steven@ism70.UUCP (09/08/84)
TIGHTROPE Starring Clint Eastwood and Genevieve Bujold. Also starring Dan Hedaya, Alison Eastwood and Jennifer Beck. Directed by Richard Tuggle. Written by Richard Tuggle. Produced by Clint Eastwood and Fritz Manes. Photographed by Bruce Surtees. Production Designed by Edward Carfagno. Edited by Joel Cox. Music by Lennie Niehaus. From Warner Bros. (1984) Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Paul Newman. Superstars with clout, all of them. They've all played the tough macho lead in memorable films (Dirty Harry, Deliverance, Harper) and they've been good most of the time in their respective roles. They have their own production companies and have all directed themselves at least two or three times in their career. That's something to think of. The other thing to think of is the contention among many Hollywood writers and directors that the auteur theory is bullshit 99% of the time; that the various performers and technical types in a film can make a film sink or fly by their efforts and no one person is ever responsible for the majority of the content of the film, especially in the studio system. Certainly Richard Tuggle is responsible for most of Tightrope. Tuggle made waves in 1980 with the sale of his script for Escape From Alcatraz to Eastwood's Malpaso Productions. At $400,000, it was reportedly the highest price paid to a first-time writer. It was money well spent. Tuggle is a wonderful screenwriter, with a fine sense of how to tell a story with pictures and situations. His understated dialogue sense suits Eastwood in both Alcatraz and Tightrope. (Example: In Tightrope, Bujold works out at her spa. Eastwood enters the room, begins lifting weights directly across from her. No sidelong glances of meaning. Eastwood finishes his reps, begins to exercise at a station even closer to Bujold. Bujold's eyes flicker imperceptibly. No dialogue, yet the meaning of the scene, the humor, and the thoughts of Bujold are all accurately telegraphed.) But Tightrope sure as shooting is a Clint Eastwood film. Eastwood is a pure Hollywood auteur, and I don't mean that in a denigrating sense. He is one of the most underrated of American directors, capable of sensing his own limitations as an actor and underplaying them in projects like Sudden Impact, as well as stretching his talents and screen persona in some unexpected and intriguing ways. Play Misty for Me, Bronco Billy, and even Every Which Way But Loose have given us a look at a moviemaker who isn't satisfied with making the same film three times in a row. How is Eastwood able to get away with "being an auteur"? First, he's a bankable name. If he can bring in a film with a low budget, chances are more often than not that he will make Warners and Malpaso some money (I know, I know, Honkytonk Man stiffed; nobody's perfect). That means his choice of project is dictated primarily by his ability as a producer, which is pretty legendary. Eastwood fired Phillip Kaufman from directing The Outlaw Josey Wales after a week when Kaufman asked for a retake. Eastwood said, "What's the matter with that last shot?" Kaufman replied, "Nothing. I just think we can do it better." Boot. Which wouldn't be quite so meaningful, except that Eastwood ended up helming what is one of the finest Westerns ever made (Time magazine named it one of the ten best films of its year, so I'm not alone on this one). He keeps himself under the same budgetary restraint when directing. In his case, less is more onscreen. Unlike most other actor/directors (Warren Beatty the exception I'm thinking of), Eastwood has directed a wide range of material: romance (Breezy), Western (Outlaw Josey Wales and High Plains Drifter), his police films (Gauntlet, Sudden Impact), comedy (Every Which Way But Loose), whimsical Americana (Honkytonk Man, Bronco Billy). He has also taken chances as a performer, casting himself as a recognizably flawed character many a time: The Beguiled, The Gauntlet, Every Which Way But Loose (where he _d_o_e_s_n_'_t get the girl), etc. Tightrope is another example where he has done this. It pays off as a better richer film. You don't see Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham taking any chances in the progression from Smokey and the Bandit to Cannonball Run II, but with Eastwood and Richard Tuggle, there's a lot of creative growth. I said earlier something about Eastwood not making the same film three times in a row, but this year, he's coming pretty close. In December 1983 Sudden Impact, in August 1984 Tightrope, and for December 1984 another cop film (albeit in a more comic vein) called City Heat. City Heat is an authentic anomaly in Eastwood's career, and not just because he's co-starring with Burt Reynolds for the first time. Reynolds and Eastwood together are a dream made in deal heaven, and one of the reasons it has never occurred before is that Eastwood, to my knowledge, hasn't acted in a film that wasn't purely a Malpaso Company film since his spaghetti western, Paint Your Wagon, Where Eagles Dare days. City Heat is a co-production with Reynolds' Deliverance Productions company. And Eastwood still had enough clout to get Blake Edwards fired from his own film. Now "Sam O. Brown" (as in SOB) will appear as the credited writer instead of Edwards. Joseph Stinson, who wrote Sudden Impact, has been brought in for an extensive rewrite with Richard Benjamin signed to direct. I was going to write about Tightrope, wasn't I? Well, it has the same wafting perfume of Hitchcock to it that Sudden Impact did, and with much the same theme: guilt transference between the hunter and the hunted. Harry and Jennifer the killer shared the same outlook on life. In Tightrope, Detective Wes Block and the killer have a similarly parallel fascination with prostitution. That doesn't make Block as bad as the killer, but it's enough to give you nightmares, don't you think? Tuggle gives us some intellectual meat to chew on regarding this subject early on, and a believable family situation for Eastwood. He also gives Block an interesting match in the strong-willed Genevieve Bujold. The whole film is underlit and underplayed which may be why some others on the net think it's boring. It also turns toward a too familiar resolution at the end, as if Tuggle decided, "Enough with moral ambiguity already, I gotta end this puppy." Not a major break from a standard cop drama, but some interesting twists make it worthwhile nontheless. Underplayed, but effective. Three stars out of four.
martin@ism780.UUCP (09/12/84)
I agree with Steven's summary of Eastwood's work, and I second his vote on Tightrope. I did not enjoy Sudden Impact and so was glad to see Eastwood back on track. I don't like stories about tracking down psycho-killers, because the villain is necessarily written as somebody with no good qualities at all. That doesn't make for very good drama. But Tightrope isn't about tracking down a psycho-killer; it's about Wes Block, a guy with good points and bad points and problems to work out, who feels some responsibility for the murders being committed. Hard core Eastwood fans might find it slow, or underplayed as Steven says. But I think the writing, directing, and acting were very good on this one. martin smith, INTERACTIVE Systems