WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART
With Clint Eastwood, Jeff Fahey, George Dzundza, Alun Armstrong, Marisa Berenson, Timothy Spall, and Mel Martin.
The quantum leap represented by White Hunter, Black Heart from the earlier Eastwood films I’ve seen, Bird included, is the result of three separate factors: (1) he’s working, perhaps for the first time, with a truly first-rate script; (2) he’s developed the directorial skills to get the maximum out of such a script; and (3) he’s attained a freedom as an actor that allows him to take the risk of serving both the script and his own direction rather than the predilections of his usual audience. As good as the script is, most directors I can think of would have botched it, and most male stars I can think of would have botched the lead part as well. To properly appreciate this film one has to see script, direction, and acting as three interacting and interlocking voices; two of these voices happen to belong to Eastwood, but interestingly enough, they are not the same voice–and without the intellectual ammunition provided by the script, neither one of them would have very much to say.
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The genre I’m referring to is an especially ambiguous one, because sometimes these authors’ quarrels with Hemingway wind up as backhanded validations. At its best, the genre is capable of yielding a good many potent insights: Wolfe’s “Dearth in the Evening” is a dazzling essay that begins as a parody-critique of Death in the Afternoon, continues as a philosophical inquiry into bullfighting, and winds up as theoretical speculation about why Hemingway committed suicide. (One of Wolfe’s strongest arguments is that despite Hemingway’s repeated attacks on the practice of endowing animals with human traits, his remarks about the nobility and tragedy of bulls in the ring–and the corresponding “comedy” of the eviscerated horses–are prime offenses in that realm.) But at its silliest–which includes much of Mailer along with Viertel–this genre seems to lust after Hemingway’s glamour while carping at some of his fine print. The problem I had and continue to have with Viertel’s novel is a more complex version of my objection to The Dead Pool, i.e., with the pot calling the kettle black. The book is so preoccupied with the male rivalry and jockeying for position of the two principals, Viertel and Huston stand-ins Pete Verrill and John Wilson, that one winds up with not much more than the image of two little boys comparing their respective penises. Perhaps if Viertel were a more lyrical artist he might have made something more luminous out of the subject (as did Nicholas Ray with his Bitter Victory), but for me the story never develops beyond its most obvious surface impression: two spoiled brats fighting to establish which of the two is more manly.
Openly contemptuous of his producer (George Dzundza), abusive to his secretary, and hypocritical and patronizing to his mistress, Wilson bulldozes his way into the dual project–film production and elephant hunt–with charismatic wit, spite, and style that make his very life a nonstop performance. He’s a master of using both hectoring charm and aristocratic sarcasm to get whatever he wants, which is usually plenty, and at least half of his wisecracks–the film is quite clear about this–are expressions of contempt for women.
