Late Eastwood #2: J. Edgar
A few words about bad makeup
Welcome to Late Eastwood, my tour through the late work of the still very much alive Clint Eastwood. This is a journey through the prolific director’s films since 2010, a period of his career with which I’m almost wholly unfamiliar. With his new film, Juror #2, on the horizon, I will be combing though the films leading up to it, so I can learn a bit more about what motivates a 94-year-old to keep practicing his art. These posts are for paid subscribers only, so you know what to do.
It’s important, I think, to understand J. Edgar first and foremost as a for-hire job, and not just a for-hire job, but one specific given to Clint Eastwood because he’s famously efficient and budget-conscious. He shot this movie quickly, and he reportedly came in under budget. The movie turned a profit, so by those metrics, he did the job and was successful. J. Edgar is a film that comes first from its producer, Brian Grazer, and then from its writer, Dustin Lance Black. Finally, it comes from its director, and rather than achieving synthesis, the film is torn in multiple directions, failing to satisfy any of its competing impusles.
First is the impusle of its producer: money. Art, surely comes into it, but the main motive, what gets it set up at a studio with a budget, is the commercial prospect, and in this case the sell is quite clear. J. Edgar Hoover, longtime director of the FBI, one of the most powerful Americans in the 20th century, is simply good fodder for a successful biopic. From there, we go to the writer, and here we get something interesting. Black was coming off an Oscar win for Milk, a film about an icon of gay politics in America, and was tasked with writing a film about another icon of American politics who was very likely gay. Eastwood arrives to bring that script to life, in some respects workmanlike, but of course he can’t help imbuing it all with his oddly mournful view of American history. This should all make for a good movie, but it doesn’t.