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Mark Lee and Pete Fenzel take up a solemn two-hander to commemorate film legend Gene Hackman in the wake of his tragic passing. Mark and Pete share a discussion of his unmistakable personal style, his trademark skill and grace, and how to act on film with your entire face. We track the archetypical Gene Hackman character – not superman, not everyman, but this man. We marvel additionally at Hackman’s command of stillness and silence and his complementary ability to bark nuclear launch orders in roiling rage. We dig deeper on perhaps Hackman’s finest performance, as spiraling wiretapper Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, the 1974 Palme d’Or winning spy film about burgeoning surveillance society, paranoia, modes of masculine self-delusion, and the misplaced confidence in one’s techy knowhow in a war of all against all. But we’re all there for the moustache.

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Episode 870: The Slopes of Mount Hackman originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]