Austin Bunn

Associate Professor of Performing and Media Arts

Austin Bunn, associate professor of performing and media arts at Cornell University, is an award-winning filmmaker and scriptwriter. He notes that while most of Hackman's accolades focus on his mercenary-style performances in darker, auteur films like “The French Connection” or “The Conversation,” it was his role in 1972's “The Poseidon Adventure” that truly resonated with the Forgotten Generation.

Bunn says:

“For me, and I think many of us children of divorce in Gen X, it was TV reruns of ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ — what Hackman later deemed a 'money job' — that cemented him in our minds as a powerful cinematic father figure. His Reverend Scott was decent, sacrificial, a reluctant group leader navigating complete chaos, fixing into my consciousness a positive paternal role that has been rehashed countless times in the movies (Sam Neill in ‘Jurassic Park,’ Dwayne Johnson in ‘San Andreas,’ etc.), but never with the same rallying force.  

“‘The Poseidon Adventure’ is often overlooked as a footnote in the adventure/disaster genre, but its success is less about the set-pieces than the makeshift family that forms, gets tested, loses most of those tests, and bands together to get the youngest to the surface. For a kid with a single mom, a brother and older sister (just like in the film), navigating the choppy waters of the '80s, it was the grown-up movie I needed and Hackman was the ultimate grown-up.

“He reported that while ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ wasn't his favorite him, it made more money than all his other films put together. I think Hackman was a large part of that success. His maturity and calm under pressure is what got those survivors — and to some extent, me — through."