The Long View


It's 43 years since this acclaimed drama was released; I was a 20-yr old uni student when it came out, yet only saw it for the first time this Month (Mar 2008). Back then, I remember thinking it might have been made in response to the recent suicide of Marilyn Monroe.

A gripping story! The film is slightly stagey by today's tastes, yet powerfully affecting, especially in the sharp writing & in the two lead performances.

Fascinating to see how physically tough it was to trace a phonecall back then, even though at the time the technology portrayed was state-of-the-art. Reminds me that we humans managed surprisingly well for most of our time on this earth, as a species with no cellphones!

Certainly worth viewing as a revealing, suspenseful interaction of two strangers who come to mean something unique to each other over a few intense hours on the brink of death. I am so glad to have found out what all the raves were about at the time.

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I saw it for the first time last night on TCM. What an incrdeible film and incredible performances by Poitier and Bancroft. As for the "review" up above that thought that Bancroft's world wasn't coming apart but "only her marriage"
--you've got to be kidding! That she felt abandoned when a friend at work couldn't spend the time with her for lunch was also cavalierely dismissed. She was clearly suffering from depression and the least thing could cause some one in her state to come completely unglued. Look at when she stopped at the hospital -- "I just need someone to talk to", she cried out to deaf ears. Bancroft could play anything and this is one of her truly great performances. Poitier is, as always, incredible. This film is, in a sense, two one-person performances, linked only by the occasional conversation between them; but mostly, they are each on their own. Finally, kudos to the late Sydney Pollack on keeping the tension high. I missed the opening credits but was wondering throughout who the director might have been. A powerful first effort!

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wonderful indeed ! I agree with gerald-flynn, first rate performances, direction, and story. Furthermore this movie is about a lot more than a marriage coming apart. Life and Death, Being ALONE in an office, or large city surrounded by people, but with no friends. Long buried secrets, Sidney Poitief bursting with life. Man, I could get 25 term papers out of this movie !!!

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