No Surprise When Actors Direct Good Films

Jack Mathews’ recent speculation on the year’s Oscar prospects (“Dances With Oscar,” Calendar, Dec. 23, 1990) was an insightful and probably influential consideration of the awards-to-come, but one paragraph reflects a persistent perception that should no longer be an issue: that an actor’s success as a director should be in any way a surprise.

In commenting on Kevin Costner’s noble accomplishment in directing “Dances With Wolves,” Mathews stated “. . . and, once again, a leading man, in his first attempt at directing, shows that actors do know a little something about storytelling (Robert Redford, Paul Newman and Jack Lemmon all danced with wolves before him.)”

I’m sure Mathews appreciates the natural progression of performer to filmmaker, but the italicized emphasis of the word do reflects a certain understanding that an actor’s succeeding as a director is still man-bites-dog time for many people, even people in our industry.

It is a business where every contributor is stereotyped--actor, agent, mogul--and this categorization process inherently limits the creative efforts of these individuals. The italics acknowledge that it apparently is still big news when an actor can say the words, chew gum at the same time, try directing and live to tell the reviews.

It occurred to me, then, that this might be a good time, after a year and a decade rich in directorial accomplishment by actors, to point out that the Screen Actors Guild is a rather fertile spawning ground for the Directors Guild of America.

I realize the agenda of Mathews’ article lay elsewhere, but a list as brief as his, while not intentionally condescending, belies the real and consistent impact actors are making in the area of filmmaking.

I recently had an opportunity to work for a director named Clint Eastwood, a notable omission from Mathews’ short list. And I would be surprised if Kevin Costner isn’t a fan of Eastwood’s “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” one of the few other important Westerns of the past two decades.

Eastwood and Woody Allen--two leading men turned directors to use Mathews’ yardstick--have compiled important oevres as filmmakers since each got behind the camera at the beginning of the ‘70s. If one were to subtract “Sleeper,” “Bird,” “Annie Hall,” “Bronco Billy,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “High Plains Drifter,” “Love and Death,” “White Hunter, Black Heart,” “Broadway Danny Rose,” “Play Misty for Me,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Honky Tonk Man,” “Manhattan” and “Josey Wales” from the list of Hollywood’s accomplishments during this period, it would be a major diminution.

Allen and Eastwood between them have directed more than 30 films. Their positions as filmmakers are celebrated in such pantheons of cinema as Paris’ Cinematheque Francaise and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Allen won the Oscar for his direction of “Annie Hall” and Eastwood the Golden Globe for “Bird.”

Other American actors who won director Oscars are Warren Beatty (also not on Mathews’ list) for “Reds” and Redford for “Ordinary People.” Actors who didn’t win Oscars for their direction but won exalted places in film history for it include Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Eric Von Stroheim and William S. Hart.

Where would recent film be without the evolution into directing of other actors like Mark Rydell, Rob and Carl Reiner, Ron Howard, Penny Marshall, Richard Benjamin, Jack Nicholson, John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese, Richard Donner, Elia Kazan, Sydney Pollack, Barry Levinson, Mel Brooks, Albert Brooks, Diane Keaton, Dyan Cannon, Leonard Nimoy, Sondra Locke, Ivan Reitman, Lee Grant, Barbra Streisand and Marlon Brando? To mention but an important few American artists not previously noted. Quantitatively and qualitatively impoverished, I would say.

Costner’s “Dances With Wolves” is part of a substantial list of actor-initiated films of commercial and critical significance that were gotten off the ground--and often off the mat--only after years of persistent rejection. It was the culmination of seven or eight years of frustration and persistence, I understand.

Kirk and Michael Douglas logged about 14 years between them in getting “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” made. It took Beatty years of unswerving passion to bring “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Shampoo” and “Reds” to the screen. Sylvester Stallone followed a near-impossible path to bring the first “Rocky” to realization.

Yes, even after these, there is still resistance to the vision of actors. The accomplishment, if not the passion and judgment, of quality actors must someday bring their industry to trust them to make quality films and no longer to be surprised when they do.