More Bourgeois Than Bohemian

One of the most atypical Hollywood auteurs was Alan J. Pakula, whose career extended into the blockbuster era before his untimely death in a 1998 car accident. As is usually the case with contemporary film figures, Jared Brown, cinema scholar and former chair of Illinois Wesleyan University’s School of Theatre Arts, relies upon interviews with family members, friends, and co-workers to construct his narrative. The result of this approach to Hollywood biography is often an exposé of the film capital’s underside of corruption, drugs, and sex scandals. This is certainly not the case with Brown’s study of Pakula, where the focus remains upon the filmmaking.

Perhaps this is, in part, due to the fact that Pakula’s personal life was more bourgeois than bohemian. Born in New York City on 7 April 1928 to parents of Polish ancestry, Pakula was a fine student, who disappointed his father by majoring in drama at Yale and pursuing a career in film rather than taking over the family printing business. After achieving success in Hollywood, Pakula moved his offices to New York City, where he was always more comfortable. He was married to actress Hope Lange in 1963. Lange was frustrated with Pakula’s insistence that she subordinate her career to the marriage and his filmmaking, asking for a divorce in 1969. Four years later Pakula married widower and historian Hannah Boorstin, and the couple remained together until the film director’s death. Although he had no children of his own, Pakula was devoted to the stepchildren from his two marriages.

Family members, friends, and colleagues described the filmmaker as intelligent, deliberate, compassionate, and hard working, and careful (making his accidental death all the more ironic).

He eschewed the Hollywood social scene in favor of a more conventional life style, enjoying the comforts of his position and status.

Based upon these extensive interviews, Brown makes the argument for Pakula as an auteur, even though the filmmaker practiced his craft in a number of different genres. Brown concludes that Pakula’s films are notable for an interest in psychology and character development. He was known for being an actor’s director, especially eliciting outstanding performances from his female leads such as Liza Minnelli, Jane Fonda, and Meryl Streep. Pakula was also concerned with issues of official power and the courage of individuals to speak truth to corrupt institutions. Although Pakula is usually described as a liberal, any comments from Pakula on the major issues of the 1960s such as the Vietnam War, civil rights movement, or counterculture are strangely missing from this biography.

Paula’s film career began as a producer rather than director, making a series of films with Robert Mulligan. While many of their productions were less than stellar, in 1962 Pakula and Mulligan made one of America’s most beloved films, To Kill a Mockingbird. Itching to try his hand at directing, Pakula dissolved his partnership with Mulligan, directing The Sterile Cuckoo (1969) with Liza Minnelli, who gained an Oscar nomination for her performance in a coming of age romance. Pakula followed this success with the thriller Klute (1971), featuring Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda. Although initial reviews of the film were lukewarm, Klute resonated with audiences. Fonda earned an Oscar for her performance, and the film is now considered a classic.

When his tragic romance Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1972) bombed at the box office, Pakula returned to the themes of political power and corruption with The Parallax View (1974) and All the President’s Men (1976). While The Parallax View offers a pessimistic conclusion as to the ability of an individual to triumph in the face of governmental and corporate control, the film adaptation of the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein book champions the labors of honest reporters in exposing the corruption of the Nixon administration. The film concentrates upon the journalists rather than Nixon, for the “liberal” Pakula feared alienating Republican audiences.

All the President’s Men earned Pakula an Academy Award nomination...