Damian Dovarganes/AP Paul Mazursky (c.) is joined by Jeff Garlin, left, and Mel Brooks, right, at the ceremony honoring Mazursky with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles in December 2013. Mazursky, 84, the writer-director of such films as ‘Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice’ and ‘An Unmarried Woman’ died Tuesday. The work of some filmmakers is important because it's timeless. Paul Mazursky's films remain essential because they were so much about the times in which they were made.
The Brooklyn-born writer-director, who died Tuesday at age 84, was one of the filmmakers of the 1970s whose forte was how we lived and what issues we lived with. Viewed today, Mazursky's best films — the relationship roundelay "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (1969); the male-centered divorce dramedy "Blume in Love" (1973); the oldster-and-cat road tripper "Harry & Tonto" (1974); the serio-comic "An Unmarried Woman" (1978), and the class-conscious farce "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" (1986) — lose none of their poignancy or satirical edge, yet stand not just as time capsules, but portals into another era's mores and attitudes.
Mazursky, who was nominated for five Academy Awards, made films that reflected their times in other ways, too. Outsiders and souls in transition often peopled his work. Always a great leveler and egalitarian, both his high and low characters could wind up lost in the same sea.
GAB Archive/Redferns CElliott Gould, Natalie Wood, Robert Culp and Dyan Cannon sit in bed together in a promotional photo from the 1969 film, 'Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,' directed by Paul Mazursky. 
RALPH GATTI/AFP/Getty Images Actresses Jill Clayburgh (R) for the film ‘An Unmarried Woman,’ directed by Paul Mazursky and Isabelle Huppert for the film ‘Violette Noziere’ pose with their Best Actress Award at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival. 
Moviestore Collection/Re/REX USA Robin Williams and Cleavant Derricks in ‘Moscow on the Hudson.’Previous Next
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"Alex in Wonderland" (1970) was about a bohemian film director questioning his trajectory. "Next Stop, Greenwich Village" was Mazursky's autobiographical tale of leaving Brooklyn for Manhattan in the 1950s. "Tempest" (1982) was a modern retelling of Shakespeare's play that took out the wizardry and added mid-life crisis. "Moscow on the Hudson" examined cold war connections through a defector's wistful eyes. "Enemies: A Love Story" (1989) was a layered, complex adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer's novel of Jewish WWII survivors in postwar Brooklyn.
His ability to draw nuanced, naturalistic performances was no accident. Mazursky began his career as an actor, debuting in Stanley Kubrick's first film, 1953's "Fear and Desire." Along with Dennis Hopper and Vic Morrow, he was one of the delinquents in "The Blackboard Jungle" (1955). He continued to act throughout the 1960s, and often appeared in his own films.
JASON REDMOND/REUTERS Actor and director Paul Mazursky was nominated five times for an Academy Award. For other filmmakers, he acted in "A Star is Born" (1976), "History of the World Part I" (1981), "Punchline" (1988) and "Carlito's Way" (1993), among others, and on TV's "The Sopranos" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
His Oscar nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay ("Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," "Enemies: A Love Story"), Best original Screenplay ("Harry and Tonto," "An Unmarried Woman") and Best Picture ("An Unmarried Woman") displayed Mazursky's literary bent, as did his film reviews for Vanity Fair, which is began writing in 2011 through the time of his death.
The way people said things were important to him — the sarcasm they exhibited under stress, the sensitivity they showed when it was least expected. Those were emotions of the Me Decade, of a culture that wanted to get in touch with what exactly was going on. We can get a feel for it, too, still, through his films.
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