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The Dustin Hoffman film festival (1967-1982)
Two months of Hoffman double features for your viewing pleasure, covering the most fertile period of his career as a leading man:
Family man:
The Graduate (1967)
Kramer vs. Kramer(1979)
- GRADUATE was a generational touchstone, launching Hoffman into superstardom on his first feature. It captured the spirit of upwardly mobile disaffected youth, graduating college and confronting the older generation's expectations. Similarly, KRAMER was of its time, too, as it pictured the evolution of the middle aged male learning to embrace his nurturing paternal side. Like most films "of their time", they've both dated badly, though GRADUATE has all that Simon & Garfunkel music.
Viva Italia:
Madigan's Millions (1968)
Alfredo, Alfredo (1972)
- two lame Italian comedies; Hoffman actually did MADIGAN two years earlier than GRADUATE, but it was released after to capitalize on his sudden stardom.
Love & the New Wave:
John & Mary (1969)
Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971)
- These 2 are nearly unwatchable now; pretentious contemplations on love, very much influenced by the filmaking of the nouvelle vague
2 in NYC by Schlesinger:
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Marathon Man (1976)
- John Schlesinger directed Hoffman to two of his best performances in two of his best films, COWBOY a moving depiction of loneliness in a decaying NYC, and MARATHON a thriller that runs through its streets.
contemplations of violence:
Little Big Man (1970)
Straw Dogs (1971)
- BIG MAN, the comic revisionist western by Arthur Penn, and DOGS, Peckinpah's thriller both offer still fascinating commentaries on the nature of violence as witnessed or indulged in by little men. DOGS is perhaps my favorite film of Hoffman's career.
The Criminal Mind:
Papillon (1973)
Straight Time (1978)
- Hoffman plays thieves and cons of different types. In PAPILLON he offers brilliant support to Steve McQueen, in TIME he takes the burden upon himself. In both he comes to terms with his tragic destiny. He knows why the caged bird dies.
The Artist:
Lenny (1974)
Tootsie (1982)
- 2 academy-award nominated performances in which he plays artists who torture themselves to express truth. In TOOTSIE, he does it comically in a dress, in LENNY he does so tragically, in black & white.
Journalists:
All the President's Men (1976)
Agatha (1979)
- Hoffman always conveyed a credibility, so playing a journalist capitalized on that innate quality. PRESIDENT'S MEN takes a true story and makes it play like a mystery thriller. AGATHA wastes Vanessa Redgrave and Hoffman in a fictional account of actual events.
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