Sean Connery was The Man and The Myth.

Very few actors had what Sean Connery had in the way he had. Very few could get away with it. Connery like another one of my favorite actors George Sanders should probably be thankful he was born in the era he was, where the anonymity of celebrity, and the mystery of their inner lives allowed them to miss almost completely any compelling challenges to their actual personhood. It was a type of peace actors today could not enjoy, and in cases like Connery should not. Connery was the type of man that lived in the rarified air of the myth. One of those figures that like John Wayne, or Clint Eastwood seemed to actually be the men they portrayed on screen. Wayne was the Cowboy, Eastwood the quintessential “Tough guy", Connery's particular myth was the Warrior Scholar. The well studied, well travelled man of action. Resolute in action, sturdy, analytical, and quick on his feet. He was best suited for so many warrior scholar roles because he exuded exactly those qualities. Warrior scholars hold a very mythological place in our society because in many ways they are myths. A realistic example of them in life is extremely rare. They have a dichotomy of approaches that rarely congeal. Upon further interrogation they rarely stand up to the idea of them in our heads. The analytical and action oriented being who measurebly enacts not necessarily with balance but with prudence when the time for either should be is mostly the consequence of storytelling. The archetype has endeared itself to us through masters of story and legend by way of representing two of the qualities we admire most in people especially in our men, wisdom, and strength. So that when as Dr. Henry Jones Connery decisively crowns his own son across the head mistakenly, and then expresses regret for what he has ( also mistakenly) believed was a prized artifact we all go “wow…what a man” even if not in any way that is spoken. …

But again it’s fair to ask does the Warrior Scholar truly exist in the way we see them? These men who always know instinctively when to act and when to analyze in a way that appeals to the most upstanding virtues in ourselves. Apparently not. Connery was accused of abuse in her memoir by ex-wife Diane Cilento both mentally and physically, and in all those years where was the analysis of situation then? Where was society's, especially other men? Later when asked about his distasteful comments about abuse he doubled down and didn't back off one bit. His explanation is horrific, and lacks analysis of even the most banal sort. It’s the kind born of the audacity of not only an individual, but an age. Make no mistake thinking this entrenched is always backed up by a body of thought, and yet when we are honest with ourselves we find some of that “body" in us. Our society not only allowed, but celebrated Connery as he would appeal to this sentiment many times over his career as Bond, and if not directly, implicitly in films that range from the Lion in Winter to The Anderson Tapes ( One of my faves) and then even more as he grew older in The Highlander and The Untouchables. It’s not just about physical violence it’s the mindset that seems to not even desire to question the harm. There’s no empathy, because there is no analysis, no analysis because that’s hesitation, that’s pause. Connery could look the scholar, feel it, but he didnt really understand it, it was a concept to him. In the latter of the last two films I mentioned ( The Untouchables) Connery is in rare form. As Malone, he is a street scholar, a man that understands the guttural heart beat of a cruel city. A man that knows the streets, and understands the mentality of the gangster while fully being dedicated to the law, the type that would sooner laugh at a scholar, a thinker, because he is a doer. This is not only fool-hardy, its copaganda, but its myth and Connery understands the power of it, and we believe Connery exactly because he’s so damn sure he’s right he assures us. Elliott Ness (or at least Costner’s and DePalmas idealized version of this actually very mediocre person ) is all innocence and uncertainty, but Connery's Malone is all worldliness and confidence. He knows he’s right even when hes wrong. Hes seen it all, done it all, so what’s the point of thinking about it, ACTION! “You’ve got to take action SON! Stop thinking about what’s right and worrying about your precious morality and ACT!” That’s the sum of what hes saying here. Connery fills it and almost all his roles with this mythical confidence, this complete lack of doubt in his words this power, this virility, and truth, not objective truth mind you, because that’s not what he's going for, hell it doesn't matter that this is complete bullshit, Connery gives it the ring of truth by being true to the man, the myth that is Malone, there is no contemplation in Connery and there is none in Malone as to why he is, he just is…Connery was nominated for his first and only Oscar …

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The truth is most of Connerys best roles occupied this exact space, a space made all that much more believable because in real life he occupied this same mythical space. A member of The Royal Navy, an accomplished soccer player, a body builder, who also read works by Tolstoy, Proust, Ibsen, and Joyce, I mean c'mon, the man’s real life resume read like one of those 80s /90s action heroes, in fact his own John Patrick Mason in Michael Bay's “The Rock". This is the framework that made possible the aesthetic belief of Connery the screen legend, but the intrinsic belief came by way of skill, and presence. Connery had a simple but extremely effective and organic way of putting, placing , or saying things that reminded one of a warrior. Miyamoto Musashi- a famed Warrior who was also a philosopher - had what could be seen as a disdain for hesitation for doubt. He and others felt “be quick to action but graceful and poetic”, it was a common refrain and his code, Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s as well. Connery embodied this spirit to the point even some of us who knew better let him pass as a world travelled Egyptian who picked up much of these warrior ethics along the way. John Patrick Mason, one of his most prominent characters molded in this visage was also one of his few escapes from this, it’s where Connery proves hes adept at vulnerability, and had he continued down this path it would’ve been profoundly interesting to see what he found. In “The Rock” Mason skillfully, and rather comically escapes the grasp of the FBI who seeks to use him as a pawn in their desire to get rid of an undesirable, and his first and only desire is to make contact with his estranged daughter. While telling her of his plans to try and build a relationship they’ve never had, Connery makes Mason unsteady but not hesitant, each word each thought has a rhythm, a bassline, even while the man himself is slightly unsure. This is courage, and it is grace, and it is extremely masculine and yet it is also a dash of the feminine. For a moment..the unknown in Connery makes an appearance, and when I say moment and dash, I do mean a dash and moment. For the entire scene his eyes have the Eastwoodian glare, that centrality of purpose, that “Oh so Male” sureity, while the body reveals the doubt beneath, but the moment he begins to utter the words “Jade I’m not an evil man..” they soften to reveal a depth of vulnerability rarely seen in Connery but severely wanted, because he wants this. It's something we’ve rarely if ever seen in Connery…desperation. We won’t see it again for much of the film, but it is enough and it all Connery needed.

This kind of unabashed appeal to masculinity is rarely tolerated these days , (and for the record I don't know that it should be) and those that have it (The Rock, Schwarzenegger, Stallone) , are usually completely unable to pull off the scholarly factor. One of the few actors that could shared the screen with him as his son ..Harrison Ford was one of the few, but Ford was always more vulnerable, more penetrable than Connery allowed, this is why it was so believable that Connery was intimidating father figure to Ford. Ford was an everyman that could be anything including scrappy and scholarly himself, but it was that new sense of vulnerability that he and later others "(Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves) brought to the new hero that made Ford appear directly susceptible to the men they came from, the men like Connery they may have idolized. It was truly one of the more perfect castings ever put to screen. As a side note this is one of the reasons I was so disgusted by the rumor of Chris Pratt as the next Indiana Jones. Pratt's sore and total lacking in that all important scholar quality. Sure he could pull off being a smart ass, and scrappy, but a scholar? Indie sure, Dr Jones?? Not on your life. Pratts whole schtick is based on no one including him believing a word he says, it doesn't work putting him on positions of authority or intelligence. It tells us how far we come regarding our sensibilities about our heroes and also that not all forms of vulnerability and willingness to be unsure are equal, and when faced with the decision to choose between complete doubt in what you say or do, and complete belief in something that could or might be completely ridiculous, I think we’ve all at some point shown where we stand. It is in all this that I find that Connery was both statuesque and classic. Both a representation of the sturdiness of nostalgia and a relic of a by gone era. He tapped out just at the right time leaving us with the picture of the actor and the flawed and at times villain that was the man. We should remember both , not just for posterity, but because it encompassed and informed the work. What made Sean Connery Sean Connery was that he got through his life and work with no hesitancy and a definitive decidedness, that should be praised in his work and cautioned and chastised against in his and anyone’s life, and that is the fallacy of the man and the legend of the actor.