White Hunter Black Heart is a 1990 American adventure drama film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood and based on the 1953 book of the same name by Peter Viertel. Viertel also co-wrote the script with James Bridges and Burt Kennedy. The film is a thinly disguised account of writer Peter Viertel's experiences while working on the classic 1951 film The African Queen, which was shot on location in Africa at a time when location shoots outside of the United States for American films were very rare.
In the early 1950s, world-renowned film-maker John Wilson travels to Africa for his next film bringing with him a young writer chum named Pete Verrill. Part of his travel plans include hunting elephants and other game, which he prioritizes ahead of making the film. This leads to a conflict between the men on several levels, most notably over the idea of killing for sport such a grand animal. Wilson concedes that it is so wrong that it is not just a crime against nature, but a "sin" and that is the reason he wants to do it. He cannot overcome his desire to bring down a giant bull, a "tusker" with massive ivory tusks. Wilson's final realization that his is a petty, ignoble pursuit comes at a late point and with a tragic price, as the local animal tracker Kivu is killed protecting him from an elephant Wilson decides not to shoot.
Tropes:
- The '50s
- Adaptation Distillation: Most of the parts of Wilson and Verrill working on the script are cut out (as well as a sequence of Wilson telling Verrill the type of movie he'd really like to do), and some of the characters are cut out or combined (see Composite Character below), but the essence of the story remains.
- Animal Nemesis: Film director John Wilson becomes obsessed with hunting and killing one particular bull elephant at the expense of the film he is supposed to be in Africa to shoot: jeopardizing his own career, and those of his cast and crew.
- Author Avatar: The film is told primarily through the eyes of a young writer named Pete Verrill. Verrill is a thinly veiled version of author Peter Viertel, who write novel on which the film is based and also contributed to screenplay. The story is based of Viertel's experiences working of The African Queen in Africa.
- Big "NO!": Wilson when he sees Kivu is about to be killed by the elephant.
- Composite Character: Ralph Lockhart in the movie is a combination of that character and Paget from the novel.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: After listening to Sylvia pitch her movie about a dog, Wilson has Landers give Sylvia a ride home, and tells him to be sure to ask Sylvia to tell him her dog movie idea.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Great White Hunter, especially when the character is an amateur rather than a professional hunter.
- Egomaniac Hunter: John Wilson goes to Africa ostensibly to shoot a movie but is actually monomaniacally obsessed with shooting an elephant.
- Everyone Has Standards: Wilson may treat women and friends with casual cruelty, but he's outraged at the way the headwaiter at the restaurant he goes to treats the natives, even challenging him to a fight because of this.
- Evil Colonialist: John Wilson may not be in Uganda to colonize the land, but he is definitely there to exploit the country and natives; intending to shoot an elephant and his movie (in that order) and then depart. By the end of the film, he may have changed is attitude.
- Film Within a Film: The film is nominally about the shooting of a film called The African Trader (a lightly fictionalized version of The African Queen) in Africa in the early 1950s. Viewers familiar with The African Queen will recognise some equivalent scenes being shot in this film.
- Great White Hunter: Wilson regards himself as this and is determined to bag an elephant before he returns home. However, much of the film is devoted to his dissection of his motives for wanting this, and ultimately he decides not to shoot.
- Most Writers Are Writers: The main viewpoint character is writer Pete Verrill, an Author Avatar for Peter Viertel.
- Native Guide: Kivu is a local animal tracker Wilson hires to help him find game. He dies protecting Wilson from the prize bull elephant he has been stalking.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: John Wilson is a thinly veiled spoof of John Huston, a macho womanizing dandy with dreams of living a Hemingway fantasy. Many of the other major characters are thinly veiled versions of other people involved with the film: Pete Verrill is Peter Viertel; Paul Landers is producer Sam Spiegel; Kay Gibson is Katharine Hepburn; and Phil Duncan is Humphrey Bogart.
- Precision F-Strike: Wilson telling Mrs. MacGregor after the way she treats Verrill (see You Know I'm Black, Right? below) a story about how he had come across a woman in his travels in London who had also been making antisemitic remarks, until he cut her short by telling her, "Madam, I have dined with some ugly, goddamned bitches in my time. I've dine with some of the god-damnedest, ugliest bitches in the world, but you, dear, are the ugliest bitch of them all." Wilson then starts to tell Mrs. MacGregor this, but figures she's gotten the point.
- Prima Donna Director: John Wilson a strong-willed, intelligent man who nevertheless places his own desires above his ideals, who rails at Hollywood's dishonesty and yet is not above keeping an expensive film on hold while he abandons his location to go elephant shooting.
- You Know I'm Black, Right?: When Wilson and Verrill go out to dinner with Mrs. MacGregor, she starts to talk about how horrible it was where she was living, because of all the Jewish people there. When Verrill tells her he's Jewish, she doesn't believe him, and continues to make antisemitic comments. Wilson does cut her down to size, though (see Precision F-Strike above).
