Vision Of The Future Passed

 There are some actors for whom I will watch an entire movie just to see their part. James Caan was one of those actors. Which means that there are more than one hundred different opportunities for me to toss the remote control over my shoulder and sit, transfixed as I watch the consummate tough guy wade into whatever it is that he is supposed to be for those two hours. Maybe a sailor. Or a cowboy. Or the hot-headed son of a Mafia boss. A best-selling author. The father of an elf. A thief. An assassin. A Chicago Bear. 

Or maybe the best Rollerballer who ever played the game. In 1975, my eyes were opened wide when my parents took me to see this R-rated vision of the future where "wars will no longer exist - but there will be Rollerball." I know how this one gets lumped into all those other visions of a future without wars but include some horrible alternative. Logan's Run. Soylent Green. Westworld. It's a little hard to believe that these movies were just a few years removed from the advent of Star Wars, when social commentary began to recede from science fiction again. I was thirteen when I saw Rollerball for the first time, and the future ruled by corporations instead of governments as an echo of Imperial Rome went right into me. James Caan played Jonathan E, the defining figure and chief gladiator of the sport. He played for Houston, and he was a champion's champion. Caan's imposing physical presence is everywhere in this film, and even when the costume designers did their very best to slide him into some absurd futuristic zippered jumpsuit, he made it work. Try as they might, the powers that be in the corporations kept changing the rules to make it impossible for Jonathan to survive. But he would not go away. Quietly or otherwise. 

Rollerball hipped me to the evils of the ruling class. It invigorated my love for Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which served as "the corporate anthem." It also gave me my first taste of a font that continues to scream "the future" to this day. 

I could go on and on about the other James Caan roles that keep me planted on the couch for the duration. Frank, in Michael Mann's Thief, might have even fewer lines than Jonathan E, but he moves through that film with laser focus and a soundtrack that introduced me to Tangerine Dream. And poor Paul Sheldon who had the misfortune to be stuck in the care of his "number one fan." Even hobbled, I knew Jimmy Caan could not be stopped. 

Until now. James Caan stomped on the Terra. Hard. He was fierce, and he was a hero in which I could believe. He will be missed. Aloha, Mister Caan.