Paul Scofield, 1922-2008
March 20, 2008

Like many cinephiles of my generation, my familiarity with actor Paul Scofield—until the Nineties, that is--was essentially limited to his Oscar-winning portrayal of the great Tudor statesman Sir Thomas Moore in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons. Scofield died yesterday in a hospital near his home in Southern England at the age of 86. He had been suffering from leukemia.

Scofield’s Thomas Moore was the defining role of his career. Prior to the Fred Zinnemann-directed film Scofield had starred for nine months in the London stage production of A Man for All Seasons and then in the 1961

Primarily a stage actor, Scofield made very few films in his career—he was memorable as a German colonel with a love of art in 1964’s The Train and when he popped up as the King of France in Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 production of Henry V.

But it was in the Nineties that Scofield made his biggest post-Seasons impression on younger audiences—as I said earlier--when he essayed the role of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and professor Mark Van Doren, father of scandalous game show winner Charles Van Doren, in Robert Redford’s 1994 Quiz Show. Scofield’s portrayal of Van Doren exudes the kind of WASP-ish patriarchal pride that recalls an earlier era of stateliness and intellectualism that isn’t all that visible these days. At one point towards the end of the movie, when Charles (played by Ralph Fiennes) is explaining how it’s about to be revealed to the public that he has been receiving the answers on the quiz show ‘21” in advance, Scofield’s look of disbelief and sadness and hius subsequent reaction makes for the film’s greatest moment: Scofield glaring at his son before he goes to testify in front of a Senate subcommittee and declaring, “Your name is mine.” 

Great stuff from a great actor.

Posted by Laurence Lerman on March 20, 2008 | Comments (0)