[HN Gopher] Donald Sutherland has died
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Donald Sutherland has died
        
       Author : toomuchtodo
       Score  : 179 points
       Date   : 2024-06-20 18:28 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
        
       | toomuchtodo wrote:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Sutherland
       | 
       | https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000661/
        
         | mk_stjames wrote:
         | Hey that is interesting - IMDB's name folder is an indexed
         | list... ordered by.... ?
         | 
         | nm0000001: Fred Astaire
         | 
         | nm0000002: Lauren Bacall
         | 
         | nm0000003: Brigitte Bardot
         | 
         | nm0000004: John Belushi
         | 
         | nm0000005: Ingmar Bergman
         | 
         | nm0000006: Ingrid Bergman
         | 
         | ... It seems it is alphabetical, based on last name, but the
         | first list must have been a very small select list, and then it
         | rolls over around 9xx to start another list of people at A, etc
         | etc....
         | 
         | I wonder how that database was populated / why that way.
        
           | bcrosby95 wrote:
           | Wasn't IMDB originally a hand curated text "database"? That
           | might be why.
        
       | Triphibian wrote:
       | Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves?
        
         | gwbennett wrote:
         | Exactly the quote I was thinking of! Great movie!
        
       | ravieira wrote:
       | Great actor. My favorite movie with him will always be the spooky
       | Don't Look Now (1973) with Julie Christie.
       | 
       | Edit: originally had written the year as 1873!
        
         | neogodless wrote:
         | That has got to be one of the earliest moving pictures of all
         | time! Wow!
         | 
         | /s sorry, think you have a typo!
         | 
         | We're actually partial to 1971's _Klute_ but that 's because of
         | an inside family story!
        
           | ravieira wrote:
           | Lol, yes
           | 
           | Must be a fun story for sure. One of those movies that come
           | to mind when one thinks of NYC in the 70s/post Moses-era
        
         | georgeecollins wrote:
         | Phillip Kaufman's remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers..
        
         | hondo77 wrote:
         | M*A*S*H. Not for his performance, necessarily. It's just a
         | great, fun movie. I'm watching it tonight.
        
           | sumtechguy wrote:
           | I am going to go with Kellys Heros.
        
         | panzagl wrote:
         | Anyone wanting to watch this movie (which is great) just go
         | into it cold. Be warned that there's a pretty extended sex
         | scene, but otherwise just go in without expectations.
        
           | ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
           | > Be warned that there's a pretty extended sex scene, but
           | otherwise just go in without expectations.
           | 
           | I want to push back slightly against the idea that's an
           | "extended sex scene", or even that it's a "sex scene" at all.
           | 
           | It's one of the most beautiful sequences in all of cinema --
           | a grieving couple rediscovering intimacy and joy. The way it
           | is intercut with them dressing, getting ready for dinner, the
           | way you can see it brought happiness and affirmation and some
           | sense that life is not over and love survived a terrible
           | loss. It's central to the entire film: to why they are in
           | Venice in the first place, to their commitment to each other,
           | to their determined love for each other.
        
             | khazhoux wrote:
             | > It's one of the most beautiful sequences in all of cinema
             | -- a grieving couple rediscovering intimacy and joy. The
             | way it is intercut with them dressing, getting ready for
             | dinner, the way you can see it brought happiness and
             | affirmation and some sense that life is not over and love
             | survived a terrible loss. It's central to the entire film:
             | to why they are in Venice in the first place, to their
             | commitment to each other, to their determined love for each
             | other.
             | 
             | Also known as a "sex scene." And at a full five minutes,
             | it's a rather long scene :-)
             | 
             | It's also one of the most notorious sex scenes in cinema
             | from that era, with persistent rumors that Sutherland and
             | Christie actually were doing the deed.
             | 
             | But I think you wrongly inferred that the commenter was
             | trying to dissuade people from watching the movie because
             | of it. I interpreted it just as a fair warning, lest you
             | think it might be a fun pick for family movie night with
             | the kids and grandparents.
        
               | ecjhdnc2025 wrote:
               | > Also known as a "sex scene." And at a full five
               | minutes, it's a rather long scene :-)
               | 
               | It has almost nothing creatively in common with sex
               | scenes in almost any other movie ever made, which are
               | usually (lazily, and often misogynistically) used to
               | cheaply bond the damsel to the hero.
               | 
               | It's not a sex scene; it is fully and completely a _love_
               | scene.
               | 
               | I can think of so few like it.
               | 
               | > It's also one of the most notorious sex scenes in
               | cinema from that era, with persistent rumors that
               | Sutherland and Christie actually were doing the deed.
               | 
               | Persistent, infantile, somewhat misogynistic rumours.
        
         | bhickey wrote:
         | Incredible that his career spanned 60+ years. When I saw him in
         | _The Dirty Dozen_ it must've already been thirty years old.
         | 
         | This got me curious about who had the longest career in
         | Hollywood. Mickey Rooney came in near the top at 90 years. [0]
         | 
         | [0] https://www.imdb.com/list/ls058627770/
        
         | imzadi wrote:
         | Don't Look Now is one of my favorite movies! So weird and
         | spooky.
        
         | tannhaeuser wrote:
         | _Don 't Look Now_ is one of those unforgettable 1970s movies so
         | ahead of their time, along with _The Marathon Man_ and very few
         | others. And it 's spooky indeed, hard to bear if you've got a
         | child. RIP
        
       | should-b-wrkng wrote:
       | One of my favorites of his is when he portrayed the protagonist's
       | father in the point-and-click DOS game "KGB: Conspiracy"
       | 
       | http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kgb-conspiracy-starring-don...
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB_(video_game)
        
         | netsharc wrote:
         | I think it's how I learned of him, when my dad bought me a 486
         | with CD-ROM, and some games on CDs in the 90's. That game even
         | had footage of the 1991 coup attempt:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUuiNcJKY4s
        
       | Kye wrote:
       | Bluesky feed for remembrances:
       | https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:qrllvid7s54k4hnwtqxwetrf/fe...
        
       | arp242 wrote:
       | Don't worry, they made a copy of him just for this sort of
       | eventuality.
        
       | aliasxneo wrote:
       | I'm younger, so my first introduction to him was Hunger Games,
       | and that's where I started following him as an actor. A great
       | career all around. Was happy to see him in Bass Reeves, but sad
       | to know that was his last piece (if IMDB is accurate).
        
       | major505 wrote:
       | To me the 2 movies that defined him was the remake of Invasion of
       | The Body Snatchers (that scene on the end still hunts me) and The
       | Eye OF the Needle, where he interprets a German Spy called Fabber
       | that discovery about Operation Double Cross and tries to reach a
       | german U-Boat with the info.
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | Eye of the needle was one of those rare twofers: a very good
         | book and a very good movie.
        
           | RJSquirel wrote:
           | Looks like the movie is free on amazon prime right now.
        
         | KineticLensman wrote:
         | Yep, that final scene is soul-searing
        
         | itronitron wrote:
         | His voice is I think one of the most distinctive in movies. If
         | you like being haunted by scenes from slow-burn horror movies
         | then I can recommend The Broken (2008) with Lena Headey.
        
       | jays wrote:
       | As a kid, I watched Kelly's Heroes whenever it was on TV and
       | loved him in it.
       | 
       | It was a joy to see him in so many movies throughout the years.
       | He always elevated everything he was in. Great actor.
        
         | KineticLensman wrote:
         | See comment elsewhere about 'negative waves'.
         | 
         | I also loved him in Kelly's Heroes, which sadly isn't mentioned
         | in the obits I've seen so far.
        
           | skhunted wrote:
           | Kelly's Heroes is one of the best war movies in my opinion.
           | He played Oddball very well. Oddball's line about how his
           | commander was trying to get them killed since Normandy
           | resonated with me.
           | 
           | My dad was an infantryman in World War 2 in the European
           | Theater of Operations. His war book had a lot dead listed in
           | it. He underlined the ones he knew. One was a lieutenant. I
           | asked my dad about the lieutenant and my dad's response was,
           | "He was a West Point asshole."
           | 
           | Being in a war doesn't make one a hero. Mostly you are
           | fighting because you have to and your goal is for you and
           | your buddies to survive.
        
           | jaggederest wrote:
           | "We got our own ammunition, it's filled with paint. When we
           | fire it, it makes... pretty pictures. Scares the hell out of
           | people"
        
           | garrettgarcia wrote:
           | It's mentioned in this one.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | I liked him playing Wilhelm Reich (with a dash of Einstein) in
       | Kate Bush's 'Cloudbusting'. A masterpiece of nonverbal
       | performance.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pllRW9wETzw
        
       | whalesalad wrote:
       | The first movie I really remember seeing him in was Virus. By all
       | accounts it is a pretty bad movie, but I liked it a lot as a kid
       | and it scared the crap out of me.
       | 
       | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120458/
        
         | spacecadet wrote:
         | Holy cow someone else who has seen Virus... what a bad but good
         | sci-fi flick, and gross!
        
           | whalesalad wrote:
           | I might need to watch it again tonight.
        
           | alexjplant wrote:
           | _Wow_... I literally haven't thought of this movie in 25
           | years. I saw a bunch of trailers for it on TV as a kid and
           | thought it looked cool but never got around to seeing it as I
           | wasn't nearly old enough and forgot about it since. I might
           | have to give this a watch tonight and close the file on it.
        
       | francisofascii wrote:
       | My favorite is him as Bill Bowerman in Without Limits (1998)
        
       | pdonis wrote:
       | I liked his role as the pyromaniac in Backdraft.
        
         | wdwvt1 wrote:
         | I came here to post this - he was perfect for that role. He and
         | Robert De Niro played off each other so well.
        
       | gwern wrote:
       | Was briefly concerned until I saw it wasn't _Ivan_ Sutherland:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Sutherland
        
       | karaterobot wrote:
       | The first image I have of Donald Sutherland is his character in
       | _The Great Train Robbery_ , which I think is a mostly forgotten
       | movie which, for some reason, I was obsessed with as a teenager.
       | Later, _MASH_ and _Kelly 's Heroes_, of course. He'll be missed,
       | but his enormous catalog is a testament to his versatility.
        
         | ethbr1 wrote:
         | Second the recommendation. Excellent movie, and excellently
         | played by Sutherland opposite Connery.
         | 
         | Interestingly enough, I think _The Great Train Robbery_ may
         | have been one of the first Michael Crichton books adapted to
         | film? https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0079240/ (check: nope,
         | preceded by both Westworld and Andromeda Strain)
         | 
         | I went on a jog through historical heist films, and there's
         | some amazing older stuff, e.g. _Rififi_ (1955).
        
       | nanna wrote:
       | Confused him with Ivan Sutherland and got very sad for a moment.
       | 
       | Don't know who Donald Sutherland is.
        
       | pentagrama wrote:
       | I find it odd that I don't recall ever watching a movie with
       | Donald Sutherland. MASH is one of the few Robert Altman films I
       | still need to watch, so here we go.
        
         | lawlessone wrote:
         | Only one I can recall is Hunger games. But he looked familiar
         | in those so i am sure there are others.
        
       | lsllc wrote:
       | I think "The Eagle Has Landed" is my all time favorite Donald
       | Sutherland movie.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_Has_Landed_(film)
        
       | tracker1 wrote:
       | I've seen him in a few movies, often as an extra. One of my favs
       | has to be "Space Cowboys" ... will probably (re)watch MASH and
       | Space Cowboys this weekend in remembrance.
        
       | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
       | Gotta watch M*A*S*H tonight with a martini that's drier than the
       | Sahara Desert.
        
       | OldSchool wrote:
       | "Six Degrees of Separation" with Donald Sutherland and Will Smith
       | was the first relatively arthouse movie I saw and it introduced
       | me to the genre.
        
         | riffraff wrote:
         | It's a great little gem, especially since it came out when Will
         | Smith was near the peak of his "pop" persona, while the movie
         | is definitely not.
        
       | lrc wrote:
       | The brief appearance in Animal House is a little gem.
        
       | ltbarcly3 wrote:
       | Love Donald Sutherland, sad to see him go.
       | 
       | That said, I think this is the signal that it's time to walk away
       | from HN. It used to be a place for people to talk about
       | technology, business, tech startups, and SV culture. Now it's
       | celebrity news.
       | 
       | Bye!
        
         | dang wrote:
         | HN has always had a wider range of content than people tend to
         | assume it has, and that's by design--when pg renamed it from
         | "Startup News" to "Hacker News", that was the reason:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html.
         | 
         | For example, we had this thread 3 weeks after your account was
         | created: _RIP Michael Jackson_ -
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674438 - June 2009 (158
         | comments)
         | 
         | And of course the "How is this even remotely hacker news?"
         | question was already in full swing back then:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674461
         | 
         | In other words, twere ever thus!
         | 
         | This approach only works as long as no one class of story is
         | over-represented to the point of being predictable, but that's
         | ok because evading predictability is one of the core values of
         | the site:
         | 
         | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
         | 
         | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
        
           | ltbarcly3 wrote:
           | This is my 3rd account, my 1st was made like a month after
           | yours.
           | 
           | Ahh yes, Donald Sutherland, never did a Startup but of course
           | he was a notable Hacker. And of course his impact on world
           | culture was right up there with Michael Jackson.
           | 
           | I find your attempt to defend the trajectory of the site very
           | convincing and I withdrawal my criticism. Lets get more
           | celebrity news up on the front page, like it used to be...
           | The fact that there was one article about Michael Jackson
           | within a few months of when I created my 3rd account is
           | absolutely evidence of whatever point you are making.
           | 
           | I mean just look at all the articles about celebrities and
           | politics and social policy: https://web.archive.org/web/20091
           | 207051053/http://news.ycomb...
           | 
           | VS the frontpage RIGHT NOW, which does not have even one
           | single article about programming, and very few about
           | technology even in the broadest sense.
        
       | washywashy wrote:
       | He's very good in backdraft
        
       | W-Stool wrote:
       | Donald Sutherland as "Hawkeye Pierce" in M.A.S.H. made such an
       | impression on when I saw this movie on its release as a very
       | young teenager. I've pretty much never got along with authority
       | since.
       | 
       | RIP Donald Sutherland.
        
       | devonnull wrote:
       | Even in his appearances in not-so-great movies you could tell
       | Sutherland was trying to rise above the material. Actually, I got
       | that impression of him from all of the really good (or just good)
       | movies he was in. Not to mention all of the TV he did, too.
       | Really enjoyed his turn in an episode of The Avengers called "The
       | Superlative Seven".
        
       | agumonkey wrote:
       | Saw him recently in 'A time to kill'. Great presence as always.
       | Somehow he's always been a great addition to any movie cast.
        
       | optimalsolver wrote:
       | Pillars Of The Earth, anyone?
        
         | optimalsolver wrote:
         | Also, his great one scene appearance as "X" in Oliver Stone's
         | JFK.
        
       | DaveExeter wrote:
       | I'm feeling some negative waves.
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/ncbEucjsNFU?t=73
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-06-20 23:00 UTC)