The Six Greatest Performances In Mike Nichols’ Films
RIP Mike Nichols. From Dustin Hoffman to Robin Williams, this is where to start your retrospectives.
The Six Greatest Performances In Mike Nichols’ Films
Mike Nichols has passed away, age 83. If you’re starting to see tributes and obits appear and were unfamiliar with the name, don’t worry – this speaks more to the huge talent that Nichols possessed than anything else. Nichols adapted literary classics, contemporary theatre, memoirs, musicals and true stories for the big screen and stage, leaving behind a legacy that had less to do with an individual style, and more with a nuanced sensibility – his work was always best understood as a summary of modern day inanities.
Whether it was the loopy frustrations of love (Barefoot in the Park (1967), Heartburn (1986)), the bleak vaudeville of war (Catch 22 (1970), Charlie Wilson’s War (2007)), political circuses (Primary Colors (1998), The Birdcage (1996)) or personal crises (The Graduate (1967), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Carnal Knowledge (1971)), all were poked and prodded with the same keen sensibility that earned Nichols numerous Emmys, Tonys and Oscars and even billboard topping comedy albums. Nichols catalogued the heartbreakingly ridiculous and the unjust status quo with wit and sensitivity.
He worked with nearly every great actor of a certain age – Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Orson Welles, Meryl Streep, Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Al Pacino. It’s a cast list that reads like a who’s who of the business, and Nichols often gave these actors the best roles of their careers.
Here’s six great film performances that showcase the diversity, the theatricality, and the subtlety that appears in so much of his work.
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Words by Matt Roden.