Donald Sutherland could make a quiet man seem difficult to know without making him remote. We value him most when that reserve gives way to tenderness, especially opposite Julie Christie in Don’t Look Now.
Fi1m perspective
In Don’t Look Now (1973), Donald Sutherland makes John Baxter’s resistance to the supernatural feel like something a grieving parent needs to hold on to. He has already lost a child, and the suggestion of contact offers him more than he can bear. With Julie Christie as Laura, Sutherland makes the marriage seem lived-in: these people can be close and still fail to reach each other. We were moved by their tenderness in the love scene because neither actor suggests that being close has ended their grief.
His breakthrough in The Dirty Dozen (1967) was followed by leading roles in M\A\S\H (1970) and Klute* (1971). Robert Altman’s Hawkeye Pierce gave him a comic maverick to play; John Klute, opposite Jane Fonda, depended on quieter, more introspective acting. His long frame and prominent eyebrows made him conspicuous, but the intelligence often came through his voice and the small changes in his expression. He often played intelligent, self-doubting men, and did not need a collection of mannerisms to make them distinct.
Nicolas Roeg gets particular value from that restraint in Don’t Look Now, giving the Baxters’ grief time and attention before there is much supernatural business to explain. Sutherland makes John’s scepticism understandable, while Christie gives Laura’s longing an urgency that has to be taken seriously. Neither seems to have been hired just to supply the correct reaction to a frightening event. Roeg’s fractured storytelling sometimes labours its warnings; the couple’s ordinary closeness gives us more reason to be afraid.
Ordinary People (1980), directed by Robert Redford, gave him another grieving father to play, Calvin Jarrett. The long later stretch of supporting parts and cameos included Mr. X in JFK (1991) and President Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games (2012). An extended monologue made use of his resonant voice in JFK; Snow offered another use for his quiet menace. Those roles suit his authority, though we prefer the films that give his tenderness room as well. Start with Don’t Look Now, and watch how much of the marriage he and Christie establish without needing its history explained.
Biography
Donald Sutherland was a Canadian actor whose career spanned more than six decades. He was born on 17 July 1935 in Saint John, New Brunswick, and died on 20 June 2024 in Miami.
Sutherland first gained prominence in films such as The Dirty Dozen (1967), MASH (1970) and Klute (1971). He played John Baxter in Don't Look Now (1973). Later roles included President Coriolanus Snow in the Hunger Games films (2012–2015), Mr Bennet in Pride & Prejudice (2005) and Thomas Pruitt in Ad Astra* (2019).
He received two Golden Globe Awards for the television films Citizen X (1995) and Path to War (2002), a Primetime Emmy Award for the former, and an Academy Honorary Award in 2017.
