There's a pleasure of course with engaging with a master filmmaker. There's a different sort of pleasures in working with films from ordinary talents. There's stuff there to build on, plenty.
But what's really peculiar in my life of film are the conversations I have with moderate talents, especially ones I encounter often. Eastwood is one of these folks, someone with enough juice and craft to register, but not enough to do something with his architecture. He id something really first rate in "Mystic River" but immediately before and after went back to manufactured goods. That "Mystic" had the element of "outsideness" that he sometimes understands, all the way back to Leone. A modern expression of that has the outsider as the director and in "Mystic" involved actors all of whom he asked to direct their own scenes.
Here the folding formula is simpler. The filmmaker playing a filmmaker, who incidentally was of the same stripe creatively (craft-centered and sometimes intuitively brilliant). His buddy (and the only other character that exists), is writing the screenplay of the movie within, and also wrote the screenplay of he outer movie. He is a superobserver to whom Eastwood's character knows he has to play.
The story is so simple as to not exist: there is Life, Africa, Film, Being Observed, all of these conflated into a simple drama. Its my impression that Eastwood understood much of this. You can see it in the last few seconds where his character actually starts to direct. There's an integration of self and work that obviously eludes everyone, especially the designated observer. The narrative trick is that we have more patience than he does, so see it where he does not.
Eastwood has a characteristic cadence. In his speech of course but also his whole bearing. Huston did/does too. Much has been made of Eastwood's transformation from one to the other. It was unsuccessful to this viewer.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
But what's really peculiar in my life of film are the conversations I have with moderate talents, especially ones I encounter often. Eastwood is one of these folks, someone with enough juice and craft to register, but not enough to do something with his architecture. He id something really first rate in "Mystic River" but immediately before and after went back to manufactured goods. That "Mystic" had the element of "outsideness" that he sometimes understands, all the way back to Leone. A modern expression of that has the outsider as the director and in "Mystic" involved actors all of whom he asked to direct their own scenes.
Here the folding formula is simpler. The filmmaker playing a filmmaker, who incidentally was of the same stripe creatively (craft-centered and sometimes intuitively brilliant). His buddy (and the only other character that exists), is writing the screenplay of the movie within, and also wrote the screenplay of he outer movie. He is a superobserver to whom Eastwood's character knows he has to play.
The story is so simple as to not exist: there is Life, Africa, Film, Being Observed, all of these conflated into a simple drama. Its my impression that Eastwood understood much of this. You can see it in the last few seconds where his character actually starts to direct. There's an integration of self and work that obviously eludes everyone, especially the designated observer. The narrative trick is that we have more patience than he does, so see it where he does not.
Eastwood has a characteristic cadence. In his speech of course but also his whole bearing. Huston did/does too. Much has been made of Eastwood's transformation from one to the other. It was unsuccessful to this viewer.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.