Advertisement

No flinching

Share
Times Staff Writer

Cannes, France

It is early morning on a deserted terrace of the elegant Hotel du Cap, quiet enough to enjoy the gentle sound of the waves. Still in the future is the police escort into town, the fast motorcade, the paparazzi on motorcycles weaving recklessly around the cars. For now there is time, time for Clint Eastwood to reflect on the remarkable film that brought him to the Festival de Cannes, “Mystic River.”

Impressively adapted by Brian Helgeland (“L.A. Confidential”) from Dennis Lehane’s disturbing crime novel about the dark past sending destructive tentacles into the present, “Mystic River” is a powerful film, a wrenching story that involves some of the most basic human emotions: love, hate, fear, revenge, despair.

It’s a film that allows even an actor as exceptional as Sean Penn to give a landmark performance, one guaranteed to make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. It’s a film that’s not only Eastwood’s best since 1992’s “Unforgiven,” it’s also as accomplished as anything he’s ever directed, with even the man himself saying, “It’s as good as I can do.” And this film, one of the strongest in the Cannes competition, almost didn’t get made.

Advertisement

“It’s amazing how many people didn’t want to do this film,” Eastwood says, affable even in disbelief. “Warner Bros. finally did it almost as a favor, saying I could only have so much money [under $25 million], a budget that’s pretty small by today’s standards. I took no salary, just the DGA [Directors Guild of America] minimum. And they said I was welcome to take it anywhere else. Like, ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’ ”

For Warners and other potential distributors, the concern about the film’s commercial potential stemmed from a key plot point that was in fact one of the things that drew Eastwood to the Lehane novel: a child molestation with repercussions that widen like ripples in a poisoned pond as the film’s characters reach adulthood and reconnect because of a savage murder.

“Being a father, child abuse is one of my obsessions,” Eastwood explains. “It’s a robbery of a person’s life in a way they can never retrieve. It’s the worst kind of abusiveness, because the child is totally at the mercy of adults.”

Eastwood gave the book to screenwriter Helgeland. “He’s the father of two sons and he said, ‘Jesus, it’s so tough.’ But he got into it, and he turned in a pretty darn good first draft in two weeks.”

Bucking the trend

“Mystic River’s” kind of classically involving, character-driven narrative is something of a passion for Eastwood, though he knows it’s not the way the studios are currently going. Still, he says, “I have never lost the idealistic feeling that there is an audience out there that wants something better than guys hanging on a wire or standing in front of a blue screen.”

Because it is so dark and disturbing, “Mystic River,” scheduled to be released this fall, is also the kind of story that benefits from the restraint that is one of the director’s stylistic touchstones. “I wanted it to be terribly real; there’s nothing theatrical about that subject matter,” Eastwood says. “When the story is so powerful, I don’t want to intrude. I don’t have to show anybody I’m there. I don’t want anyone to stop following the story and say ‘Oh my God, isn’t that interesting.’ But I never came from MTV, I grew up on the movies of Hawks, Ford, Sturges and all the others.”

Advertisement

The fact that Eastwood as a filmmaker is unfazed by any darkness in the human soul helps with that restraint. “Maybe that’s one advantage an older director would have,” the 72-year-old Eastwood says. “You’ve seen more, you’re not fazed by it, you accept it as being there. And you can’t be afraid of it. There were safer ways to go with this picture. I could have made a more pleasant ending, but it would have compromised the novel’s story.”

As for the cast, Eastwood considers himself fortunate to have gotten all of his first choices: Penn as an aggrieved father, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney. “It’s as good an ensemble as I’ve ever had, except maybe for ‘Unforgiven,’ ” the director says. “And they seemed to feel the spirit of it. When Sean Penn read the script, the first thing he said was, ‘It’s a beast, but I love it.’ ”

What the director and cast saw was “Mystic River’s” essential core: “The thing that was appealing right away and was also an exceptional challenge was that there was a whodunit element crossed with a very emotional story. The emotions here were much deeper than most ‘detectives solving a case’ stories.”

As a result, Eastwood says, “there was great esprit d’corps, everyone felt they were on to something. They took great initiative on their own, constantly talking about the script and even organizing readings off the set. Laurence Fishburne, who was two years in Australia on the ‘Matrix’ films, felt it was good to be back saying words, to have lines that you love to read off the page.”

Eastwood was also pleased that his actors followed the same philosophy he uses when he’s behind the camera: “I have to trust my gut, and they also weren’t afraid to trust themselves. Film is not an intellectual art form, it’s an emotional one, and if you get super-analytical, you beat it to death, you lose spontaneity and freedom of the soul.”

Speaking of acting, Eastwood was more than pleased not to have had a role in “Mystic River.” “It’s a lot of fun not having to suit up,” is how he puts it. “Especially in a story like this that has a lot of layers, I’m happy not to be distracted by someone coming up and saying, ‘By the way, your hair doesn’t match.’ When I started directing with ‘Play Misty for Me,’ my idea was that when I got tired of looking at myself on screen, I would stay on the other side of the camera, and maybe it’s that time in my life.”

Advertisement

Eastwood remembers the exact circumstances of his first foray into directing and clearly relishes the relevance they have today.

“I went into Lew Wasserman’s office at Universal and told him there was a really good story I wanted to direct. He didn’t yawn, but he was only halfway attentive. He looked at me and said fine. I thought, ‘This is easy,’ but as we were leaving, he asked my agent, Lenny Hirshan, to come back into the office. Lenny came back in five minutes and says, ‘He doesn’t want to pay you for the acting option he has on this film, and he doesn’t want to pay you for directing either. But I’ve negotiated a percentage on the other end.’ ”

Eastwood pauses and can’t resist a grin. “Here I am, 33 years later, with the same deal. But to do the things you want to do, you have to struggle a little bit.”

Kenneth Turan is The Times’ film critic.

Advertisement