Mårten Blomkvist: Albert Finney radiated to the british tradition

With the help of the then-76-year-old Finney referred to director Sam Mendes Bond to the british film 1960s, a national title in which both the Way and Albert Finney were essential elements.

Read more: Actor Albert Finney is dead

The first bond movie, Agent 007...licence to kill”, came in 1962. Finney was a little earlier. He made his acting debut in 1960. In that year he first had a small role in ”Glädjespridaren” and then, just a couple of months later, it was the premiere of the movie that made him a star, ”Saturday night and Sunday morning”. Albert Finney learned to run a lathe for the role of fabriksarbetaren Arthur that wears out in weeks and party in the pub at the weekend. He is a feisty type who does not want to be stuck in this sad existence – but then he makes a girl with children. So clearly. Someone was always with the children in these early vardagsrealistiska british films, which quickly got the name ”diskbänksrealism”.

among others, Richard Burton and Alan Bates was Finney one of the ”angry young men” who at that time became a concept. They were distinctly british products, rooted in a british reality, in movies built on the plays and novels of british author Alan baker mr. sillitoe - who wrote ”Saturday night...” - John Osborne and Keith Waterhouse and Willie Hall. 1963 showed Finney the world that both he and smart young british filmrebeller could do something completely different than the black and white realism. Then came the ”Tom Jones!”, a beautiful color film based on Henry fielding's 1700s-talsroman a young waster and a seducer. The scene where he and Joyce Redman seducing each other with glances and pleasurable eating at a dinner table is obvious on all the lists of ”Memorable meals-on-film”. Finney received the first of their five Oscarnomineringar, none of which led to he had to get up and actually receive statyetten.

With the ”Tom Jones!” showed Finney their ability to make a kind of lush theatrical roles. He was colorful and good as gnidaren Scrooge in a stage musical version of Charles Dickens ' ”A Christmas Carol”, ”A ghost story” (1970) and as private detective Hercule Poirot in ”Murder on the Orient express” (1974). Looking back at his career struck by the fact that he was good at to rake in the goodies to roles: the aging self-absorbed star of ”Påklädaren” (1983) and the spritindränkta the consul in a godforsaken part of Mexico in ”Under the volcano”, for example. He made them both the honor.

the younger american directors use Finney in roles that called for personality, but still it was more dimmed. He made a gangster for the brothers Coen in ”Miller's Crossing” in 1990, and Julia Roberts head of the law firm of Steven Soderberghs ”Erin Brockovich” in 2000. Tim Burton was Finney again drag on, in the role of a lying father in ”Big Fish” (2003).

a role must be the last. Kincade was not so stupid. A robust man with a powerful appearance and the charisma of the british tradition. Yes, it was Albert Finney.