Two Mules for Sister Sara (1969)

Overshadowed somewhat by the first in my series of larger scale essay's, please excuse the delay in the publication of this brief piece.

a road movie of sorts, shirley maclaine and clint eastwood star is this 1969 flick from frequent eastwood collaborator don siegel. the film is an entertaining couple of hours, but is ultimately a rather forgetful piece of work from relatively early on in eastwoods career. the film has its moments, namely in a wonderfully charming scene involving the demolition of a bridge, which could be seen as the emotional cruxis point of the film. its at this moment whereby eastwood is at his most affable, leading to some explanation as to how the events proceed as they do.

1969 was a great year for american cinema, but to me two mules for sister sara doesnt really reflect the change that was occuring within the industry at the time. the camerawork is occasionally effective, and the subject borderline-taboo, but its hardly cutting edge 40 years on.

while the film is perfectly appropriate late night fare, it misses the mark when it comes to being anything remarkable.

the beguiled (1971)

the beguiled marked clint eastwood's third collaboration with dirty harry director don siegel, and its very much a departure for eastwood in several ways. the film is set during the american civil war, with eastwood an injured confederate soldier that seeks solitude within the confines of a union-leaning all girls school. whilst within the walls of the school the effects of a male presence are felt in many a different way by each of the girls. some despise him due to his political leanings, while others fall at his feet in adoration, thirsty for the company of a bona-fide man. the film carried the genuinely awful tagline of -

one man.... seven women.... in a strange house!

it was apparently in an attempt to break free from type-casting that eastwood took the beguiled on, and ultimately its an experiment that i feel falls disappointingly short of the usual level of quality that one associates with the work of both eastwood and siegel. not only is the deceitful character of eastwoods mcburney incredibly unlikeable (to the point of an insatiable level), but the entire film is dogged down by horrendous characteristics. the portrayal of sexuality is very disturbing, and also very confusingly portrayed. in this respect it reminded heavily of powell and pressburger's black narcissus, although the beguiled never reaches the nadir that the archer's work does. to be perfectly honest the manner in which the topic of incest is handled and explained is just completely strange. it makes very little sense, and bogs down what could be a good basic story in strange and seemingly unrelated subtext.

the beguiled feels heavily biblical in the nature in which it examines its subject. each of the women represent a specific attitude or theme of humanity, and the way in which they react to the character of mcburney is actually fairly interesting. the manner in which each of the girls react and are placed during the amputation scene is wonderfully recreated too, if not a little too late in proceedings to be salvage the film. the film ends with perhaps the strangest death that eastwood, or indeed any other actor has ever had to experience; death by mushrooms. its all very odd, and not in a positive manner. i cant help but feel that the beguiled would have worked much better with more of a focus on the horror side of things, with an escalating psychologically disturbing pace being the successful route forward.

dirty harry (1971)

its been a while since i had seen dirty harry, at least four years. in those four years david fincher's masterful "zodiac" (2007) has been and gone, and one of my big worries that came with that films success was that i may not be able to take don seagal's unofficial take on san fransisco's zodiac killing's seriously under this new light. im pleased to report that that wasnt the case, and that i can extend my disbelief far enough to forgive any of the films shortcomings, at least when it comes to the very hollywood take on what was a pretty distressing period in san francisco' recent history.

san fransisco is the unbilled co-star in the first dirty harry film. in fact it was through this viewer's research of the city of san fransisco that he found out about the film, from an academic point of view at least. a few years back i was looking at sitting my masters degree at the san fransisco academy of art, when, through the program for the university, in a section on notable films shot in the city that i first delved into this, the first in eastwood's flagship franchise (alongside such other films as hitchcock's "vertigo" (1958) and orson welles' often overlooked "the lady from shanghai" (1947); incidently, soon to be remade, in name at least, by wong kar-wai)

the character of 'scorpio', billed simply as "the killer" in the credits of the film, is based loosely on that of the zodiac killer. i say loosely because very little was known about the zodiac killer, as anyone who's seen fincher film will attest to. the style of the character is drawn from that of the zodiac, the way the character manipulated and used the media to accomplish his task is exagerated in "dirty harry" (see the use of the media during the killers scene in the hospital, post staged-beating) from that of the real case, and while little focus is made of the print industry's involvement, mention is made.