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Mark Lee and Pete Fenzel take up a solemn two-hander to commemorate film legend Gene Hackman in the wake of his tragic passing. Mark and Pete share a discussion of his unmistakable personal style, his trademark skill and grace, and how to act on film with your entire face. We track the archetypical Gene Hackman character – not superman, not everyman, but this man. We marvel additionally at Hackman’s command of stillness and silence and his complementary ability to bark nuclear launch orders in roiling rage. We dig deeper on perhaps Hackman’s finest performance, as spiraling wiretapper Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, the 1974 Palme d’Or winning spy film about burgeoning surveillance society, paranoia, modes of masculine self-delusion, and the misplaced confidence in one’s techy knowhow in a war of all against all. But we’re all there for the moustache.

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Further Reading

• Gene Hackman Loved Acting But Hated Everything that Went with It by Noor Nanji on the BBC
• Gene Hackman’s Movie Clothes Never Felt like a Costume by Jason Diamond on GQ
• The Reel to Reel Revival, Part 1: A Brief History of the Format, by Leslie Shapiro on Analog Planet
• Gene Hackman: Five Undersung Roles Showcasing His Threat and Heart, by Anthony Breznican on Vanity Fair
• Power and Conflict: Crimson Tide, on Christopher Thomas’s YouTube channel