The Uncanny Intensity of Director James Foley, Whose Best Films Left A Mark

Photos: Everett Collection, Getty Images ; Illustration: Dillen Phelps

“Put. That coffee. Down.”

One of the most famous lines in Glengarry Glen Ross is one that theatergoers will not hear at the current Broadway revival starring Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, and Bill Burr. Writer David Mamet’s tense, profane, often mordantly funny — and ultimately tragic — portrait of a night and day in a cage full of real estate scammers does not feature the galvanic opening scene in which the hapless “salesmen” are harangued by a salesman with a gold watch and a literal set of brass balls; it begins in media res, after the fellows have been instructed that it’s “f**k or walk” time. 

Mamet wrote the prologue at the request of the film’s director, James Foley, who died this week at 71; Glengarry was his fifth feature picture.  And Mamet wrote the character specifically for Baldwin, Foley’s pick for the role. The movie might have worked without it. But with it, it’s a masterpiece. Foley studied film at USC and was mentored by maestro Hal Ashby. It’s possible that Ashby, who made quirky classics including Harold and Maude and The Last Detail, imparted his own affinity for troubled and troubling characters to Foley. But fairly early on, Foley showed he had a touch entirely his own. Not right away, though. His feature debut, Reckless, was a slick, practically precision-engineered hotsy-totsy romantic drama that was also a debut for screenwriter Chris Columbus, who soon found firmer footing with more whimsical, family-friendly fare. (See: Gremlins, The Goonies, Home Alone.)

Reckless had a certain breakneck intensity, but nothing that would prepare you for At Close Range, Foley’s second feature and first masterpiece. Nicholas Kazan’s script, based on a true story, features Sean Penn as an adrift, pumped-up chucklehead who falls under the sway of his sociopathic criminal father (Christopher Walken, at his most chilling). 

Photo: Everett Collection

Variety called At Close Range “a very tough picture,” Roger Ebert called it “unforgiving.” Those assessments are possibly understatements. Shooting in a widescreen format (the cinematographer was Juan Ruiz Anchia), Foley mostly keeps his shots static, framing Walken a little off-center, in shallow focus. This is a skewed world, and Foley never flinches on his harrowing journey through it. The movie’s unforgettable final shot shows Penn literally as white as a ghost, and you understand exactly why. 

Actor Penn was, at that time, married to singer Madonna, and in an instant of successful creative synergy, the singer co-wrote and sang “Live to Tell,” the haunting ballad that plays over the end credits of At Close Range. Foley befriended Madonna during the process, and he admitted in an interview for a Madonna biography that taking on Who’s That Girl?, a neo-screwball comedy with Madonna in the lead, was a mistake — comedy was not his métier. Critics were even harsher. Madonna’s costar Griffin Dunne barely mentions the picture in his recent, superb (and heartbreaking) memoir The Friday Afternoon Club, and if you read it (you absolutely should) you’ll understand why; the book is mainly concerned with weightier matters. While I agree the picture doesn’t work, I’ve got a soft spot for it, because Madonna’s other costar is a super-cute baby cougar. KITTY! The Bringing Up Baby-goes-to-Danceteria effort was no doubt past its sell-by date when it hit theaters in 1987. 

Foley regained his footing quickly. In 1990 he made a tight, nasty, uncompromised movie out of nihilist noir master Jim Thompson’s After Dark, My Sweet, in which washed-up boxer Jason Patric is inveigled by Bruce Dern and seduced by Rachel Ward, resulting in a criminal mess. 

And then, Glengarry. For this picture he concocted a style that practically inverts the steady, merciless gaze of At Close Range. Early on, a backward tracking shot of uptight, venal office manager Kevin Spacey and Jack Lemmon’s increasingly desperate Shelley “The Machine” Levene walking out of the men’s room at the Chinese restaurant, establishes complex character dynamics with deft cinematic shorthand. Spacey walks a little ahead, staring straight at where he’s going. Lemmon, behind him, assuming the posture of a near-beaten dog, is practically panting. 

Al Pacino (L) and director James Foley (R) on the set of Glengarry Glen Ross in 1992. Photo: ©New Line Cinema/courtesy Everett Collection

Mamet’s play is not one that wants, or needs, “opening up;” but Foley not only understood the material at its root, but intuited, through his deep understanding of its people, how to imbue it with cinematic value. The camera is restless, anxious; the cutting unpredictable. So the movie never feels stagey. (And Baldwin, incidentally, sometimes really does sound like a younger version of Donald Trump during his harangue.)

For 1995’s Two Bits, Foley reunited with Glengarry’s Al Pacino; the results didn’t quite hit the mark. Between 1996 he made pictures featuring Gene Hackman, Faye Dunaway, Dustin Hoffman, and other luminaries; the strong components, which extended beyond star power, somehow didn’t gel. Although one might not regret returning to 1996’s Fear, the first of two pictures Foley made with Mark Wahlberg, which has a still-infamous roller-coaster scene. His conman picture Confidence has a lot of juice, although one might regret that it wasn’t written by Mamet and that it stars Edward Burns. (The rest of the cast, including Rachel Weisz, Dustin Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, and Andy Garcia, is, as you see, impeccable.)  His 2007 thriller Perfect Stranger, starring Bruce Willis and Halle Berry, was a bomb of nuclear proportions. It would be ten years before he would make another feature. Industry rumors alluded to personal problems. But he persisted, and in 2013 he directed twelve episodes of the highly-regarded House of Cards, possibly at the behest of his Glengarry actor Kevin Spacey, who was also an executive producer on the series. 

In 2016 he directed a couple of episodes of the cutthroat drama Billions. Brian Koppelman, the show’s co-creator with David Levien, told me last night: “Levien and I loved Jamie’s work long before we met him. I’d point people to the almost wordless sequence in At Close Range with Sean Penn atop the moving car as a perfect example of what Jamie could do with actors, a camera, and his giant heart. Getting to work with him, seeing him in action, talking with him, was an honor. We will miss him.” David Levien said: “His enthusiasm and passion behind the camera when chasing a performance energized and inspired the entire cast and crew. He truly brought a feature filmmaker’s sensibility and specificity to episodic TV.” 

And Foley did direct a couple of features thereafter: Two installments in the “Fifty Shades” franchise, 2017’s Fifty Shades Darker and 2018’s Fifty Shades Freed. The critics drubbed both pictures, but they were likely the biggest box office successes of Foley’s filmography, each grossing upwards of $300 million worldwide. One sincerely hopes this master, who trained an often surprising light on the shadow selves of his characters, and of us,  derived some satisfaction from that. 

Veteran critic Glenn Kenny reviews‎ new releases at RogerEbert.com, the New York Times, and, as befits someone of his advanced age, the AARP magazine. He blogs, very occasionally, at Some Came Running and tweets, mostly in jest, at @glenn__kenny. He is the author of the The World Is Yours: The Story of Scarface, published by Hanover Square Press, and now available for at a bookstore near you.