White Hunter Black Heart is a 1990 film, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood as John Wilson, based on the book by Peter Viertel. Viertel also wrote the script. The film was based on several Golden Age of Hollywood movie producers. The main character is based on real-life director John Huston; at times, Eastwood can be heard drawing out his vowels, speaking in Huston's distinctive style and George Dzundza's character is based on African Queen producer Sam Spiegel. While not a huge success in its time, this film is now considered one of Eastwood's finest moments as both an actor and director.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Below: White Hunter, Black Heart, UK Quad poster
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White Hunter Black Heart 1990 Clint Eastwood Original Belgian poster
White Hunter Black Heart 1990 DVD with Trailer
White Hunter Black Heart 1990 U.S. Laserdisc (Full screen) Edition
White Hunter Black Heart 1990 Lobby set x 12 FrenchWhite Hunter Black Heart 1990 Lobby set x 8 German
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White Hunter Black Heart 1990 Full Press kit with 8 bw Stills, Production notes and artwork folder
White Hunter Black Heart 1990 US Original Tin Badge featuring full film artwork
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Below: The Original U.S. 1 Sheet poster
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Below: The U.S. cinema banner approx 11ft x 3ft
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The New York Times feature on the film ''White Hunter, Black
Heart
FILM; Clint Eastwood Directs Himself Portraying a Director
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: September 16, 1990
KARIBA, Zimbabwe— Moving through
the green and sepia tones of the savannah, kicking up dust and stones, an open
Land-Rover suddenly pulls to a halt and several intent white men, clad in khaki
hunting gear, leap out, rifles in hand. One of them, tall and lean, his face
shaded by the wide awning of his bush hat, has a particular urgency. ''On to a
big one?'' he asks the young African boy waiting for him.
This was Clint Eastwood in
Africa, filming his first movie on the continent), and he was asking about the
size of the elephant that had just been sighted. Assured by a majestic wave of
a spear that the beast was magnificent and certainly taller than any of them,
Mr. Eastwood and his party stalked off into the parched grass in search of
their quarry.
One might imagine Mr. Eastwood on
his first African outing choosing a theme around the elemental confrontation of
man and nature. He did so, but with a fillip and a salute to aficionados of
Hollywood's past. ''White Hunter, Black Heart,'' which opened Friday, is based
on the making of ''The African Queen'' and the obsession of the director John
Huston, not about creating the movie at hand, but about hunting and shooting an
elephant on safari in the Congo, now Zaire. Mr. Eastwood plays Huston, of
course, and as he has done in most of his recent movies, directs and produces,
as well.
A novel was written about the
personalities and the drama surrounding the 1951 production of ''The African
Queen'' in the deepest reaches of the Congo, by the movie's scriptwriter, Peter
Viertel. Called ''White Hunter, Black Heart'' and written after Mr. Viertel had
a falling out with Mr. Huston over the script, it depicts a disdainful movie
director who defies all the laws of Hollywood to make his picture in Africa and
successfully guns down an elephant at the same time.
In a year when the rampant
poaching of the elephant herds in eastern and central Africa resulted in
Western governments imposing bans on the trading of ivory and created a
groundswell of opposition to the wearing of ivory, the ending of the movie
''White Hunter, Black Heart'' (also written by Mr. Viertel with James Bridges
and Burt Kennedy) was modified from the novel on which it is based. Mr.
Eastwood finds his elephant, confronts it, but doesn't shoot. As in the book, his
young African guide, Kivu, is killed in the elephant stampede that results from
the hunt.
''It gets the point across
without shooting the elephant,'' Mr. Eastwood said during filming last year, as
he sat on a boulder in the grass, waiting for the Land-Rover scene to be
readied, a tote bag of recent American newspapers flown in for catch-up
reading, beside him. ''I prefer personally not to do it, that the obsession
come to an end before he has to shoot.
The obsession driving him to the brink
and costing him Kivu's life is bad enough to give him the guilts.''
Mr. Eastwood said he was drawn by
the notion of obsession in the script, and just as pleasing, he said, the
script read well. ''I liked the morality. I know a lot of younger hunters who
suddenly don't have the appetite for it anymore,'' he said. ''I've done other
pictures about people who are obsessed. This one seemed very intelligent. There
are a lot of ironies: making a classic kind of film while thinking about everything
but making the film.''
He was also intrigued by the
love-hate relationship portrayed in Mr. Viertel's script between the Huston
character and the Viertel character, played by the up-and-coming 33-year-old
actor Jeff Fahey, handpicked by Mr. Eastwood because he is ''new and yet good.''
''It's about the relationship
between two men on an adventure, going off to Africa,'' Mr. Eastwood said.
''The younger fellow is under the illusion of making a film; the other fellow
has made good pictures and is willing to drift off, willing to make everyone
wait a bit.''
In the Eastwood movie, Mr. Fahey
as the frustrated scriptwriter finds himself accompanying the director on
safari instead of fine-tuning the script. ''You're about to blow this picture
out of your nose, for what?'' Mr. Fahey seethes at one point. ''To commit a
crime, to kill one of the rarest, most noble creatures that walks this crummy
earth.'' The scathing rejoinder from Mr. Eastwood sums up the obsession: ''It's
the only sin you can buy a license for and then go out and commit.''
In Mr. Huston's autobiography,
''An Open Book'' which Mr. Eastwood carried along with him on location - the
director confessed that he never killed an elephant during the making of ''The
African Queen,'' ''although I surely tried.'' Like the updated character that
Mr. Eastwood portrays, Mr. Huston wrote in his 1980 book that he had by that
time given up all shooting.
''White Hunter, Black Heart''
promises plenty of familiarity for fans of ''The African Queen.'' The
supporting cast - including Marisa Berenson, who as a child knew all the actors
in ''The African Queen,'' plays a lookalike Katharine Hepburn - has been
attired according to how people looked on the set in 1951.
Dress from the photographs from
the Congo in Miss Hepburn's account ''The Making of the African Queen,''
published three years ago, were followed faithfully by the wardrobe department
for the ''White Hunter,'' right down to Lauren Bacall's black wing-tipped
sunglasses (she did not appear in ''The African Queen'' but accompanied Humphrey
Bogart to the Congo) and the crew's khaki shirts and trousers.
Unlike many recent Africa-based
productions, this one was not filmed in Kenya. Mr. Eastwood's scouts looked
into Kenya but found several unappealing factors.
For one thing, the Kenyans
insisted on vetting the script. And while Mr. Eastwood said he wasn't ''doing
anything anti-anyone,'' on principle he did not want censors. He heard about
the expense of doing business in Kenya because of the demands for bribes,
another negative factor for the budget-conscious director whose company,
Malpaso, produced the $10 million movie. For the sake of comfort, he had the
drinking water checked at Kariba, a wildlife area on the edge of a huge lake in
eastern Zimbabwe which served as the headquarters for the two months of
shooting, and found it to be of better quality than at home in environmentally
aware Carmel, Calif.
Zimbabwean authorities, not
exactly newcomers to movie makers, (the Richard Attenborough movie ''Cry
Freedom,'' among others in the past few years, was shot here) were helpful, Mr.
Eastwood said. They cleared the way for the use of the Zambesi River above Victoria
Falls for a scene involving the African Queen boat. On the first attempt, that
scene turned out to be more of an escapade than anyone expected.
The motor on the boat cut out,
and as Mr. Eastwood and Mr. Fahey were drifting perilously close to the edge of
the falls, Mr. Eastwood radioed for help. A speedboat was dispatched and the
filming of the sequence ditched until a better boat, and superior special
effects personnel, were flown in from England. ''The special effects department
did not do too well by me the first time,'' Mr. Eastwood said.
The Government also helped out
with military helicopters to ferry the movie's stars to and from their hotel
and Fothergill Island on Kariba Lake, where the set of ''The African Queen'' -
with its whitewashed church, hunting lodge and African huts - was built. Mr.
Eastwood, an accomplished helicopter pilot, flew himself back and forth.
Another bonus was Isaac Mabhikwa, an experienced local associate director who
had worked on other big movies and knew how to direct the non-English-speaking
African cast, particularly the young boy, Kivu.
Compared to the humid, dense rain
forest and attendant scorpions and snakes that the ''African Queen'' crew had
to deal with, this latter-day group had it easy: a modern tourist motel at
Kariba served as base camp.
Being on location with ''The
African Queen,'' Mr. Eastwood suggested, looked rosy only from a distance.
''The romance might have all come in hindsight,'' he said. ''There was supposed
to be bottled water, but they'd get it out of the stream. The director of
photography had to finish the film on a litter. He couldn't get well enough to
get on his feet.'' Mr. Eastwood always carried a bottle of Evian on his set,
despite the measured purity of Kariba's water.
Working with his director of
photography, Jack Green, in what was their 19th film together, Mr. Eastwood
slid effortlessly between his roles as director and leading actor. Often, he
checked the visuals through the camera lens, then stepped back and performed
his part - playing a movie director in the African bush came naturally enough -
managing, as is his custom, with only two or three takes.
''By and large I know what I
want,'' he said of his well-known economy of takes. ''When I see it, I walk
away from it. When I don't see it, I'll stay there. I'm patient.''
For the closing scene of ''White
Hunter, Black Heart,'' Mr. Eastwood returns from the fateful elephant hunt, his
African guide dead and a movie still to be made. He drives up to the mock set
of ''The African Queen,'' Mr. Fahey with him, to find the relatives of the dead
boy wailing and his movie stars - the Miss Hepburn character among them -
waiting for him. Also waiting is a spiffy looking, very stout Sam Spiegel
character, played by George Dzundza, in concrete-stiff white shirt and shorts.
The ''African Queen'' film crew, operating cumbersome 1950's camera gear, stood
by.
Mr. Eastwood, playing a dejected
Mr. Huston, upset by the botched elephant hunt, slumped into a director's
chair, turned to the crew, motioned with his hand and called, ''Action!'' He
turned to Miss Berenson, given the name Kay Gibson, and asked: ''Ready, Miss
Gibson?'' The actress, in a long, flowing dress and upswept hair similar to
Miss Hepburn's in ''The African Queen,'' walked toward the whitewashed church.
White Hunter, Black Heart UK press advert
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