Marathon Man - Nazis, Spooks and Graduate Students

Nov

7

Marathon Man - Nazis, Spooks and Graduate Students

≡ Category: Action, Drama, Essential, Movie Reviews By Country, Suspense, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Drama/Action/Suspense
Director: John Schlesinger
Year: 1976

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE

I have a special fondness for Marathon Man. It reminds me that Dustin Hoffman used to be a good actor. Look at his films in the 70s: Kramer vs. Kramer, Straight Time, All the President’s Men, Lenny, Papillon, Straw Dogs. If those were all the films he had ever acted in, he would be considered one of our finest thespians.

On paper, Marathon Man seems like a fairly straightforward story. It involves elderly Nazi Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier) who is forced to leave his jungle refuge in Brazil when his source of income is endangered. One of the CIA couriers who deals with him is Doc (Roy Scheider), who happens to be Babe’s (Dustin Hoffman) brother, a graduate student at NYU. Babe, basically because of Szell’s paranoia, gets drawn into the general skullduggery.

There are a number of things that make Marathon Man special, starting with the imaginative writing. William Goldman writes a number of wonderful scenes: a fight to the death during a parade; two old geezers playing bumper cars on the streets of New York City; a faceoff involving a knife and a suitcase full of diamonds; and the most famous dental appointment of all time.

Then there’s John Schlesinger’s direction. There was nothing that Schlesinger had done up to that time that would make you think he was capable of directing a crackerjack thriller, but that’s exactly what he’s done here.

For example, in one scene he breaks the rules of conventional cinematography by cutting from a medium shot to a closeup from the same angle as a way of heightening the impact of a vehicle collision. It works beautifully.

In fact, the whole first sequence, which shuttles back and forth between Babe jogging around a reservoir and a unique car chase, is a small masterpiece of editing and tone.

Best of all are Dustin Hoffman and Lawrence Olivier. They are both brilliant actors but coming from completely different acting traditions. Hoffman is a method actor; Olivier relies on technique.

Hoffman is utterly believable as the innocent but resourceful Babe. His performance is incredibly layered and detailed. Fairly early on, Babe has a losing encounter with a dentist’s drill. Throughout the rest of the film, Hoffman from time to time winces and licks his new cavity as instinctively as if the character were real.

Olivier gives a master class in acting during a scene where he interrogates Babe. He asks over and over, “Is it safe?” And every time, the meaning is different. I saw a short film in which Dustin Hoffman revealed that Olivier saw a gardener carefully pruning roses outside his window the morning they were going to shoot that scene and used that as the inspiration for his acting choices. Is that brilliant, or what?

Most of the time, thrillers are thuddingly literal, but not Marathon Man. At times it is realistic, at others times surrealistic, but never in a way that takes you out of the picture. It succeeds as a straightforward thriller, as a character study, as a mystery, even as a romance.

One thing Marathon Man is not is deep. It’s only meant as entertainment. But that’s what Nazis are good for, right?