Gene Hackman often played the tough guy in movies. Here's what I thought of him offscreen

San Francisco Chronicle​

19-05-2025

Dear Mick LaSalle: I once met Gene Hackman at a boxing match and spoke with him. Nice man. Did you ever meet him?
Robert Freud Bastin, Petaluma
Dear Robert Freud Bastin: I never really met Gene Hackman, but I was at a press conference where he was getting interviewed, and I was close to him and saw how he spoke to people and carried himself.
He did not strike me as a nice man, not at all. He didn't strike me as a wicked man, either, but as someone prickly and difficult. Someone who'd be very hard to deal with in an adversarial situation, and someone who, knowing that, wouldn't hesitate to create adversarial situations. He seemed like the kind of guy that might cut his kids out of his will.
Hello Mick: More and more we are seeing movies and series using a technique for filming scenes so dark you cannot see what's happening, nor see the characters in the scene. My most recent example is 'Bosch: Legacy.' Why don't the directors want us to see what's happening?
Lucia MacLean, Ben Lomond
Hello Lucia: OK, if this happened once, twice or even three times, I'd say that you're responding reasonably to a stylistic trend of dubious worth. But if you're saying this is happening more often than that, it's probably your TV. Seriously. Turn up the brightness and turn down the contrast, and that might solve the problem. And even if the problem really does turn out to be a cinematographic trend, the higher brightness and lower contrast should help.
Dear Mick LaSalle: Your response to the query about whether you'd be leery of watching something today that you enjoyed immensely when young — and you replied that nothing has changed, why wouldn't I still love it? — deserved a bit more consideration. I do think a film we loved at the age of 28 might just not appeal any longer.
Kathy Hartzell, New York City
Dear Kathy Hartzell: True. Except I didn't say what you said I said. I said that the movie stays the same but our perceptions change, and we shouldn't fear that — with the implication being that we're getting smarter and more perceptive as we get older.
Of course, I'm assuming that this hypothetical person's perceptions have deepened and that they haven't become an old crank. But I think that's a reasonable assumption, because if they were an old crank, they wouldn't be worried about holding on to their big emotional movie experiences. They would have crossed over into the get-off-my-lawn stage of life.
Dear Mr. LaSalle: With all due respect, when it comes to great film composers you are only looking at the present but not the past. I realize we all have our personal favorites, but choosing Rachel Portman over some of the giants of the 20th century movie industry is...well...my mother taught me not to use that kind of language.
John Oertel, Redding
Dear Mr. Oertel: I was looking at the present and not the past because I was writing about my favorite living film composers.
But apart from that, here's the thing I don't understand. If someone says, 'These are my favorites,' the proper response is, 'Oh, really, and these are my favorites.' It's not to say, 'You have the wrong favorites' and then congratulate yourself for not cursing at them. We're talking about art, and our response to art is subjective. We can dress up and justify our responses with intelligent and even persuasive observations, but ultimately it comes down to personal preference.
On the other hand, if you tell me your favorite president is Andrew Johnson, then we can have a discussion, because that's an insane choice, for reasons that can be argued beyond someone saying, 'I enjoy this more than that.'