Ron Silver brings impatience and force to men accustomed to being heard. We value his directness in Reversal of Fortune, where he gives a cool drama urgency and keeps its most fascinating character from becoming the only attraction.
Fi1m perspective
In Reversal of Fortune (1990), Ron Silver’s impatience gives Jeremy Irons’s reserve something useful to work against. As Alan Dershowitz, he is direct enough to stop the drama lingering over Claus simply because Claus is fascinating. We enjoyed the friction between them: Silver makes the exchanges feel urgent without turning each one into a demand that we notice a clue. He is a substantial part of the reason this cool, sometimes frustrating drama is worth an evening.
His stage performance in Speed-the-Plow (1988), as Charlie Fox, raised his profile after years of supporting film parts. The move to Reversal of Fortune and Blue Steel (1990), in which he plays Eugene Hunt, put that intensity to different uses. He was frequently cast as articulate professionals or authority figures, sometimes manipulative, sometimes difficult to trust. Such casting gives an actor plenty of opportunities to insist on being heard, and fewer reasons to listen. The risk is that forcefulness becomes predictable; Reversal of Fortune gives it a precise purpose by putting him opposite an actor working at a different speed.
Director Barbet Schroeder makes that contrast one of the film’s pleasures, and editor Lee Percy finds momentum by moving between Irons’s reserve and Silver’s impatience. Silver does not have to make each exchange a demonstration of superior intelligence to hold our attention. His directness does the work. Mark Isham’s restrained music suits the uncertainty, although it adds to the emotional distance that limits the film. Silver supplies welcome energy, but we still want more feeling from the writing.
Later parts continued to make use of his authority: Angelo Dundee in Ali (2001), then Judge Sidney Finestein in Sidney Lumet’s Find Me Guilty (2006). Television also made room for him, with a recurring part as Bruno Gianelli in The West Wing (2001–2006). For a first encounter, choose Reversal of Fortune and watch how much of its momentum comes from the less showy performance.
Biography
Ron Silver (1946–2009) was an American actor. He was born in New York City and studied at the State University of New York at Buffalo and St John's University before training at the Herbert Berghof Studio and the Actors Studio. He made his stage debut in the early 1970s and appeared in films and television from the mid-1970s.
Silver is known for roles including Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune (1990), Angelo Dundee in Ali (2001), Senator Aaron McComb in Timecop (1994), and Bruno Gianelli in the television series The West Wing (1999–2006). He also appeared in Romancing the Stone (1984), The Entity (1982), Silkwood (1983), Blue Steel (1990) and Find Me Guilty (2006). On stage he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for Speed-the-Plow (1988). He served as president of the Actors' Equity Association from 1991 to 2000.
