At lunch today, I learned that actor James Caan passed away. He was 82 and most of the obituaries I saw contained something like this one from the NYTimes:
James Caan, who built a durable film career in varied roles across six decades but was forever identified most closely with one of his earliest characters, the quick-tempered, skirt-chasing Sonny Corleone in the original “Godfather” movie, died on Wednesday.
Don't get me wrong. That was a great performance.
But for my money, his most memorable part was Jonathan E in the movie Rollerball (1975).
While "Rollerball" is the name of the movie, it's also the name of a game played in that movie. It's a violent bloody game and the society in which it thrives is described, in general terms, to Jonathan by Bartholomew, played by John Housman this way:
Jonathan, let's think this through together.
You know how the game serves us. It has a definite social purpose.
Nations are bankrupt, gone. None of that tribal warfare any more. Even the corporate wars are a thing of the past.
So now we have the majors and their executives. Transport, food, communication, housing, luxury, energy. A few of us making decisions on a global basis for the common good.
The team is a unit. It plays with certain rhythms. So does an executive team, Jonathan.
Now everyone has all the comforts, you know that. No poverty, no sickness. No needs and many luxuries, which you enjoy just as if you were in the executive class.
Corporate society takes care of everything. And all it asks of anyone, all it has ever asked of anyone ever, is not to interfere with management decisions.
And then he describes the need for the game itself:
The game was created to demonstrate the futility of individual effort.
And:
If a champion defeats the meaning for which the game was designed, then he must lose.
And as the movie progresses, the rules of the game are changed to take out Jonathan, the champion whose abilities as a player threaten the social purpose of the game.
Until finally the last game of the season there are no rules, no substitutions.
And this happens:
In the end, he was better than the game.
Jonathan! Jonathan! Jonathan!
