Paul Mazursky
Paul Mazursky is a director, born 1930.
Before he directed anything, Paul Mazursky was a working actor, and he never stopped being one. He was on screen from 1953 in Fear and Desire, then Blackboard Jungle in 1955, then the live television of the era: Kraft Television Theatre, The Detectives, The Twilight Zone. That experience is legible in how his own films treat actors.
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice in 1969 started the directing career, and what followed was a run of comedies about people renegotiating the terms of their own lives: Harry and Tonto in 1974, the autobiographical Next Stop, Greenwich Village in 1976, An Unmarried Woman in 1978, Tempest in 1982, Moscow on the Hudson in 1984, Down and Out in Beverly Hills in 1986, Moon Over Parador in 1988, Enemies, A Love Story in 1989, Scenes from a Mall in 1991. He took five Academy Award nominations across four of those pictures.
He also cast himself in nearly all of them, usually in small and unflattering parts: Hal in An Unmarried Woman, Dave in Moscow on the Hudson, Sidney Waxman in Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Leon Tortshiner in Enemies, an uncredited walk-on in Harry and Tonto, and, in Moon Over Parador, a character billed simply as Momma. A director who keeps writing himself the least dignified role in his own film is telling you something about his comic instincts.
Late on he became a reliable character actor for other people: Judge Feinstein in Carlito's Way, a psychologist in Antz, Norm on Curb Your Enthusiasm, a musician bunny in Kung Fu Panda 2, and himself in The Other Side of the Wind. He died on June 30, 2014.
Movies (46)
- Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
- Antz (1998)
- Carlito's Way (1993)
- The Majestic (2001)
- Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
- Love Affair (1994)
- Into the Night (1985)
- 2 Days in the Valley (1996)
- A Star Is Born (1976)
- Miami Rhapsody (1995)
- Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
- Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
- Why Do Fools Fall In Love (1998)
- Moscow on the Hudson (1984)
- Moscow on the Hudson (1984)
- History of the World: Part I (1981)
- Punchline (1988)
- Big Shot's Funeral (2001)
- An Unmarried Woman (1978)
- An Unmarried Woman (1978)
- Blackboard Jungle (1955)
- Crazy in Alabama (1999)
- A Decade Under the Influence (2003)
- I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006)
- Harry and Tonto (1974)
- Harry and Tonto (1974)
- The Other Side of the Wind (2018)
- Man Trouble (1992)
- Faithful (1996)
- Faithful (1996)
TV (8)
Where to start with Paul Mazursky
As a director, start with An Unmarried Woman. It is the film where his sympathy and his eye for social embarrassment line up perfectly, it takes its central character seriously without turning her into a lesson, and it is the best-aged thing he made.
Then Harry and Tonto, which is gentler and stranger, and the film most likely to surprise anyone expecting satire.
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is the historically important one, the picture that named a specific late-1960s anxiety, and it is worth seeing even where it has dated badly. Next Stop, Greenwich Village is the autobiographical entry and the warmest thing on the list.
Enemies, a Love Story is the hardest and probably the most accomplished, a serious film from a comic director. Moscow on the Hudson and Down and Out in Beverly Hills are the crowd-pleasers, and he cast himself in both, which is a good way to see how he wanted his own films played.
For the performer working elsewhere, Carlito's Way is the one to watch. He plays a judge and gets more out of it than most character actors are handed.