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Space Cowboys
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Even
diehard Clint Eastwood fans must have wondered, a little sceptically, about his
decision to direct and star in Space
Cowboys.
After a
string of films that have variously divided or disappointed his devotees – The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Absolute Power (1997), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) and True Crime (1999) –
Eastwood weighs in with a feel-good project about four old guys in space.
On the
surface, it is unlike anything Eastwood has tackled before – in a genre
(science fiction) foreign to him, with a much larger budget than usual and
complex, extensive special effects.
The fans
need not have worried. Space Cowboys is a superb movie, and a triumphant highlight of Eastwood's late career. Some
of the exterior trappings may be new, but the humour, insight, craftsmanship
and deep emotion remain intact.
The film
begins with a glimpse of our heroes as young, hotshot pilots (to preserve
continuity, Eastwood adopts a simple but effective procedure: he has his cast
as they are today dub the voices of their younger
selves). Frank (Eastwood), Hawk (Tommy Lee Jones), Jerry (Donald Sutherland)
and Tank (James Garner) fall foul of their grumpy superior, Bob (James Cromwell)
– and are instantly turfed from NASA's burgeoning space program.
Forty years
later, NASA calls upon the retired Frank when a guidance system he once
designed is found to be still operative within a Russian satellite that resists
being brought under control. Like Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954), Space
Cowboys then meanders through a pleasurable recruitment phase, as Frank
tracks down his old comrades, one by one, and persuades them to join him on
this last, glorious mission.
There is a
faint air of absurdity that hovers over most plot moves in this story (scripted
by Ken Kaufman and Howard Klausner). But who cares if, in the real world, this
gang of geezers would never be allowed near a spaceship? The charm of the film
is so immense (especially in the acting department), and its anti-authoritarian
comedy so infectious, that audience resistance is quickly overcome.
As the most
classical of contemporary filmmakers, Eastwood's style is so understated and
seamless that it risks going unnoticed. There are no flashy shots, blazing
montages or pummelling sound effects in Space
Cowboys. But Eastwood always finds and shapes exactly the right
intersection of a setting, an actor's gesture and the regard adopted by the
camera. His style is respectful of characters and their environments; at heart,
he is a contemplative director.
This film
has a larger canvas than is typical for an Eastwood project. In the spread of
interwoven plots and sub-plots, some threads are perhaps a little short-changed:
Tank's vocation as a preacher, for instance; or the tender, tentative
relationship that blooms between Hawk and a NASA scientist, Sara (Marcia Gay
Harden). What works successfully, however, far outweighs what does not.
The TV ads
for Space Cowboys make it seem purely
like a light-hearted comedy about these scurrilous old guys training for a trip
into space. For a change, the promotion wisely keeps silent about virtually the
entire second half of the story, which rests upon the dual revelation of an
enormous, global issue and a small, intimate one.
These two
events finally merge, leading to an ending that is at once the most moving and
most mysterious moment in Eastwood's career as a master filmmaker.
Eastwood
has often made searching, disturbing films about men and their violent,
guilt-ridden problems, such as Tightrope (1984), Bird (1988), A Perfect World (1993) and, supremely, Unforgiven (1992). It is through these
movies that, on the whole, he has found favour with critics – as a filmmaker who subverts, or at least questions, the values
and forms of the action, cop and Western genres.
Space Cowboys, however, draws together other
strands from the director's rich and prolific career. Its laid-back humour
recalls the comedies Bronco Billy (1980) and Every Which Way But Loose (1978) – complete with a cameo from a grinning
chimpanzee. This is the side of Eastwood that enjoys fight scenes in bars and
gentle jokes about men's sexual vanity.
The sadder
and more serious part of Space Cowboys returns us to the expansive male-weepie element that occasionally surfaces in
Eastwood's work – especially in one of his best and least known films, Honkytonk Man (1982). In this mode,
Eastwood turns his back on the modish desire to castigate masculine identity.
Instead, he takes a wistful, lyrical, lightly melancholic approach akin to the
Country’n’Western songs he admires so much.
It is on
this terrain that Eastwood meets the ghosts of old
Ultimately,
behind every joke about slow reflexes, poor eyesight, stiff backs and the
waning of libido looms the spectre of mortality.
© Adrian Martin October 2000 |
