Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, Absence of Malice, Out of Africa, Tootsie, The Firm, Searching for Bobby Fischer Sydney Pollack has produced, directed or appeared in some of the biggest and most influential films of the last quarter century. His emergence in Hollywood coincided with other innovative directors as John Frankenheimer, George Roy Hill and Sidney Lumet, and he helped develop a contemplative style of filmmaking almost European in its approach but retained its commercial viability. Film-by-film, this work examines the directorial career of Sydney Pollack. One finds that his style is marked by deliberate pacing, ambiguous endings and metaphorical love stories. Topically, Pollack's films reflect social, culture and political dilemmas that hold some fascination for him, with multidimensional characters in place that break the stereotypical molds of the situations.