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CHATTING UP LEGEND
Clint Eastwood has the height and weight to play
John Huston in
White Hunter, Black
Heart, and it’s fun listening
to him trying to catch Huston’s speech patterns and arrogant gallantry. If
you’ve read the novel by Peter Viertel which the movie is based on, and you’re
knowledgeable about Huston as director and actor and about his personal life
(at least what he allowed, or what others have confessed about him), then
you know Eastwood has achieved only the flavor, not the full endowment, of
both the man and the original source material. Since the book is essentially
a two-man verbal sparring match, and intrinsically more entertaining as a
read than as a movie, Eastwood’s version is by necessity a series of scenes
about Huston’s irascible bravado occurring during the making of The
African Queen. Viertel’s loaded title is deceptive: Huston was of
course a giant of a bastard, a womanizer, a fighter, an instigator, a gambler, a hunter.
The latter springs forth Viertel’s belief Huston’s heart was
black—his love of hunting as proof of a disengagement from compassion
and decency—when, in fact, Viertel was SPCAing his own repugnance over
the sport. Yet he may have been more influential than Huston would ever admit
because the director never did kill an elephant and later abandoned hunting altogether.
The book and movie give credence to what may have been Huston’s greatest
passion—the cunning construction of himself as a legend. Eastwood enjoys
playing the old man; he chats up, embarrasses, puts down friends, acquaintances and enemies
via Huston recitals as if mythic hero—he’s acting out Huston in Huston’s
famous audience-pleasing mode. With Jeff Fahey as Viertel, who was asked
by Huston to polish up The African Queen script after movie
critic-screenwriter James Agee suffered a heart attack and was unable to
travel to Africa.
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ralphbenner@nowreviewing.com
Text COPYRIGHT © 2001 RALPH BENNER All
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