"What more can a man do than say he's sorry?"

Hervorragend gespieltes Portrait eines besessenen Regisseurs, das zunächst als Kammerspiel beginnt und seine Kulissen Schritt für Schritt zum epischen Abenteuerfilm ausweitet. Die Anspielungen auf John Huston und dessen "African Queen" sind zwar eindeutig, sagen aber auch sehr viel über Clint Eastwood als Filmemacher aus.

Great acting and directing by Clint Eastwood. The problem is the film does'nt know what it wants to be. It keeps flipping back from Hollywood satire to a homage to the Golden Age to internal obsessions. None of these themes are explored very well, but you are still left with a somewhat enjoyable, if not sloppy and uneven film. You'll either be entertained or bored. I'm somewhere in between.

Ranks with Josey Wales and A Perfect World as Eastwood's finest offering. Nearly all of his 2000s work has been about the undermining both of his own image and American iconography of masculinity as a whole, but White Hunter, Black Heart got there first and did so with a hell of a lot more subtlety than some of the terribly penned, on-the-nose features that have defined his overrated work of late. But the way he draws the audience here into both rooting for and, ultimately, despising his John Huston stand-in reverberates with autocritique and the demolition of his hero's pedestals. A masterpiece.

Similar to Gran Torino and other Eastwood fare, White Hunter, Black Heart revels in wiseass masculinity before trumping it in the end, giving us a portrait of a flawed man with principles that never include political correctness. Although intermittently funny, the movie never settles into a cohesive portrait of John Huston or of the making of The African Queen, and Eastwood's portrayal hits the same notes as all his others except for a sporadic attempt to use a different voice. (Jeff Fahey fares worse, excelling only at showing his chest hair.) It's worth it, though, just to see the final scene, when the bluster finally ends and reality comes crashing down, a statement not just about a man but of the movies in general.

A diamond in the rough of Eastwood's late-eighties/early-nineties output. Names are changed to protect the not-so-innocent (he basically plays John Huston) in this unusual but gripping drama held together by a nice aging-tough-guy performance from Eastwood as a contrary, obsessive director.

This deserves to be better known among Eastwood afficianados.

Publiqué el 14/04/2012:

Esa rara joya "White Hunter, Black Heart" (Eastwood, 1990): La obsesión de John Houston por cazar un elefante, mientras filmaba "African Queen"
2012-04-14 11:55:19 (EDT)

Cazador blanco, corazón negro (1990):
t.co/EFcRWBzh #IMDb
2012-04-14 11:59:49 (EDT)

"What more can a man do than say he's sorry?"

Ranks with Josey Wales and A Perfect World as Eastwood's finest offering. Nearly all of his 2000s work has been about the undermining both of his own image and American iconography of masculinity as a whole, but White Hunter, Black Heart got there first and did so with a hell of a lot more subtlety than some of the terribly penned, on-the-nose features that have defined his overrated work of late. But the way he draws the audience here into both rooting for and, ultimately, despising his John Huston stand-in reverberates with autocritique and the demolition of his hero's pedestals. A masterpiece.

Hervorragend gespieltes Portrait eines besessenen Regisseurs, das zunächst als Kammerspiel beginnt und seine Kulissen Schritt für Schritt zum epischen Abenteuerfilm ausweitet. Die Anspielungen auf John Huston und dessen "African Queen" sind zwar eindeutig, sagen aber auch sehr viel über Clint Eastwood als Filmemacher aus.

Great acting and directing by Clint Eastwood. The problem is the film does'nt know what it wants to be. It keeps flipping back from Hollywood satire to a homage to the Golden Age to internal obsessions. None of these themes are explored very well, but you are still left with a somewhat enjoyable, if not sloppy and uneven film. You'll either be entertained or bored. I'm somewhere in between.

Eastwood directs one of his most underrated works. A powerful character study based somewhat on John Huston filming The African Queen.

3.5 out of 4. (A-)

(tweet) more so than even "Unforgiven," this is clint's most soulful challenge to the morality of 'the hero.'

https://twitter.com/samcmac/status/180422053860614144