Customer Reviews

White Hunter Black Heart [VHS]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Clint Eastwood captures the machismo and bravado and the wit of John Huston perfectly and he gets some of the elegance and the grace which he also had in abundance and which made him one of the most interesting of characters. A more complex actor may have given a more layered performance but its pretty hard not to admire what he does with the role. Eastwood is also a legend but of a different type and from a different era and his own legend status may have interfered with the filmgoing publics ability to accept him in this role playing not himself(as we always assumed he was doing)but a different legend. I think it works very well though. You can tell Eastwood is examining his own mythic stature as he examines Hustons.
The last scene of the movie has Eastwood/Huston sitting in his directors chair ready to shoot the first scene of African Queen. The movie documents Hustons conflicting desires to be both a man who lives life fully and to be an artist. The two urges come into conflict when Huston must cater to the studio executives who want to control what he does. His endless battles with studio representatives is great comedy. He enlists the young screenwriter "Pete" as an ally, or attempts to. (Pete is the one who eventually writes the book this movie is based on.) Huston wants Pete to be as fearless as he is and Pete is taken in by the charm of the great director but not all the way in. Pete is his own man, and Huston encourages that but also comes up against it when they disagree. Sometimes Hustons willfullness is heroic as when he acts out of principle. In one of the best scenes of the movie a blonde socialite makes some antisemitic remarks unaware that Pete is Jewish. Huston defends his screenwriter and friend but not immediately, rather using all his charm and guile (which is dropped only at the last minute) he tells the blonde socialite a long story about another blonde socialite and there is no way for this antisemitic blonde socialite not to know just who the story is about... you will never forget the tell off after you have seen it. Other times however the willfullness just seems like simple childishness and irresponsibity and is at least one of the contributing factors in an accidental death. Eastwood/Huston gets beaten up pretty good in one scene(which proves just how far he'll go) and he wears the scars like badges through several scenes. You can't help like him and admire him for going through life in such cavalier fashion but you are also kind of sickened at times that he is so egocentric and callous towards others. So it is an unusual movie with a lead character that you both do and don't like. Its not what people expect from Eastwood. Its deeper, more complex. It is a thinking mans biography- adventure movie. Hustons African escapade begins as an outward journey to conquer and therby prove his greatness as a man by killing an elephant and ends with him coming to his senses... finally. Only by going too far far too many times does he realize how destructive his megolomania really was. Great character study, and great looking film. My favorite Eastwood movie.

It's fitting that in this film Eastwood plays a director who travels into the harsh conditions of Africa to shoot a film that satisfies his artistic expression but makes the studio-heads nervous because the movie is not "commercial" enough. This is certainly a reflection of what Eastwood, known for his bankability as a tough-talking action star, has done in "White Hunter, Black Heart". This was probably Eastwood's riskiest actor/director project since "Honkeytonk Man" in the early eighties. This makes Eastwood's leap-of-faith all the more admirable considering this is probably his best film as a director; even better than "Unforgiven". The film is also Eastwood's best work as an actor; anyone who still thinks that Eastwood is a one-note actor should see the way he re-invents himself in this film, playing a character unlikle anything you have ever seen before. The picture is based on the true-story of John Huston while he was shooting "The African Queen", but the film has more similarities to the works of Joseph Conrad - A man journeying into the heart of Africa to test his true manhood and to battle his personal demons. This is one of Eastwood's most unique and intelligent films.

This review refers to "White Hunter, Black Heart" DVD (Warner Bros)...

It won't take long for film lovers to realize that this character study is a thinly veiled look at the strong willed movie Director John Huston. Clint Eastwood portrays John "Wilson", who is about to set off for Africa to film what appears to be "African Queen". He's going to do it his way, at any cost. He's arrogant, always going against the grain, using exaggerated methods, and exasperating those who he employs and those who employ him as well. And through it all, always seem to land on his feet.

Wilson will not hear of filming anywhere but on location in Africa. Authenticity for the film?..maybe..but most of all he has dreams of bagging the big one. An elephant. He becomes obsessed with his mission. First delaying the film production, making the cast and crew wait for him, and finally to the point of a horrible tragedy.

Eastwood digs deep for this one. Although the story is "loosely" based on Huston, we get the feeling that this is what Huston is all about and this is the way it actually happened. His superb talent as he goes through the range of emotions and character traits flawlessly, has the audience loving and hating Wilson at the same time. One moment we are cheering him on for being a defender of humanity, then smiling at his boyish charms and antics, and the next, we want to shake him as he is on his quest to kill an elephant at any cost. Eastwood brilliantly portrays the bigger than life "Wilson" as a man obsessed, but who has not come to terms with his own obsession.

A marvelous job of Directing by the multi-talented Eastwood as well. Jeff Fahey, George Dzundza, amd Marisa Berenson add their wonderful talents as well.

An excellent transfer to DVD by Warner Bros. Filmed in Zimbabwe and London, the widescreen takes in all the splendor and sights of the locations. The DD5.1 surround puts the sounds of Africa right there in your living room. There are subtitles in several languages including English, French and Spanish, and may be viewed in French, Japanese and Portuguese as well.

Travel to Africa with Clint and enjoy....Laurie

also recommended;
The Gauntlet/True Crime
Winter Kills
Luzhin Defence (Full Screen Version)

Peter Viertel went to Africa with filmmaker John Huston to work on the script of THE AFRICAN QUEEN; from his experinces there he wrote the novel WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART. Here Clint Eastwood plays Houston, an egocentric man of action who becomes obsessed with killing a big-husked elephant - almost to the detriment of making THE AFRICAN QUEEN. Eastwood is uncanny (and at times forced and pretentious) as he tries to act and talk like the famous director, but in a way it's the perfect role for him: Huston as the bigger-than-life, Hemingway-like bully who believes in taking risks and being nonconformist mirrors Eastwood's Hollywood persona (think HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, JOSIE WALES, even DIRTY HARRY) as actor and director.

The movie is a multi-leveled look at Huston (named John Wilson), and we see he's a fighting man for what's right and decent (he gets in a fist fight over the mistreatment of a black servant), but at the same time he can be cruel to his friends and bosses and exploitive of others. And to his credit, Eastwood is faithful to this good/mostly bad portrayal, and there's no sugar-coating at the end.

I think that there aren't too many movies that can come even close to perfect. White hunter, black heart is one of them.

Before I started this review, I had just finished watching this film for the first time in a couple of years. It is visceral is an intellectual way -- Huh? -- meaning that one must use both head and heart to really get the most of it.

The film is wrapped around John Wilson, a fictional John Huston at the time he was filming "African Queen,"The African Queen also a favorite of mine, as witnessed by Peter (Peter Viertel), the film's screenwriter.

Wilson, like Huston, looks at things through a director's eye, analyzing everything to death. But, once analyzed, he acts emotionally -- witness the scenes with the pretty "god-damnest ugly [...]"," the hotel manager, and Kivu, the chief hunter. However, he formed relationships that were superficially intellectual, never really showing his emotions, but still always managing to be deep and lasting. He relished being colorful, and the people around him had to be as colorful as he, himself, was, otherwise they would bore him.

This combination of traits fascinates me. And Clint Eastwood's dead-on "impersonation" of the great man is loving and humorous. The other characters (fictional versions of Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall) -- with the exception of Peter -- are merely window dressing.

Show you see this film, and perhaps purchase it for your collection? Of course. But don't take it so much as a look into the making of a film -- take it as a portrait of a great man with equally great imperfections.

White Hunter, Black Heart seems even more impressive today than when it came out, and certainly didn't deserve its fate as the biggest box-office disaster of Eastwood's career - the same year's unsuccessful release of The Rookie took ten times more money and even Pink Cadillac outgrossed it (and that never got released outside the US). Interestingly, it seems well aware of it's problem for a main stream audience and goes out of its way to prepare them for the huge shift of tone in the last reels, setting up its own dark ending with its wonderfully written and performed early arguments about lousy little gods deciding who lives or dies in the movies. Indeed, the first half is so much fun that you tend not to notice its setting up some big issues along the way - racism, anti-Semitism, honesty, obsession and above all morality. Morality and responsibility ignored in favor of indulgence and impulse, however charismatic and entertaining it may seem, run throughout the film as Eastwood's John Huston - sorry, John Wilson - sets out to commit "the only sin you can buy a license to commit."

It's easily Eastwood's most unusual and atypical performance, abandoning his own screen persona for a large as life approximation rather than an impersonation of John Huston: the vocal cadences are there but downplayed, along with the vainglory and self-awareness. It's a fine performance and just his bad luck that Angelica Huston was on the Cannes jury that year. (African Queen co-producer John Woolf also went out of his way to damn the film as `irresponsible lies' despite its admission that its fiction.) Visually the best looking of Eastwood's films as a director, possibly because it's shot in daylight for once (Eastwood has often commented on not having plastic surgery: true, but he does tend to turn all the lights out in interior scenes instead!), but also because the visual design is so interesting, particularly as Wilson increasingly sets himself apart from the rest of the cast and crew, relegated to brooding in foreground shadows. Impressive stuff, and very entertaining with it - and a quick nod to George Dzundza's thinly-disguised Sam Spiegel while I'm at it.

The widescreen 1.85:1 DVD transfer is good, but the only extra is a brief trailer.

WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART is perhaps Clint Eastwood's most underrated and overlooked film - made in 1990 and shadowed by Clint's Academy Award winning (and ultimate Western) Unforgiven.

Still, those who have enough sensibility will easily put this film as one of Clint's best, as he tells the story of maverick film maker John Wilson's obsession of hunting a big elephant while starting production of his big extravaganza to be shot in Africa during the 30's. As everybody knows, John Wilson is, in fact, a fictional version of John Huston during the shotting of The African Queen.

Everything here is a fictionalization of real people and real events... from Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall traveling together and Katherine Hepburn's manerisms to John Huston's erratic, suicidal and enigmatic behavior.

But there's more than meets the eye as Clint gives us an unique look into the unknown reasons that drive a man... and the consequences of those impulses.

The film is superbly acted, photographed, edited... and one might wonder why it was so overlooked during its release. Trully a film to be discovered. A journey like no other by a master film maker.

This is loosely based on the making of The African Queen. Eastwood plays John Wilson (Huston) a cantankerous man who is more interested in big game hunting than shooting the film. In my view this is Clint Eastwoods greatest acting performance. He doesn't impersonate John Huston (maybe he couldn't) but he does capture something of Hustons distinctive drawl. To be clear on this if you want to watch Clint Eastwood being Clint Eastwood as in Dirty Harry, Good the bad and the Ugly etc (which I love as well) this may not be for you.
John Huston endearing trait of sticking up for the down trodden. In one example he picks a fight with the white Hotel owner for abusing a black waiter, in another he castigates a woman for being racist. This latter scene is wonderfully done, with Wilson/Huston turning what was going to be lovely hand drawing of the lady concerned into Hitler.
This film wasn't a great success - it should have been. The ending is very good, although whether its true or not I don't know. John Wilson says in the film "Hunting Elephants isn't a crime, it's bigger than that, it's a sin". Well he does pay for his sin...

After reading the 2010 Richard Schickel book about the actor-director, CLINT: A RETROSPECTIVE, I finally got around to seeing Clint Eastwood's 1990 film WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART. Shickel names it one of Eastwood's best and certainly most overlooked, having been a flop in its theatrical run.

Maybe those who thought they knew Clint Eastwood passed on WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART, because they figured it would be Dirty Harry on safari. I'm not sure, but am I sure the public missed a jewel when it passed on this movie, which I viewed twice. Thanks, Richard Shickel. While the character Eastwood portrays in WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART is not without Eastwood's trademark self-confidence, that is where the similarity to the Eastwood you think you know ends. How many times have you seen Clint Eastwood lose a fight in a movie? He gets his head handed to him in WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART, and I apologize for spoiling the surprise but it illustrates my point too well to leave out. This isn't the Clint Eastwood we take for granted.

WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART gives us a typically cocky Clint Eastwood who, for a change, eats the humble pie he is used to dishing out. If that's not enough, you even see Eastwood freeze up (in a place as hot as Africa, no less) in a life and death situation. It's as if the public knew WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART presents an Eastwood a little too much like us, getting in over his head, and decided to wait for the next one, where it would be the bad guys who end up crestfallen instead of the star.

But that's what makes this film compelling. We aren't used to the characters Clint Eastwood plays losing, and that's why he gives us a winner with WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART.

Clint has a whole lot of good movies under his belt, but this one stands out in one very important aspect: the writing. The dialogue is rich, witty, and character development - outstanding. It brings back memories of the golden age of cinema, when dialogue was so good to listen to... this is Clint's strongest outing as actor and maybe even as director. Had this film been made after Unforgiven, it would've racked up more than a few awards... but it was released after Pink Cadillac and before The Rookie, no one was taking Clint seriously back then... when this was released just about everybody, except hard core Clint fans, thought his career was over. I remember him being called a "fading house-star" or "too old" back when this film came out. Well, 20 years later, he's still doing all right I'd say.