Since the recent passing of director Sydney Pollack, there has been a great outpouring of respect and admiration for his work as both an actor and filmmaker. Because Pollack’s films weren’t as innovative or flashy as those by contemporaries such as Martin Scorsese, there was sometimes a tendency to dismiss him as a first-rate craftsman, whose lack of a distinctive directorial voice made him well-suited to glossy middlebrow fare. Yet this rep was both reductive and sort of unfair- yes, his films were popular entertainments, but he was one of the best at making this sort of film, and what his work lacked in stylistic panache it almost always made up for in intelligence and first-rate acting. In memory of Pollack, I’ll be re-examining one of his biggest hits, his 1973 film The Way We Were.
What made The Way We Were a hit?: The runaway success of 1970’s Love Story proved that the market for old-fashioned, star-driven romantic melodramas was as strong as it ever was. It helped that The Way We Were boasted two of the era’s biggest stars- popular golden boy Robert Redford and actress/singer phenom Barbra Streisand. At the time of the film’s release, both of them were at the height of their stardom, and audiences clamored to see this unlikely duo together on the big screen.
But adding to the interest level was the film’s timeline, from the couple’s college days in the late 1930s through World War II, the Hollywood blacklists, and finishing squarely in the middle of the Cold War. Like Forrest Gump two decades later, the protagonists of The Way We Were were riding on the tides of recent history, participating directly or indirectly in events that many audience members had lived through or heard about from their elders. Audience responded strongly to the film, making it one of the biggest hits of 1973 and carrying its Streisand-sung title tune to the #1 spot on the charts.
What happened?: After the seventies drew to a close, the decade in Hollywood was remembered primarily as a time of maverick cinema, of brash young tyro filmmakers who hijacked the system and changed the face of American filmmaking. Of course, this was an oversimplification of the decade that also gave us the Airport movies, but in an era that was celebrated for gritty, groundbreaking cinema, there was little room for an old-school romance like The Way We Were. Likewise, the film’s stars began to act less and less frequently onscreen- Streisand’s appeared in precisely one film in the past decade, and Redford’s arguably as well-known as a filmmaker and Sundance figurehead as he is as a movie star. The Way We Were is in many ways a quintessential Yesterday’s Hit- the kind of movie people tend to remember fondly without going out of their way to watch it again.
Does The Way We Were still work?: Sure does, thanks in no small part to Barbra Streisand. In the ensuing years, Streisand’s diva-like behavior and control-freak 
tendencies have overshadowed her talent, but to watch The Way We Were is to remember what made her a star in the first place. Prior to making this film, Streisand’s best roles were in musicals and comedies, but Katie Morosky gave her a meaty dramatic part, and she made the character sing. Passionate, headstrong, and unmistakably Jewish, Katie is unimaginable without Streisand playing her. Even in quieter moments such as Hubbell’s (Redford) drunken seduction scene, Streisand excels, as the conflicting emotions of the moment play across her one-of-a-kind face.
For his part, Redford was somewhat less spectacular than Streisand- how could he not be?- but if nothing else he was perfect for the role of Hubbell, the college golden boy whose unexpected reserves of feeling can’t quite compensate for lack of idealism. Romantic films usually sink or swim based on two factors- casting and chemistry- and The Way We Were gets both exactly right. Not only are Streisand and Redford perfect for their characters, but they also work together beautifully onscreen. Watching them together, it’s easy to see what draws their characters to each other, even when the film doesn’t make it explicit.
But what distinguishes The Way We Were from other romances of the day, including the aforementioned Love Story, is that its characters are actually interesting, complex people. Not only are Katie and Hubbell carried along by history, but they actively engage with it, especially the political firebrand Katie. Coming at the heels of Vietnam and the resulting protests, many audience members no doubt responded to the way they actually discussed politics and ideals instead of simply gazing into each other’s eyes and professing their love. A key exchange comes late in the film, when Katie and Hubbell are arguing about the Communist witch hunts:
Hubbell: “People are more important than their principles.”
Katie: “People are their principles.”
Even today, it’s refreshing to hear characters talk like this. Love isn’t easy in The Way We Were, precisely because there’s more driving these characters than the desire to be loved. Perhaps this was what audience members responded to most strongly at the time- the idea that there were too many bigger things going on in the world to worry about a tidy happy ending. The Way We Were has some problems- the film’s elliptical structure leads to a certain sketchiness of story, as well as glossing over some of the more unpleasant details. However, it’s definitely worthy of a re-evaluation, and in light of Pollack’s recent passing, I’d say there’s no time like the present.