Thursday, March 11, 2010

Clint, Cecile & Peter - Hereafter

When I look at the past 10 years and Clint Eastwood's has had a pretty robust catalogue of work...and because his past three films have made only limited impact on the award scene (and the social scene) part of feels like his name is less meaningful, as if he's working a film assembly spitting out movies left and right.

(Changeling, Gran Tarino & Invictus all had some success, but didn't seem to live up to expectations).

But I have to give the guy a break and there's something interesting to me about his next picture called Hereafter.

Part of it is Cecil.

Cecile de France is one of Eastwood's stars in his next film. I am curious in this role he's placed the Belgium actress in, because frankly, Eastwood's past films all seem heavily male, only Million Dollar Baby and Changeling had a female leads, and with award recognition for both of these leads, he might be underselling one of his skills.

So, what does it mean to see a female lead in Clint Eastwood's lens. This is no Space Cowboys, or film about classic cars, soccer players, cowboys, or modern day mobsters with baggage.

Rather Cecil de France plays a french television journalist who survives a natural disaster.

She's one of three main characters who story's collide in a Crash type format with a supernatural element. The other big name co-star is Matt Damon who plays the part of a psychic mechanic.

I'd be skeptical, but the film is written by one director who has demonstrated a true talent for telling stories, and recently seems equally as busy as Clint spitting out respectable projects like it's no big deal.
That screenwriter is Peter Morgan who has brought us recently The Last King of Scotland, The Queen, and Frost/Nixon (as well as the 2011 installment of James Bond)

Hereafter seems like a different project for Morgan (for starters it's not a biopic about English royalty, nor does it star Michael Sheen), and for that I'm excited.

Clint seems to have assembled an interesting crew and I'm interested see this trio particularly working together.

2 comments:

Danny King said...

I'm definitely excited for this one, for very similar reasons to the ones you mentioned. It should be interesting to see Morgan outside of his comfort zone so to speak, and I think you're on to something regarding Eastwood and female leads.

Jacob said...

I am very interested, very big Eastwood fan. I actually thought Gran Torino was one of the best, too bad the Academy didn't. Anyways good stuff.