Gene Therapy
We’ve got to get Gene Hackman out of retirement to make one final movie.
“Gene Hackman is the best artist to craft a piece of commemorative art to capture all the tragedy and trauma that was 2020,” says Jack Hughes. Huzzah, say we.
by Jack Hughes
As the light at the end of the COVID tunnel begins to grow brighter, with vaccines in our arms and hope in our hearts, some are starting to think about how we should process and portray the shared struggle of the past year. Across the span of history, societies have commissioned great artists to commemorate great events with music, paintings, sculptures, architecture, poetry, or plays – and, to that end, I have an idea:
We’ve got to get Gene Hackman out of retirement to make one final movie.
It’s been twenty years since Hackman won a Golden Globe for Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums; almost thirty years since he won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Sheriff ‘Little Bill’ Dagget in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven; it’s been forty years since he played Pete Van Wherry in Reds; and, amazingly, fifty years since he won the Best Actor Oscarfor his ‘Popeye’ Doyle in The French Connection.
He retired from acting in 2004, save for the odd voiceover and, oddly, an appearance on the Food Network’s Diner’s Drive-ins and Dives when Guy Fieri ran into him at a Sante Fe breakfast spot. In 2011, ten years ago, Hackman gave a rare interview to GQ and was begged to do one more movie. His response? “I don’t know. If I could do it in my own house, without them disturbing anything, and just one or two people.”
At the time, that probably seemed a little far-fetched. But now? The pandemic has forced movie studios to perfect the art of filmmaking with small crews and single sets. And I ask you, who wouldn’t watch a movie in which Gene Hackman plays a man forced to endure the events of the past year stuck in his home? Maybe the better question is which other actor could take that material and turn it into a masterpiece?
Born in 1930, Hackman achieved fame closer to middle age. When he began to land leading roles, he drew upon the difficulties and disappointments of his early life such as when his father left and the loss of his mother. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps but his acting and activism is said to have earned him a place on President Nixon’s famous ‘Enemies List.’ He’d later divorce his first wife and sink into financial debt.
All of this became fuel for Hackman’s fiery temper – raw emotional energy that he harnessed and honed for his on-screen performances. Just imagine what he could do as a conduit for all the angst, anger, and anxiety we’ve experienced over the past year – channeling it into a cathartic character. He’d showcase the fierce intensity he exhibited in such epics as Mississippi Burning, The Conversation, and Crimson Tide.
Hackman has said that he left acting behind in part because he found the business side of Hollywood to be too frustrating. For a post-pandemic performance, we could remove all the irritants. He could name his price, set his terms, hire the movie crew (possibly his favorite director and fellow nonagenarian Clint Eastwood), and, best of all, Hackman could do something he’d always wanted to do – write his own script.
Since retiring as an actor, Hackman has authored several books. He’d earlier tried to adapt a book into a screenplay – Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs – but after securing the movie rights he was characteristically too faithful to the source material: “I was so respectful of the book that I was into it 100 pages and had about 300 pages of script.” As iconic as Anthony Hopkins was, imagine Hackman as Hannibal Lecter.
Hackman is said to live on a hair trigger, never suffering fools. He’s been quick to throw a punch, including one reported incident in 2012 when the-then 81 year old hit a man who came at him and his wife on the street – a story containing one of the great quotes of all time from a Sante Fe police spokesperson: “We had a male…who is a homeless male…call police and say he had been beaten up by Gene Hackman.”
Fans of The Rich Eisen Show will know that Eisen invariably asks celebrity guests to talk about their experiences working with Hackman. Morgan Freeman, Kevin Costner, and, most recently, Viggo Mortensen have all spoken with reverence about their reserved co-star – with Costner saying he was unquestionably the greatest actor he ever worked with. Yet there’s a clear undercurrent that he’d intimidated them all.
That’s why Gene Hackman is the best artist to craft a piece of commemorative art to capture all the tragedy and trauma that was 2020. In the past year we’ve faced our fears, our faults, and our share of fools. Isolated from friends and family, we were forced to be more introspective. To portray something like that on the big screen you need an edgy everyman who conveys heft and gravitas. We need some Gene therapy.
Jack Hughes is a communications consultant based in Canada. His previous contributions to The Experiment include “Same of Thrones,” “Tippecanoe and Agnew Anew,” “Harris / Shuri 2020,” “Bidenfeld,” “Firth and Firthiness,” “The Ballot of Bill McKay,” and “The World Wants ‘The West Wing,’” among others. His inexplicably extensive writings on Dan Quayle are “The Unusual Suspect,” “The Unusual Suspect II,” “The GOPfather” and “Porqua, CoQau?” Connect with him on LinkedIn here.
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