Once upon a time in the Eighties there were three great American film makers who stood comparison with anyone the rest of the world had to offer; Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Clint Eastwood.
Over the years Marty got obsessed with the fact that he didn't have an Oscar and seemed to be prepared to go to any lengths to get one. Eventually he got one with the overpraised The Departed - I know this because I was one of those who overpraised it. It's not that it wasn't good, it just wasn't great but at least it wasn't The Aviator so let's give him the Oscar and let him get on with his career.Sadly it hasn't turned out that way and we still await his next movie never mind his next great one.
Woody of course already had an Oscar but he seems to have turned out the same way. It's criminal to see the man who made Annie Hall and Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters bouncing around Europe for the cash to make films he wouldn't even have considered in his pomp. His latest Vicky Christina Barcelona is another to be watched through latticed fingers, whatever qualities it has are really only commendable in the sense that it's not Scoop or Cassandra's Dream. As he did in his British sojourn Allen confirms that he really only knows one type of character, even in a film set in Spain he manages to populate it with characters from the Upper West Side of New York. It's embarrassing to watch the film bounce around locations like a corporate for the Spanish Tourist Board - given the extensive narration I'm not even sure it qualifies as a film, possibly a narrated screencast. It makes you shudder with apprehension at the thought of his next film.
Meanwhile Clint Eastwood goes from strength to strength making films that are both conventional and challenging, a film about boxing that raises moral issues about euthanasia, a film about heroes that questions the nature of patriotism, and even a minor film like The Changeling raises questions about corruption and feminism.
Once upon a time there were three great American film makers - now we have one great film makers, and two makers of occasionally great films and there's a world of difference between those two categories.
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