“I was always sort of shocked”: why Clint Eastwood called ‘Hereafter’ the easiest movie of his career
With 40 features under his belt as a director and dozens more credits for movies he acted in, Clint Eastwood knows what it takes to create an atmosphere on set that allows everybody to do their best work and bring a production across the finish line with the minimum of fuss.
While that should be the goal for any performer or filmmaker in everything they make, the four-time Academy Award winner has taken it to heart more than most. Eastwood prides himself on his efficiency, never going a day over schedule or a penny above the agreed budget.
Anything more than two takes is an extravagance in his eyes, and even though some of the stars he’s collaborated with found his methods took a little getting used to, it shouldn’t have been a surprise when that’s the way he’s directed ever since he made his feature-length debut back in 1971 on Play Misty for Me.
Everything Eastwood does on either side of the camera is unhurried and unfussy. Although his shooting style and dialogue delivery are economical, it didn’t stop him from becoming a legend in both disciplines. As with most jobs, things get easier the more you do them, although it’s interesting that one of his more ambitious pictures was the one he found easiest.
One of the multiple movies he picked up after Steven Spielberg dropped it, Hereafter, wasn’t the typical Eastwood film. It was a fantastical disaster drama with supernatural trappings that told three stories intertwined by their shared tragedy: an American factory worker who communicates with the dead, a journalist who survives a near-death experience, and a child who loses everything.
Hereafter touched down in England, France, Hawaii, and San Francisco, making it a more globetrotting jaunt than usual for Eastwood. He was less than six months away from turning 80 when principal photography started, yet happily informed the Washington City Paper that it was the easiest movie he’d ever made.
Not only that, but he scoffed at the notion that entering his octogenarian era would slow him down. When asked if he’d considered retirement, Eastwood answered in the negative and admitted, “I was always sort of shocked” when storied auteurs called it quits, pointing to Frank Capra and Billy Wilder as examples. “I never could figure that: your best years should be at a point when you’ve absorbed all this knowledge.”
The downside of Eastwood calling Hereafter his easiest movie is that it’s also one of his worst: a cloying and oversentimental parable that tries to tug on the heartstrings but ends up attempting to beat them into submission instead. Not to speak ill of a legend, but maybe if it had been a bit more difficult, it would have come out much better on the other side.
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