AF

Albert Finney has died.  He was one of top names of his generation of British leading men (and what a generation--Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, Peter O'Toole, Sean Connery, etc.).

He started, like everyone did in those days, in the theatre.  It was clear he had the talent and looks to be in movies, and before too long had made his mark.  And it's his early work that I remember him best for.  In fact,  just last week I was re-watching some of the British "Angry Young Man" films, and the essential title is Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960), where Finney is a rough and cynical factory worker.  It may be his most iconic performance.

He soon proved he could do more than play a working class stiff.  In fact, the period comedy Tom Jones (1963), while overpraised (it won the Best Picture Oscar), showed that Finney had a wide range.  It got him his first of five Oscar nominations.

Another major film was Two For The Road (1967), which had him playing a modern, sophisticated man in a complicated relationship with Audrey Hepburn. (Two points about the film.  First, it was interesting to see Audrey starring with a younger man when so much of her career had her romancing men a generation older.  Second, I think this film, like Tom Jones, is overrated.  I admire Finney, but often more than the films he was in.)

In 1970, he starred in Scrooge, a musicalization of A Christmas Carol.  It's not that well remembered, but when I saw it as a kid, it really scared me.  One of his more delightful performances was as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in Murder On The Orient Express (1974), for which he got his second Oscar nomination.

He started the 80s with a bunch of very different roles in films that were not hits: Wolfen (1981), a (pretty bad) horror movie; Looker (1981), a sci-fi thriller (which I would guess seems pretty ridiculous today--of course, it was ridiculous then); Shoot The Moon (1982), an overlooked drama; and Annie (1982), the misbegotten adaptation of the Broadway blockbuster.

Then, in 1983, came the small gem The Dresser, based on Ronald Harwood's play about a great British actor, known only as "Sir," and his faithful dresser.  Finney was Sir and Tom Courtenay (the other great "Angry Young Man" from The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner) was the dresser.  They were both nominated for Oscars.

Finney got his fourth Oscar nomination the next year for Under The Volcano.  In 1990, he was in Miller's Crossing--a film I've never really warmed to, though it's inexplicably the favorite of many Coen Brothers fans.

He was still a leading man in the 1990s, but not generally appearing in big budget productions.  He was also acting in more TV projects.  Then in 2000 he got his last Oscar nomination for a supporting role in Steve Soderbergh's Erin Brockovich (2000), which I would guess introduced him to a new generation of filmgoers.  The film was a major hit, as was the Oscar-winning Traffic, director Soderbergh's other film that year, in which Finney had a small role.

Finney appeared in a number of films over the next decade or so, such as Big Fish (2003), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), before retiring from the screen.  He never did win an Academy Award, but all that shows is how arbitrary the Oscars are.