Category: Directors Ea

Firefox (1982, Clint Eastwood)

Firefox has three distinct phases. First, there's retired Air Force pilot Clint Eastwood getting recruited into an espionage mission. This part of the film barely takes any time at all–there's three missing months–Eastwood, as the director, does not like montage sequences. Even the opening exposition setting up the movie is cut together quickly; Ron Spang and Ferris Webster's editing is fantastic throughout. The opening sequence just introduces them as an essential component to the film.

The second phase is the espionage phase. Eastwood heads to Russia, where he meets up with dissident Warren Clarke who's going to help him. This part of the film is the most impressive. It's constant action as Eastwood is on the run from the KGB; the script's a little strange–it never lets Eastwood be in control during this section. He's always a few steps behind. Clarke's great.

The final phase is the extended fighter jet sequence. Most of the film before this sequence–except the opening–is either inside or takes place at night. The flight sequences are effects galore and Bruce Surtees shows off how startling he can make some of the shots. It's not a particularly exciting sequence; it takes over thirty minutes. It's practically its own movie, only it eventually forgets about Klaus Löwitsch as the general tasked with tracking Eastwood down while Stefan Schnabel's bureaucrat harasses him.

It's a missed opportunity, narratively speaking, but some glorious filmmaking.

Actually, that description sums up Firefox overall. The espionage stuff is strong, but the flying's gorgeous.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Clint Eastwood; screenplay by Alex Lasker and Wendell Wellman, based on the novel by Craig Thomas; director of photography, Bruce Surtees; edited by Ron Spang and Ferris Webster; music by Maurice Jarre; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Clint Eastwood (Mitchell Gant), Freddie Jones (Kenneth Aubrey), David Huffman (Captain Buckholz), Warren Clarke (Pavel Upenskoy), Ronald Lacey (Semelovsky), Kenneth Colley (Colonel Kontarsky), Klaus Löwitsch (General Vladimirov), Nigel Hawthorne (Pyotr Baranovich) and Stefan Schnabel (First Secretary).

RELATED

Men of the Sky (1942, B. Reeves Eason)

Men of the Sky opens with General Henry H. Arnold addressing a graduating class of air cadets. Charles P. Boyle’s Technicolor photography is glorious and Harold McKernon’s editing is outstanding and Sky feels like an almost too precious time capsule.

Only then the realism shatters when Arnold starts directly addressing actors, not actual air cadets. All of a sudden, though Boyle’s photography remains wondrous throughout, Sky‘s propaganda becomes a chore to stomach. The problem’s Owen Crump’s script. Crump also narrates the short, so he’s at least enthusiastic in that responsibility, but he can’t string the elements together.

I think Eleanor Parker–as the wife of one of the pilots–has the most lines (like two of them); she’s only in it for thirty seconds. None of the cast are particularly distinctive, not even with Crump trying so hard.

Even as propaganda, Sky is bad. Crump’s too awful a writer.

Soldiers in White (1942, B. Reeves Eason)

Everett Dodd’s editing makes Soldiers in White painful to watch. Some of the fault is director Eason’s, of course. His insert close-ups are awful. Given Soldiers is half comedy and half Army propaganda film (the titular soldiers are Army doctors), it’s hard to believe Eason was worried about running short and felt the need for more footage.

The narrative concerns William T. Orr as a whiny little intern who gets drafted. He harasses nurse Eleanor Parker and, once he’s wounded, is inspired by fatherly John Litel to knock off the wiseacre stuff and be an army doctor. Orr’s real bad. I kept hoping the moral of the story was he’d get run over.

Parker manages to make Owen Crump’s lame script seem good. Litel, who isn’t bad, can’t manage that feat.

Eason’s direction is weak.

The short’s tepid, of note only for Parker and Wilfred M. Cline’s Technicolor photography.

Beaten (2005, Jon East)

Does the BBC have to dedicate a certain amount of time to socially conscious programming because it’s partially government funded?

I’m not asking that question as a swipe at Beaten, which is an hour-long special about spousal abuse… but it sort of feels like it was made to fulfill a requirement. The plot’s creative, but just because the route from A to B to C is different, if C is the whole point, the route doesn’t matter.

Robson Green and Saira Toddin—both in hard roles, given the twists, do well.

The direction’s too flashy and impressed with digital editing, but it’s generally all right.

The format is what ends up failing Beaten. The story deserves more. Writer Alison Hume does a good job and instead of being an interesting, slightly suspiciously motivated short film, I’m sure she could have written a solid feature. One with texture and layers.

Gran Torino (2008, Clint Eastwood)

When Bruce Springsteen did his 9/11 response record, The Rising, he was in an odd position–given the gravity of his intent, he couldn’t misstep. He might get excused for it, but then the record would be (albeit well-meaning) propaganda. It wouldn’t be art.

Clint Eastwood’s in a similar situation with Gran Torino. He’s dealing with capital I issues here, a whole slew of them ranging from post-war psychological trauma (the film’s very much a companion piece to his two Iwo Jima films), the Church, minority relations, generational divides, gender… that Eastwood’s character is a vocal bigot probably doesn’t even make the top ten. Eastwood can’t make any mistakes or the film won’t work. It’ll be Crash.

He doesn’t make any mistakes.

Gran Torino is a throwback to older Eastwood films in a lot of ways, to his films of the 1970s more than those of the 1990s. The film doesn’t have a particularly large cast and the action takes place mostly in two houses. It reminded me a lot of Nobody’s Fool in the way that film was the perfect old Paul Newman picture, this one is the perfect old Clint Eastwood one. Eastwood’s front and center for almost the entire film, I don’t remember the last time his acting was so central to one of his films. But it isn’t his monologues, because he only has a couple and they’re short and he doesn’t say much in them, it’s Eastwood acting opposite a dog. It’s one of the most transformative performances I’ve ever seen from an icon, someone who wasn’t adopting a different accent or hairstyle, growing a beard or putting on a bunch of weight. It’s Clint Eastwood, right there on the screen, but he personifies Walt Kowalski immediately.

Otherwise, the film wouldn’t work. It doesn’t work if it’s about Eastwood making a statement. In the end, Gran Torino doesn’t have a big moral. It’s pro-melting pot in an understated way, if that position qualifies as a moral. The film’s incredibly quiet, with Eastwood’s Panavision frame constantly showcasing the everyday. Some wonderful things happen in Gran Torino–the loudest atrocities aren’t even the worst–and Eastwood doesn’t draw attention to any of them.

The film’s interesting in terms of its debuts. It’s writer Nick Schenk’s first feature. Co-stars Bee Vang and Abney Her haven’t been in anything else. Watching Hey in particular is fascinating, because she works so well with Eastwood. During the silences in their scenes together, the mind can almost step back and admire his work directing her. These are half-thoughts though, with the film seizing one again immediately. Vang’s scenes with Eastwood are entirely different (which is another one of the big issues Gran Torino covers) and Vang’s character’s development through the film is noteworthy. But even Christopher Carley, in–I guess–the fourth biggest role, hasn’t been in very much, and his scenes–as Eastwood’s indefatigable priest–are great.

In smaller roles, Brian Haley, Geraldine Hughes and John Carroll Lynch are all good.

Tom Stern’s photography is excellent–the sound from Bud Asman and company is particularly fantastic–and James J. Murakami’s production design is great. The film’s technical perfection. Eastwood gives son Kyle Eastwood (and Michael Stevens) scoring duties here and their contributions might be another reason it feels so different from his modern work.

Fifteen or twenty minutes into the film, it reminded me of Interiors–a flawless, but dispassionately (on my part) inevitable masterpiece. It isn’t. Through its humor and its delicateness, Gran Torino exhilarates.

Back to Eastwood not being able to make a false step… I’m pretty sure Gran Torino is the first Eastwood film to end with an original song penned by Eastwood (with Jamie Cullum, Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens). He’s done original pieces of music before himself (and scores himself), but a song is something else. And it’s perfect.

Changeling (2008, Clint Eastwood)

During the lousiest parts of Changeling–easily identifiable by Jeffrey Donovan’s increased presence–there should be a disclaimer running across the bottom of the screen: “It doesn’t stay this bad… promise.”

Changeling is the worst film Clint Eastwood’s made in years. It’s easily the worst of his serious films–afterwards, I realized his last film before this one was Letters from Iwo Jima, which is stunning. One film’s an artistic expression, the other is the most over-produced Oscar bait I’ve sat through in a long time.

Eastwood’s never been a director-for-hire, but maybe Changeling signals some kind of a change. There’s absolutely no personality to this film. Eastwood’s direction, his composition, is impeccable. His musical score, fantastic. It looks great. But it’s empty. True stories aren’t good because they’re true–and true stories meant to win Angelina Jolie her coveted Best Actress statuette–vehicles for highly paid actresses who don’t necessarily bring in the box office dollars… they’re the worst kind of true stories.

Eastwood does find material in Changeling he’s interested in, but none of it features Jolie. Once he gets done with the fetishistic approach to daily life in 1928, he’s done with her. There are occasional moments of interest, like when John Malkovich shows up, but there are also terrible stretches. The film’s interesting moments are the discovery of a crime, when Michael Kelly’s the protagonist. Kelly’s great in the film, one of the best performances, and he gets the entirely un-Academy part of enabling the discovery of truth. The Oscar desperate moments feature–really–Amy Ryan as a hooker with a heart of gold who gets ECT just to show off her twenty-four karats.

I don’t fault Ryan for taking the role–I’m sure it came with assurances of a Best Supporting campaign and all–but Clint Eastwood making a film so desperate to win Oscars it brings in a ringer? It’s painful to watch.

Jolie’s fine in the lead. She’s never great and never terrible. Her despair is believable (because it’s Angelina Jolie and we know she’s a mother), which is about all the role calls for. The most interesting parts of her character–going back to work while her son is missing, digging a little on her bald boss–are never explored. They wouldn’t look good in that Best Actress reel.

Malkovich is utterly solid in a role with nothing for him to do. It’s technically the second biggest role and I guess they needed another name for the poster. Jason Butler Harner and Eddie Alderson are both great, so is Geoffrey Pierson.

When I heard about Changeling, I thought the biggest problem would be J. Michael Straczynski’s script and I was right. The dialogue’s fine–never particularly good–and the plotting is okay. It’s boring, but okay. But Straczynski’s approach to characters might actually be Changeling‘s place in cinematic history (in addition to being a blot on Eastwood’s filmography). Straczynski’s characters are entirely one-note–every last one of them–and it exemplifies the difference between one-dimensional bad guys and one-dimensional good guys. The bad guys are unbelievable. The good guys… it’s sort of assumed they’re not always being white knights. But the bad guys? Donovan’s performance is atrocious–it’s one of the worst I can remember seeing in a film from such a good director–but his character is idiotic too. The guy’s always bad. Compared to Donovan’s cop, Milton treated the serpent like Mickey Mouse. It makes the film excruciating for long stretches.

I can’t figure out why Clint Eastwood would have made this movie. Sure, he got a bigger budget than usual and an interesting setting, but it’s crap. It’s well-made crap, but I felt embarrassed watching it. Worse, I felt bad for Eastwood… Changeling is the kind of malarky Ron Howard makes now, not Clint Eastwood.

And look who produced it.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Clint Eastwood; written by J. Michael Straczynski; director of photography, Tom Stern; edited by Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach; music by Eastwood; production designer, James J. Murakami; produced by Eastwood, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Robert Lorenz; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Angelina Jolie (Christine Collins), John Malkovich (Reverand Briegleb), Jeffrey Donovan (Captain J.J. Jones), Michael Kelly (Detective Ybarra), Colm Feore (Chief Davis), Jason Butler Harner (Gordon Stewart Northcott), Amy Ryan (Carol Dexter), Geoff Pierson (Hahn), Denis O’Hare (Dr. Steele), Frank Wood (Ben Harris), Peter Gerety (Dr. Tarr), Gattlin Griffith (Walter Collins) and Devon Conti (Arthur Hutchins).

RELATED

Crazy Moon (1987, Allan Eastman)

Crazy Moon appears to be a Canadian attempt at a John Hughes movie. In order to differentiate, they make the female lead deaf, which then makes Crazy Moon no longer in the Hughes vein–Kiefer Sutherland’s lead is also weird in a very non-Hughes way–and for much of the film then, they’re failing to meet that bad standard. Instead, Crazy Moon is charming. It’s too likable characters spending time together, with old standards playing a little too loud in the background. After the movie goes through its hurried plot-points–the third act takes up maybe six minutes–it all of a sudden becomes that terrible Canadian imitation of John Hughes it seemed ravenous to become. Sutherland’s character changes in a split second, but it turns out the big change wasn’t necessary because everything gets resolved real neat within a minute. Maybe two minutes, but short enough the song for the showdown with his brother is also the song for the end credits.

In terms of acting, Sutherland does a real good job throughout Crazy Moon. His essaying of the character does work the script should have done (like establishing off-screen emotional trauma). Peter Spence, who plays his brother, is rather bland, but his scenes with Sutherland do get a lot of work done. If the film had actual layers, instead of the illusion of layers, Spence’s performance would be more important, but as it stands, it’s fine. As the love interest, Vanessa Vaughan is good. At times though, she’s visibly bored. Maybe it’s just been a while since I’ve seen an eighties movie–with the stalking lead–but a lot of Crazy Moon works only because she’s hung up (something never really addressed) about being deaf.

Still, it’s just as pleasant of a viewing experience as it always was… though I can’t believe I never noticed the omnipresent boom mikes. The direction’s unremarkable throughout, never dipping up or down; the camera sits there and lets the action play out. Given Crazy Moon‘s finest assets are Sutherland and Vaughan’s appealing performances (not the choppy script), it’s a fine approach.

The Gauntlet (1977, Clint Eastwood)

I think I watched The Gauntlet for masochistic reasons, namely screenwriters Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack, the late 1970s, early 1980s version of Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner–incompetent Hollywood writers. Even so, the film’s not wholly terrible. It’s rarely exciting, just because the action sequences are so poorly written, and Clint approaches the whole thing with a sense of boredom. His character’s real shallow and the film would barely work if it weren’t for Sondra Locke and Eastwood’s chemistry. Locke’s actually got some really good moments–which is hard, considering how bad her character is written for the first half or so–including a great monologue comparing hookers and cops. In the later half of the film, once the two of them improbably fall in love, there’s even a neat idea of a scene, but again the writing kills it.

About fifteen minutes into The Gauntlet, I realized it was not dissimilar to Clint’s earlier, Coogan’s Bluff, but the greatest difference between the two is that lack of interest I mentioned before. Clint shoots this one in lots of long shots, concentrating on the physicality of the situations and not the characters, as though if he did, the characters might have to realize the absurdity of their situation. So it isn’t just the script making the character shallow, it’s also Clint’s direction of himself–those long shots make the character empty. His performance is sort of broad. When he’s interested, he acts; when he’s not, he’s on autopilot.

The supporting cast is fantastic–William Prince, Pat Hingle, and Michael Cavanaugh are all good. The names in the movie are some of the most absurd I’ve heard: Blakelock, Feyderspiel, Shockley. The actors stumble over them with a lot of trouble–audible trouble, which sometimes makes the more boring scenes funny. An interesting, IMDb-fueled note: this film reunites Clint with Mara Corday. They both appeared in Tarantula twenty-two years earlier, though they didn’t have any scenes together (and Clint wasn’t credited). That bit of trivia–and the possibility of a story behind it–is more interesting than anything in The Gauntlet, except, I suppose, my newfound regard for Sondra Locke’s acting ability.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Clint Eastwood; screenplay by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack; director of photography, Rexford Metz; edited by Ferris Webster and Joel Cox; music by Jerry Fielding; produced by Robert Daley; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Clint Eastwood (Ben Shockley), Sondra Locke (Gus Mally), Pat Hingle (Josephson), William Prince (Blakelock), Bill McKinney (Constable), Michael Cavanaugh (Feyderspiel), Carole Cock (Waitress), Mara Corday (Jail matron), Douglas McGrath (Bookie) and Jeff Morris (Desk Sergeant).

RELATED

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006, Clint Eastwood)

It’d be absurdly obvious to point out Letters from Iwo Jima is an anomaly in Clint Eastwood’s body of work. Outside, well, some Japanese directors in the 1950s and 1960s, it’d probably be an anomaly in anyone’s oeuvre. It reminds me of a dream movie–some movie I watch in a dream and wake up and it’s not real. Even a day later, thinking about the film, I keep expecting it not to be real. Certainly not to get to see it again.

Though it’s a definite companion to Flags of Our Fathers, it really makes no sense to talk about the two films in relation to each other. Besides the obvious comparison (Das Boot), Iwo Jima reminds most of The Big Red One–there’s a relentless futility essayed in the three films, but Iwo Jima is by far the bleakest portrayal of war I’ve ever seen. It may have something to do with being from the Japanese perspective, but even of the Japanese war films I’ve seen… Iwo Jima is something more. The bleakness somehow never manages to depress though. Letters from Iwo Jima tells its story in a finite arena and, even though it has a slight modern-day frame, never really makes any comment on its subjects. There are a lot of beautiful moments in the film, usually involving the main character, played by Ninomiya Kazunari, and his friends and his experiences. But while the film spends its time with both he and Ken Watanabe’s general, neither are really the main focus of the film. Clint encapsulates the entire experience through these two, which lead me to The Big Red One comparison, but there are also comparison’s to Sam Fuller’s other war films, which were also incredibly bleak (The Big Red One is probably the most cheery, in fact).

In many ways, Letters from Iwo Jima is an indescribable film. Seeing it soon after Flags of Our Fathers makes a technical comparison possible, maybe even interesting, but the two films are completely different. Iwo Jima is a film… well, it’s completely unique, both in the experience of seeing it and its place in big-f Film (which is separately thrilling, that a film could still make a place for itself in the medium). It’s a startling achievement from Clint Eastwood and I pretty much figured he could do anything, but here he manages to top any conceivable expectations.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Clint Eastwood; screenplay by Iris Yamashita, based on a story by Yamashita and Paul Haggis; director of photography, Tom Stern; edited by Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach; music by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens; production designers, Henry Bumstead and James J. Murakami; produced by Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and Robert Lorenz; released by Warner Bros. and DreamWorks Pictures.

Starring Ken Watanabe (Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi), Ninomiya Kazunari (Saigo), Ihara Tsuyoshi (Baron Nishi), Kase Ryo (Shimizu), Nakamura Shidou (Lieutenant Ito) and Nae (Hanako).

RELATED

Flags of Our Fathers (2006, Clint Eastwood)

When my friend saw Flags of Our Fathers and I asked him about it, he described it–I’m paraphrasing–as an unexciting four. Seeing it, I can fully understand. It’s a great film, but its greatness is somewhat inevitable and uninteresting. Clint’s way too good of a filmmaker at this point to turn in something less, especially given the content. However, the content, specifically Clint’s fluctuating interest in it, is what makes Flags so unexceptional, so unexciting. Flags is based on a guy’s book investigating his father and the other flag-raisers at Iwo Jima. While the film does establish itself with a present-day frame, it isn’t specified its this author investigating. Away from Iwo Jima, Clint’s most interested in Adam Beach’s character, an alcoholic American Indian who’s touring as a hero but can’t get served in bars. Beach’s character is the most like an Eastwood character in Flags. At one moment, after the book-writing frame became clear and Flags felt a lot like The Bridges of Madison County, only without Clint’s full commitment to the frame, Beach seemed a lot like Clint in that film.

Even though Beach has Clint and the film’s interest for the war bonds campaign (after the photo got popular, the surviving subjects toured to sell war bonds), Ryan Phillippe gets the most emphasis on Iwo Jima. Watching Phillippe act and do it well, I felt validated–back in 1998, I said he was going to be good (after watching Playing by Heart) and it only took him seven years. The Iwo Jima sections of the film are short and involve a lot of CG and watching Clint handle it is interesting. He uses the CG like a rear projection, making Flags of Our Fathers‘s battle scenes look a lot like a modern 1940s war film. He pulls it off well, because it’s interesting to look at, while not being visually stunning. Still, I think there was a whole story of the characters on Iwo Jima, just because the castings so good–Barry Pepper, Neal McDonough and Robert Patrick are all great in small roles (Pepper especially), but the greatest surprise of Flags, performance-wise, has to be Paul Walker. Sure, he’s only got ten lines and he’s in the film for two and a half minutes, but he’s really good.

The third main character, played by Jesse Bradford, somehow gets more time than Phillippe, but has the least to do. The film only hints at the relationship between the three men, but never explores it, probably through some kind of misguided sense of historical accuracy. I’m kidding (to some degree), but it’s obvious there’s something holding Clint back here and it’s probably the source material and its presentation. Clint’s made an excellent film, but there’s something missing, some awareness of itself and the different ways it moves, since it does have three concurrently running narratives. It might even be three films, or at least two since Bridges managed to beautifully incorporate its two narratives.

It’s a powerful film and a complete experience, but it’s like ordering dinner at a great restaurant, a restaurant you know is going to be excellent. The food’s great, but it doesn’t surprise you.