By: Peter Bradshaw, film critic / The Guardian
Translation: Telegrafi.com

As the film ends, our perspective slowly moves from side to side, endlessly, back and forth like a security camera in a ruined apartment. Everything is turned upside down, board by board, in a desperate attempt to find the bugging device that has been spying on the apartment's occupant. With every movement of the camera, the man appears in a corner, playing the saxophone. Fatalistic, but not exactly desperate; realistic, but not exactly disillusioned—a master who is an artist at heart, nonchalant, magnificent. Gene Hackman's performance as wiretapping expert Harry Cole, in Francis Coppola's paranoid conspiracy drama, Conversation [The Conversation, 1974], was a gem in his career. Cole is a professional wiretapper who becomes obsessed with a conversation he records for a mysterious client, something that, to his horror, reveals a murder plot – unleashing his own personal tortures of guilt and loneliness. The film moves through several variations of intonation and tone, which Harry doesn’t realize until it’s too late.

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Gene Hackman's death marks the end of one of the greatest periods of American cinema: the American New Wave. Hackman was the gold standard for this era, ever since Warren Beatty gave him the big break for the role of Buck Baroui in Arthur Penn's film, Bonnie and Clyde [Bonnie and Clyde, 1967]. He was a character actor who was, in fact, a star; indeed, he was a star in every scene he was in – with that stern, clear-headed, intelligent but unattractive face, always on the verge of cold disdain or a fatherly, pained smile. He was not handsome like [Robert] Redford, nor dangerous and sexy like [Jack] Nicholson, nor carefree like [Dustin] Hoffman; Hackman was normal, but his normality was overloaded with extraordinary intensity. His hair was typical of the time: curly, with visible traces of male pattern baldness. You don’t see stars with haircuts like his these days.

He was unforgettable as the ruthless and racist police officer Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in French Connection [The French Connection, 1971] by William Friedkin and its sequel; masterful as the clergyman Scott in director Ronald Neame's classic disaster film, Poseidon's Adventure [The Poseidon Adventure, 1972]; excellent as an ex-convict in Jerry Schatzberg's existential masterpiece, Gogol [Scarecrow, 1973]; and perhaps most memorable as the bewildered private detective in Night movements Penn's [Night Moves, 1975]. Later, he brilliantly played Lex Luthor in the films Superman, starring Christopher Reeve, and then the mysterious plutocrat and self-made billionaire Jack Mackenzie in Eureka (1983) by Nicolas Roeg – a performance that probably inspired Daniel Day-Lewis for the film Blood will flow. [There Will Be Blood].

Hackman's career is so rich with great achievements that it's almost impossible to summarize, but among them is FBI agent Anderson, in Mississippi on fire [Mississippi Burning, 1988] by Alan Parker; the film's frustrated director, Lowell Kolchek, in Postcard from hell [Postcards from the Edge, 1990] by Mike Nichols; and the crushed sheriff Bill Daggett in the western The unforgivable [Unforgiven, 1992] by Clint Eastwood. Not to mention the mysterious lawyer opposite Tom Cruise, in the film company [The Firm, 1993].

And then there is his late comic masterpiece – perhaps his masterpiece, and there is no doubt about it: The Royal Tenenbaums in The Tenenbaum family [The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001] by Wes Anderson, a disgraced and impoverished man who faked stomach cancer to enable him to return to his family, his ex-wife (played by Anjelica Huston with equal skill) and their grown children, three strange and eccentric geniuses played by Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow and Luke Wilson.

What's so remarkable about these portrayals is that Hackman's age never seems to change: he always looks powerful, tough, and somewhere in his 40s or 50s. The Royal Tenenbaums' Hackman could easily take on the role of Popeye Doyle's Hackman.

Like a tough cop in French Connection – for which he won the award Oscar for best actor – Hackman has many memorable scenes where he does nothing but patrol the city: in that celluloid New York of the 70s, recorded with sound on film, where the distant sounds of space and car horns can be heard. Hackman could masterfully play the passive role as well as the dynamic part: the racist forcible entry into the bar of black people, the violence against the suspects, the angry and contemptuous outbursts, and the hushed tone of sadness. It was the performance that set the standard for all the roles he played afterwards.

He was quite different from Harry Mosby in Night movements. Mosby is a private detective, with a 70s mustache, who emphasizes his frustration as he is tasked with tracking down a runaway teenage girl while also spying on a client's wife, but who stumbles upon a complicated mess that he never manages to solve. The film gave him one of his most famous quotes. When he turns down the opportunity to see the film My night at Fashion [My Night at Maud's] by Eric Rohmer, he says: “I saw a Rohmer film once. It was like watching paint dry.” He pronounces the word with such disdain that film fans laugh.

Equally excellent is his interpretation in Eureka Roeg's, an underrated metaphysical thriller based on a true crime that gives Hackman one of the best roles of his career: a treasure hunter who strikes it rich and retreats to the Bahamas, while living in fear that his fortune will be taken by his daughter (Theresa Russell) and two ruthless Miami mob investors (Joe Pesci and Mickey Rourke). Again, Hackman hits all the right notes of calm defiance, fearless and unconcerned with anything but the strange demons inside his mind.

In the end, his interpretation always comes to mind in The Tenenbaum family, a role that builds on his reputation as a tough guy who doesn’t take crap, but doesn’t satirize or reimagine his previous career. His old white-striped suit, his cigarette in his straw, his glasses, his implacable smile, even his slightly long hair, are all perfect – as is the moment when he finally has to swallow his pride and take a job at the Lindbergh Palace Hotel, wearing a hat and a surprisingly well-tailored uniform. His diction is impeccable, especially when he speaks to his bewildered grandchildren about their mother, his niece, who died in a plane crash: “Your mother was a very attractive woman.”

It makes no sense to call Hackman simple when his presence was so powerful; in some ways, he expressed the strength of a retired athlete turned sports commentator, or, for that matter, of a high school basketball coach when he played in Best shot [Hoosiers, 1986]. For four decades, Gene Hackman's performances gave shape and structure to American cinema. /Telegraph/

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