and reasons to live, but at least he’ll be with the woman he deserves. They can grow old together; miserable, self-hating, and always pining for more. But Jack spent a little time with more and found it wanting. Because it will always be wanting. Life is like that. Better to rest in place, stewing in our own juices. As Jefferson once said, “We are all masochists now.” Though maybe he said Republicans. Oh well, same difference.
Leave a Reply