Affliction **** (1997, Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, James Coburn) – Classic Movie Review 825

Ah, again, the sins of the father! Nick Nolte gives a great barnstorming performance as Wade Whitehouse, a haunted middle-aged New Hampshire small-town sheriff. He is a heavy drinker who has achieved little or nothing in life. His life collapses and he starts to disintegrate mentally when his mother dies and he suspects his buddy Jack (Jim True) of killing a wealthy union boss on a hunting trip. Wade starts investigating the case, although Jack insists it was an accidental self-inflicted shot.

Meanwhile his relations with his ex-wife Lillian (Mary Beth Hurt), girlfriend Margie (Sissy Spacek) and daughter Jill (Brigid Tierney) turn sourer and sourer too.

Ace writer-director Paul Schrader’s dark, dangerous, disturbing, distinguished and draining 1997 film, based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Russell Banks (author of The Sweet Hereafter, to which this story’s themes bear a family resemblance), is stolen by wily old James Coburn. He gives a brilliantly terrifying portrait of the abusive and alcoholic father, Glen, who made Nolte’s childhood a living hell.

Coburn said to Schrader: ‘Oh, you mean you want me to really act? I can do that. I haven’t often been asked to, but I can.’ And so it was that Coburn finally won a long-overdue and much deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar. It’s an outstanding performance, but then so is Nolte’s. There’s sterling work by a fine cast too, headed by Sissy Spacek, Willem Dafoe (as Rolfe Whitehouse), Mary Beth Hurt, Marian Seldes and Janine Thierault.

Brawley Nolte, Nick Nolte’s son, plays the Young Wade Whitehouse.

At 70, Coburn found the Oscar gave his career a shot in the arm, and he appeared in another 14 films before he died of a heart attack on November 18 2002, aged 74. Coburn’s passions included martial arts, playing cards and Cuban cigars.

And Nolte won best actor awards from the New York Film Critics Circle and the US National Society of Film Critics, as well as a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination. By 2014, Nolte still hasn’t won an Oscar. He was nominated as Best Actor for Prince of Tides (1992) and Best Supporting Actor for Warrior (2011).

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 825

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