White Hunter, Black Heart

I loved this movie. It is the ultimate exploration of what makes people such as Houston and Eastwood click. The writing is excellent and Clint's portrait of a bigger that life man obsessed with adventure is moving. I would recommend to anybody now discovering Eastwood's directorial genius. This is definitely one to revisit.

Here I put in title an error Huston the director..its much better to think of hima s a writer who directs. If you look at some famous critical successes he made around this time in a short span, Key largo, treasure of the Sierra Madre, Asphalt Jungle, and The african Queen..we see a writer who appreciates literature, who loves words and writing and the literary genre but also loves films and likes people and knows how to make them enjoy a movie experience but not make it low brow..he wants to give them an enlightened experience but put the film is simple situations, as his character says in the film quoting Hemmingway. The films mentioned had literary sources, he at times eliminated political ideologies from novels, or as in here African Queen laced the script with great humor which is totally absent from the film, in other words the characters in this film, largely in dialogue and humorous sequences a drama is built. These films were not only artistic successes but as African Queen a big money maker in 1952 and filmmakers like Huston helped Hollywood in the post war years(and even before) with his modernist filmmaking techniques, a great knowledge of transferring literary sources to film and knowing how to change it, and building scenes of interest through storylines simplifying in ways novels. He was moralistic, why's that a bad thing? For a complex writer to talk in a vacuum..that's not what he wants to do so there's not a message sa in a sunday school class..his movies are complex than usual cinematic fare, and he and others really helped to build an industry...with quality writing and filmmaking. Probably the best in hollywood...in quality and success! He was a consummate artist when colour suited...and here in African Queen it does...but in others he prefers black and white as a more intelligent filmmaking process, fits the mood, and the viewers concentration and other matters...the first to publicly complain of the colorizing of his films...when he was on a film, and he attracted the biggest stars, as writer and celebrated guru and international storyteller, which are very biblical in ways after a viewing, but not ponderous, and he always had an interest in the nature of people..and youll get that watching this film...its interesting how time's changed during the 50's his black and white films, artistic stories, Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe in the Misfits and Humphrey Bogart in Beat The Devil, speak of the ordeal of working with John, who people say treated people in reverse, or the reverse that they used to be treated, and he may have been a religious person or ethical or humanitarian..or all three...or whatever...Gable died two weeks after the shooting of the film and it caused some controversey, roping horses and it was a tough film, but John liked actors who did their own stunts, and given his stature...they usually gave in. There's much to John...a revered person the father of Walter..one of the great writers..these early pioneers in film technique really gave birth to the film industry..and there were a few others...but they were skilled and learned their craft from the literary arts...Eastwood is great in this film and I viewed it from the retrospective film series...I skipped over Bird, its a genre of film I'm not used to and dont know that much about it..Is louis Armstrong from this era...anyways a good film, but I dont know that much about it

Clint Eatwoods in the 90's just got better and better as a director. This is wonderfull movie and I cant wait for it to be released on DVD