White Hunter Black Heart (1990)

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For the first film in my Essential Clint Eastwood marathon, I watched White Hunter Black Heart. Eastwood directed and starred in this feature. Some of my Filmspotting board members call it Eastwood's best directing and acting performance. While I may prefer my Eastwood as a grizzled son-of-a-bitch over the arrogant snob he portrays in White Hunter Black Heart, I can't fault Eastwood's performance. The film is based on a novel which is a thinly disguised account of John Huston's trip to Africa to shoot African Queen on location at a time when very few films were shot outside the US. Eastwood's character becomes sidetracked from film preparations by his determination to shoot an African elephant on safari. Eastwood plays Huston as a man of passion and self-indulgence, humanity and selfishness, brilliance and stubbornness. In a great scene from the film, Eastwood deliberately picks a fight he knows he will lose with a white racist in an exclusive African club. As he staggers away from the fight, he states the central theme of the film: sometimes you have to volunteer for losing causes or "your guts will turn to pus."