by Josh Bierman
When I heard about our 1987 retrospective I wanted to choose a film that I had never seen. I’ve been striving to cover blindspots in my film viewing history since the start of quarantine. I looked at the list of movies released in that year and when I saw The Untouchables the choice became obvious. At my home film festival, Cinema Quarantino, I’ve fallen in love with Kevin Costner as if it was 1991. I’ve also been really drawn to the films of Brian De Palma. All of that fell by the wayside when I woke up on Saturday morning to the news of Sean Connery’s passing.
We’re all friends here, so please don’t judge when I say in keeping with the theme of having serious blind spots, the only other Sean Connery movie I’d seen is Murder on the Orient Express. Connery released his last studio film just as I was becoming obsessed with movies around the age of ten, so he wasn’t someone who was on my radar. I mainly associated Connery with Darrell Hammond’s inimitable SNL impersonation on Celebrity Jeopardy as well as his later career interviews (we’d be remiss to forget his one worded declaration of the Best Supporting Actress winner of 2002, we know Kathy Bates hasn’t). As if I wasn’t eager enough to watch it already, I welcomed the opportunity to not only watch a bit of Connery’s filmography, but the movie that won him his Academy Award...
A little refresher if you haven’t seen the film since 1987: Connery plays Jim Malone, a veteran Chicago police officer who teams up with federal agent Eliot Ness (Costner) to bring down the gangster/Syphilis posterboy Al Capone during Prohibition. From his first appearance, Connery exudes the confidence and self assuredness that drew audiences over twenty years earlier when he first started playing Bond. You’ll notice in that first introductory scene the way he uses his police baton as though it’s an extension of his arm. We don’t need to be told with words that this is someone who has been patrolling this beat for years. Connery is able to convey all of that simply with calculated physical choices. When he parts ways with Costner he congratulates him on completing another day on the job, saying, “You just fulfilled the first rule of law enforcement: make sure when your shift is over you go home alive. Here endeth the lesson.” Oh how painful those words will be later on.
The relationship between the two men continues to grow deeper over the course of the film, their bond becoming something akin to a father-son relationship, with Ness giving his newborn son the middle name James in Malone’s honor. All of this makes Malone’s demise even more crushing. The scene is masterful. Nobody films impending doom better than Brian De Palma. The camera is a Peeping Tom following Malone around his apartment as he conducts business as usual. The cinematography is brilliantly paired with Ennio Morricone’s score that reduces your fingernails to the cuticles. Then there’s the immense relief you feel as Malone turns around holding a gun while wearing an all knowing smirk.
In the year of our Lord 2020, that relief quickly turned to a cringe when he triumphantly (*deep sigh*) states “Isn’t that just like a wop? Brings a knife to a gunfight.” (And yes, I know this is just a movie that takes place in a different time, but I’m so tired of smug cops who turn to racial epithets with a smile regardless of the year. If I need to hear that word, at least let it be this WAP) And even with those feelings, I still found myself screaming at the screen for him to shoot the intruder, before he walks outside and is showered in bullets by a machine gun. As Pagliacci sings, Malone, drenched in blood, crawls with every bit of his waning strength to get back into his apartment intercut with Capone living it up at the opera. Moments later, Ness has arrived and is cradling Malone’s head as he imparts one last tip in their quest to bring down Capone. He’d made it home at the end of his shift and yet he died off the clock, but doing his job in his own home. You’re left heartbroken. After the scene, there’s still a chunk of time to go in the film. As wonderful as the film is on its own, you feel the absence of the vivacity Connery brought.
I’m sure I’m not the only movie lover who likes to watch a film of a recently deceased actor (or any creative) upon the news of their death. If you’re a big fan, it offers comfort. If you’re not familiar with their work, it’s a reminder that you have a catalog to catch up on. In my years of watching movies in the wake of an actor’s death, I can’t remember watching a movie where you also see the actor die. And in the case of this film, not simply die, but be brutally murdered and then have to watch as the life slowly creeps out of them. Knowing that Connery had just died, it made watching this a real emotional roller coaster. Here, I’d just gotten to know this iconic actor whose work I’d heard about, but hadn’t experienced. Connery doesn’t disappear into this role as much as he imbues it with his own larger than life personality that I knew from all the interviews I’d seen. It’s hard not to fall in love with Malone, as flawed as he is, you see his motivation still comes from wanting to see goodness prevail. If you’re falling in love with Malone then you’re falling in love with Connery and that’s what happened for me. To then have to watch him die, it felt like I was losing a friend I had only just met. But I’m comforted to know that I have a whole filmography of his work to jump into. Here beginneth the lesson.
