William Holden: A Different Kind of Hero.

"[William] Holden shared the screen with such iconic American leading men as John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart, and the star easily held his own alongside the deliberate on-screen gravity of the former and the brittle cynicism of the latter," writes Bruce Bennett, previewing William Holden: A Different Kind of Hero for the New York Sun. "Yet of all of the male stars of his generation, Holden embodied the anxious doubts and sometimes outright lies that are the dark underpinnings of movie heroism. Looking over the list of films chosen by Film Society's estimable programmer, Kent Jones, it's interesting to consider how many of the pictures involve Holden's character defrauding those around him, and how many climax (or, in the case of [Sunset Boulevard], open) with his death." Today through July 15.

Updated through 7/3.

"The leitmotif of William Holden's career was compromise - from his very first leading (p)role as the working-class contender who ditches the violin for prizefighting in 1939's Golden Boy." Jim Ridley in the Voice: "In film after film - his best ones, anyway - his characters sold their souls, dealt with the devil, stirred impure thoughts in the innocent and impressionable, and looked out for No 1."

"He may do good, but it will come off as bad," writes Sheila O'Malley at the House Next Door. "He may do good, but he will never wish to be congratulated for it. Holden sticks his neck out for no one. His characters have a deep suspicion towards any group dynamic. He resists consensus politics. He stands apart. He observes, evaluates, holds his cards close to his chest. He is willing to come across as cold if that will preserve his integrity. This is quite a rare quality, not just in actors, but in anyone... and it is that which elevates William Holden above the matinee-idol 1950s movie star persona that could have trapped him completely."

The L Magazine's Mark Asch is appreciative and all, but also notes: "Given that the FSLC is giving a retro to a square-jawed specimen of American manhood who brought subtle shadings of complex psychological depth to mainstream Hollywood prestige and genre fare, and was in The Wild Bunch, I have to ask: can we please have a Robert Ryan retrospective soon? It's been a long time coming."

Update, 7/3: Michael Atkinson in top form at Moving Image Source:

Just as Bugs Bunny was always whom we would hope to be but Daffy Duck was closer to the luckless, selfish, short-sighted people we actually are, movie stardom has always been a voyeuristic switch-off between idealized transference and the recognition of our flawed selves. The glamorous and cool former has always crowded out the gritty, painful latter, but the popular career peaks of, say, Edward G Robinson, Dana Andrews, Judy Garland, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Diane Keaton attest to a spectactorship paradigm that verges on a realist empathic bond, a desire to connect, not to escape. Such is the nature of our intimate, carking, rueful relationship with William Holden, on the surface one of the Hollywood century's typical all-purpose leading men, but beneath it the keeper of poisoned secrets, and a living embodiment of America's postwar self-doubt and idealistic failure. He seethed with disappointment as a persona, and we all knew what he meant.

Posted by dwhudson at July 2, 2008 8:08 AM