Word: huston
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART. In his portrayal of a director very like John Huston, Clint Eastwood subverts two rogue images: his own and that of a lovable auteur. He looks into the heart of maleness and finds equal parts arrogance and bluff...
...brave director who will guide him through a performance that satirizes the grand manner of one of recent movie history's most revered auteurs and, in the end, devastates the great man's macho posturings. Obviously, Clint Eastwood, who both plays John Wilson -- read that as John Huston -- and directs White Hunter, Black Heart, has more gumption than, say, Dirty Harry Callahan. After all, the short-fused San Francisco cop only had to face down outrageous criminals. Having committed this iconoclastic vision of Huston to film, Eastwood may find himself confronting roving bands of outraged cinephiles...
They should look closely at the film before they leap to conclusions. White Hunter, Black Heart is based on co-screenwriter Peter Viertel's roman a clef, published some four decades ago, about his experiences in Africa when he was engaged by Huston to polish James Agee's script for The African Queen. Eastwood has dared to attempt a faithful impression of the director, his growling drawl, his loose-limbed stride, the arrogant tilt of his head. The result is a stretch for him as an actor, and fun for the audience...
...film's largest strength is its fully dimensional re-creation of the man's spirit, about which Eastwood is thoughtfully, often amusingly, ambivalent. Huston's love of risk and contempt for caution, qualities that brought out the best in people who co-ventured with him over dangerous ground, are admiringly stated. In one of the movie's best passages, Wilson deliberately picks a fight he knows he will lose with a white racist in an exclusive African club. Sometimes, he says, bloodily staggering away from the encounter, you have to volunteer for losing causes or "your guts will turn...
...rogues' gallery of gangster films this fall, GoodFellas and Miller's Crossing blaze and strut their way out front. -- Clint Eastwood tackles the myth of filmmaker John Huston...