After I reviewed Clint Eastwood’s latest movie, Invictus, an anthropologist I care deeply for sent me an email with her insights on the movie. She had this to say at the time:
“I have complex feelings about Eastwood and his libertarian politics: for me, he has never understood social processes, and works with lone, heroic figures that must triumph despite society and law. So I felt sure that he would scant the complex historical forces at play in Mandela’s historical role, and in the South African transition. Resorting to the game and the world cup was then a simple formulaic device to reduce these complexities, and also the challenges of nation-building under postcolonial conditions.”
Invictus was only the second movie directed by Eastwood that I’ve seen, after Million Dollar Baby. Recently, I watched an older Africa-related movie made by Eastwood, called White Hunter, Black Hurt. And now I accurately understand what my acquaintance meant.
Eastwood plays the flamboyant and historical character of director John Huston, the famous filmmaker and screenwriter who made African Queen, one of the earliest movies about Africa. Called John Wilson here, Huston has two obsessions: he wants to make a wonderful movie and kill an elephant. Why killing an elephant? Because it’s a sin he wants to commit. White Hunter, Black Hurt, an adaptation of the novel with the same name, deconstructs these obsessions and tries to make sense of this extremely complex personality. To some extent, Eastwood is successful in his endeavor. The character he plays borders paranoia and shows a libertarian mantra so uncharacteristic of people of his time (the action happens in the early aftermath of the Second Word War).
Making a movie about the conflicts inside an artist is quite an appealing project. But what Eastwood, the director does, is exactly what the anthropologist quoted earlier said. He oversimplifies the realities of the time and portrays an eccentric man who fights against everyone for justice. Which ends up being a quite shortsighted perspective.
Wilson goes to Africa accompanied by his friend, Pete Verrill, an elegant Jewish young man whose main mission is to smile, entertain his older companion and keep him on track with his project. When they reach Africa, Uganda to be more precise, they go to Lake Victoria hotel, a famous high class hotel owned by a white settler. One evening, the two have diner with a gorgeous young woman who Wilson fancies quite a lot. But it turns out that she’s anti-Semite which makes the old director snipe and dismiss her in a very brutal manner out of reverence for his younger friend. But immediately after that, a servant drops a tray and is mistreated by his white employee. That makes Wilson go after this guy as well. The character challenges the white owner to a fight and then tells Verrill: “we fought the preliminary for the kikes now we will fight the main event for the niggers.” Really? Is that Eastwood’s conception of an individual making the world a better place? Granted that his character admits he’s an intruder in Africa, do we really reduce racism and anti-Semitism to a snide dismissal over a glass of wine and a fistfight? Seriously…
See the scene for yourself right here:
This movie might have some interesting scenes but overall it’s way too verbose and, as I’ve been pointing out, it oversimplifies some of the issues it deals with, to the extent that it looks fake. On a different note, both Eastwood and Jeff Fahey (as Pete Verrill) play their characters quite honorably (my criticisms are related to the script and the vision of this movie, not the actors’ play). In addition, the limited glimpses of African life that we get are quite charming. Parts of the dialogue, especially between Wilson and his producer are hilarious. This suggests that there might be some value in watching White Hunter, Black Hurt after all.
The tragedy with Clint Eastwood and his character is that they both believe that small gestures can have a huge impact or that they mean a lot. They can, but not always.
This movie has a 90% rank on rottentomatoes.com which I find completely overrated.
I give this movie 4/10 as I ultimately considered watching it a waste of my time.
Movie trailer:
March 8th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
You know, your analysis contradicts much of what was written on this movie. At the time of its release, people were quite impressed with it. I like your counterarguments though. Even if I haven’t looked at it through that perspective, it definitely appears that he is reducing the story to a simple nexus that is supposed to magically account for all the social transformations that the director wants to portray.