It’s goodbye to Popeye Doyle, or the actor who embodied him, Gene Hackman, when the legendary screen actor died yesterday at the age of 95. Hackman had not been seen in films for some time, having retired 20 years ago. He stopped acting in 2004 after a few flops, and to be honest if you came up in the golden era of cinema in the 1970s like Hackman did you were probably spoiled rotten from the quality, compared to what filmmaking would become.
Gene Hackman was California-born and bred, and enlisted in the Marines serving for years before trying his hand at acting. He came to New York with a dream where he just so happened to become roomies with two other unknown guys, Dustin Hoffman and Bob Duvall. All went in their own direction, but something must have been in the air in that apartment in Manhattan’s Lower East Side as each delivered (mainly) quality over quantity in the films they were in.
Read more: Gene Hackman: Goodbye PopeyeHackman was never a leading man, he was in that unique 70s club of ‘character’ actors alongside Hoffman and Duvall. ‘Character’ was meant to be a peg or two down from leading man in terms of attractiveness, Hackman said in interviews. But character actors made up for this cruel demotion in their performance. The French Connection is one of Hackman’s greatest performances and this film is so revered for many reasons, and a massive one is his performance. Led by William Friedkin as director, an absolute renegade himself in terms of his directing approach which can only be described as guerilla.
The French Connection is so much more than just a cop thriller, and it’s certainly more than just an impeccable car chase (but it certainly helps). Corruption in the police force is its subject matter and Gene Hackman and Rob Schneider are cops intent on busting a heroin ring coming in from Europe. Hackman in particular plays Popeye Doyle with such an unflinching, tenacious voracity to take his opponent down at all costs. He is relentless and as eager to destroy as his enemy is, making him the perfect anti-hero for what could have been a sanitised, run of the mill cop drama. That, was the difference creatives in the seventies like Hackman were resolved to portray; that we’re far from angels ourselves. Hackman embodied something that only some of the greats can do and is less common these days: he was the ultimate everyman.
FILM FOR THOUGHT 