Changeling and Clint Eastwood's Old-Fashionedness

posted by Gareth Higgins

Something occurred to me while watching ‘Changeling’ yesterday – Clint Eastwood’s films are very old-fashioned. He just tells stories, linear narratives with sparing flashbacks (his most recent three or four films in particular have had a penchant for returning to the scene of the crime long after it happened).  This is not a criticism. It means that sometimes (‘Flags of our Fathers’ – young men being used as propaganda tools by the US Government, ‘Unforgiven’ – an old gunslinger regretting the past, ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ – the other side of a ‘noble’ war) he makes magnificent cinema, because when good craft is applied to simple stories that tell us something new, what’s not to like? On the other hand, sometimes (‘Changeling’ – serial killer in Los Angeles, ‘Space Cowboys’ – old guys having fun together, ‘Blood Work’ – another serial killer in Los Angeles) his films are monotonous, repetitive, and tell us nothing that we didn’t already know.  ‘Changeling’ is well put together (although the script is predictable and cliched at times), but appears to exist for no other reason than to remind us that sometimes terrible things happen in the world; I’m glad Clint is still making films, and hope he goes on forever, but there’s something missing when all your film does is wallow in the horror of something terrible.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 16th, 2008 at 2:53 pm. It is filed under Blog, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.