Headline, June16, 2013

'''THE TRAGICALLY -SHORT-LIF​ED-

 ACTING GENIUS'''

John Cazale died at the age of 42, on 12 March, 1978, from lung cancer that had metastasized to the bone, and he left behind just five film roles, all of them supporting parts and a screen time that added up to a little more than an hour. But, as they say, never mind the width, feel the quality.

Each of these Films  -The Godfather (1972)  The Conversation (1974) The Godfather : Part II (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975)  and The Deer Hunter (1978)  -was nominated for the Best Picture at the Oscars and each is still considered to be among the ''finest films of all time.''

In total, they hauled  40 Academy Award nominations although, despite his totemic presence, Cazale never received a single one. It has led him, when he is remembered at all, to be described as ''a Zelig of the Seventies movie boom.''

Cazale was by no means a flashy actor. He was sly and subtle, mostly doing his work at the margins of a scene. Directors were quick to pick up on the fact that his face  -those intense eyes, that absurd hairline, the features that should have been drawn by Simpsons artist  -had a rich emotional complexity. They would cut to him constantly for reaction.

He could make you empathise with a vulnerable, weak and self-loathing character; if you needed to make a halfwit psychopath loveable, there was no one better. Any scene he was in seemed to become more tragic and more comic. Certainly, he inspired devotion from those who worked with him.

The director Francis Ford Coppola, who gave him his most memorable role, the hapless Fredo Corleone, in the Godfather films, and wrote a part specially for him in The Conversations, describes him as a ''wonderful, wonderful actor and a wonderful person''. Streep, who met him while she was in her mid-twenties, says he was ''monomaniacal about the work'' and credits him with changing the way she approached performing.

However, perhaps his closest professional affinity was with Pacino, whom he met when they were young actors  ''resting'' as couriers in New York, and whose collaboration included several plays and three films. ''I think I learned more about acting from John than anybody,'' he says.

''He was this weird little asterisk in the history of American Film,'' says Richard Sheppard, an established Hollywood director : The Matador; The Hunting Party-  whose admiration for Cazale inspired him to make a documentary about the actor.

''He made these five perfect movies that really crystallised the best in American Film making. He worked with all the best actors and film-makers and he worked with them over and over again. And he was always on par with them. He makes the actors look better  -he's the ultimate acting partner. He is the ultimate character actor.''    

His mastery on the screen of the sad, vulnerable loser is all the more impressive of the fact that these misfits seem to share little in common with Cazale himself. He could be dark and angst-ridden certainly, but he was by all accounts, smart, sensitive and funny, with an infectious machine-gun laugh that came out of nowhere.

''Cazale taught us that the weakling and the coward could be a great part absolutely,'' says Philip French, the Observer's firm critic, since the Seventies:

We would all like to be a Sony or a Michael, but in fact, if we are really honest, most of us are Fredo.

Most of us are lousy, compromising cowards; we just don't like to think of ourselves that way.''

It is tempting  to speculate how Cazale's career might have developed if he had lived longer. There seems little doubt that he could have been one of the busiest character actors in the business, perhaps in the mould of Christopher Walken or Joe Pesci. We certainly would have seen more range; his friends say that that they would have loved to see him as a romantic lead.

Respectful dedication to all the Great and Brave and honorable people of the  world. Respectful dedication to all those ''Heroes'' who stood up to Evil and helped build a better world!

''May You All Forever Shine In Heavens Above!''.........Amen! Amen!

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless