Gene Hackman names the best performance of his career
Gene Hackman’s reputation precedes itself, with a staggering list of credits that has showcased the true variety and versatility of his talent, playing a restless private investigator, ruthless killer and patriarch of a bizarre family. While he’s dipped his toes into both commercial and independent films, in his later years, he was more inclined to accept studio projects, deterred by the box office failure of one of his most cherished films that he desperately wanted to succeed, which he also regards as his favourite performance to this day.
Scarecrow, directed by Jerry Schatzberg in 1973, is the story of two drifters who meander around town and discuss the possibility of opening a car wash in Pittsburgh. Hackman stars alongside the great Al Pacino, who plays the intensely endearing and innocent Frances ‘Lion’ Delbuchi and the kind of character you want to wrap in cotton wool and protect for eternity.
Considering the time it was made, it is a nuanced portrait of male friendship and intimacy, both heartwarming and heartbreaking, as we watch a pair of old friends who are down on their luck and seek warmth and reassurance from each other. Both of them are polar opposites in the way they deal with their plight, showing the light and dark in both actors and creating a melancholic and playful mood all at once. Hackman is the more dominant of the duo, with Pacino’s character being more sensitive and soft-spoken, creating a lovely contrast between the two.
When Hackman was asked about his filmography, he revealed that the intimate friendship drama is in fact, his favourite from his entire body of work. We see the full spectrum of his creative prowess as he swings from reactive violence and light-hearted improvisational scenes with Pacino, with the two of them matching each other’s creative power and demanding your entire emotional bandwidth.
However, not enough people saw the film, and it largely went under the radar upon its release, something that devastated Hackman. The actor even vowed to only work on projects that would be commercially viable, crushed by the fact his passion project had mostly been forgotten.
After the release of Scarecrow, Hackman starred in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, which was heavily criticised by other filmmakers but widely loved by critics, existing as a controversial and experimental project with Coppola’s filmography. Shortly after this, Hackman took on many of his most commercially successful roles, such as in the Superman franchise, Reds, Bat * 21 and Unforgiven, choosing to opt for projects that had a safer chance of success and wouldn’t break his heart in the same way as Scarecrow.
While Hackman may have been initially disappointed by the frosty reception towards Scarecrow, the film has found a new audience today and has been rediscovered by fans of both actors, showing that the shelf-life and timeline of any creative project is not a linear one, and films continue to find their audiences many years after being made, which is one of the many joys and mysteries of the medium.
