Daily Blague

Before I had a chance to read Susan Sontag's obituary in the Times, a friend called to say that Jerry Orbach died last night. Both died of cancer (leukemia, prostate), and both were relatively young (71, 69), even though they seemed to have been around forever. I remember reading Sontag's Against Interpretation and wondering if I would grow up to be an intellectual.

Being a clearly labeled species of intellectual, scientists in science fiction films are always liable to crack up or go off the deep end. ... Generally, for a scientific enterprise to be treated entirely sympathetically in these films, it needs the certificate of utility. Science, viewed without ambivalence, means an efficacious response to danger. Disinterested intellectual curiosity rarely appears in any form other than caricature, as a maniacal dementia that cuts one off from normal human relations. But this suspicion is usually directed at the scientist rather than his work. The creative scientist may become a martyr to his own discovery, through an accident or by pushing things too far. But the implication remains that other men, less imaginative - in short, technicians - could have administered the same discovery better and more safely. The most ingrained contemporary mistrust of the intellectual is visited, in these movies, upon the scientist-as-intellectual.

That's from "The Imagination of Disaster," in Against Interpretation (FSG, 1966, 1986). It proved to be a useful warning.

Jerry Orbach will be remembered, I hope, for his many movie roles, among which Gus Levy (The Prince of the City) and Jack Rosenthal (Crimes and Misdemeanors) are particular favorites of mine.