Ivan Passer lets difficult people delay the business of the plot, often to the film's benefit. We rate his patient direction of actors, especially in Cutter's Way, though his willingness to linger can outlast our interest.
Fi1m perspective
John Heard's Alex Cutter makes a conversation feel like something Jeff Bridges's Richard Bone might reasonably want to escape. In Cutter's Way (1981), Passer gives both men room to be difficult: Cutter through his anger, Bone through a weariness that can look like evasion. Neither makes the other easy to like. We felt uneasy watching their exchanges, because Heard keeps demanding a response that Bridges seems unwilling to give.
His early Czech work watched ordinary lives with a gentle humour that depended on small details. He had worked as a co-writer and assistant director on films by Miloš Forman. His first feature, Intimate Lighting (1965), centres on two musicians meeting again, with little plot to hurry them along. Miroslav Ondříček was its cinematographer, and Passer's preference for an unobtrusive camera keeps the attention on people responding to one another.
The move into American films put this way of observing people inside less forgiving stories. His first American feature, Born to Win (1971), follows a New York drug addict; the concern with people on the margins remained. By Cutter's Way, the murder investigation provides a reason to keep watching men who can barely manage their friendship. Passer is willing to let their trouble with one another interrupt the search for answers, which is where much of the film's interest lies.
His direction of actors makes that choice worthwhile. Heard's anger is allowed to exhaust us, while Bridges's reluctance to engage stops Bone becoming the sensible companion who makes everyone else look unreasonable. Lisa Eichhorn completes a central trio whose performances give us a reason to stay when the investigation loses momentum. Passer does not require these people to become agreeable before asking for our attention.
The cost is that some scenes continue after we have understood what they have to tell us. It is fair to want a murder mystery to make clearer progress, and patience with the characters does not excuse every delay. Start with Cutter's Way, if the friendship sounds at least as interesting as the investigation.
Biography
Ivan Passer was a Czech film director and screenwriter. Born in Prague in 1933, he studied at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) and began his career as an assistant director. He collaborated closely with Miloš Forman on several early films, co-writing Loves of a Blonde (1965) and The Firemen's Ball (1967).
Passer directed his first feature, Intimate Lighting (1965). After the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, he left for the United States. His American films include Born to Win (1971) and Cutter's Way (1981). He also directed the television film Stalin (1992). Passer died in Reno, Nevada, in 2020.
