Strange, eclectic movie, but has its moments
Although improbable, I found this surprisingly entertaining. I guess Eastwood just kinda saves the film.
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MovieChat Forums > The Eiger Sanction (1975) Discussion > Strange, eclectic movie, but has its mom...
Personally, I find it more realistic than nearly all the James Bond films. If a Bond story (From Russia with Love aside) were actually to have a toehold in realism, it would manifest itself as The Eiger Sanction. While it's not a terribly substantial film, it's surprisingly intelligent, classy, and elegant, more thoughtful and subversive than most espionage thrillers. The film's wry theme about the duplicity, amorality, and futility of Cold War espionage is quite sharp and startling, and its biting, cynical commentary exposes the ignorance, hypocrisy, and delusions that fuel the patriotic defense of barbaric policy. In this movie's context, patriotism is a sham, an excuse, a mindless and misguided exercise in self-indulgent savagery and criminality. Sure, a stronger narrative could have elevated this theme even further, but it's still memorably expressed in a pair of passages.
And of course, the film's real stars are Eastwood (who gives a more voluble performance than usual) and Frank Stanley's cinematography. Handsomely mounted, the movie's rich attention to color and composition, along with its spiraling camerawork steeped in high/low angles and verticality, is a testament to the visual potential of the filmic medium.
I’ve always admired the overall look of the film. Though it’s a bit grainy when blown up and cropped for TV, the beauty of the film persists. The colors are rich and coordinated to the point where location can be determined simply by the predominant color in the shot. The lighting can varies from nearly uniform to very stark (the changes can be hard on the eyes if you’re watching it with the lights off).
But what amazed me most the last time I saw it was trying to imagine how they shot the climbing scenes. How many people climbed up there with them and how much equipment did they drag with them? I’d love to see in-depth how they did those shots. It makes me wish behind-the-scenes documentaries of the era went beyond extended trailers like “The Dangerous World of Deliverance” and “Steve McQueen’s Commitment to Reality.” I’d probably be lucky to find even that much footage of how they made this impressive film.
The lighting can varies from nearly uniform to very stark (the changes can be hard on the eyes if you’re watching it with the lights off).
Yes, good point. Eastwood is never afraid to nearly black out the screen if the scene calls for it.
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You really are an anti-Eastwood troll, aren't you wendi?
Considering the amount of time you spend on his movie boards, I'm surprised you don't have something a little more intelligent to offer.
This movie makes a great deal of use of atmosphere and although it doesn't follow the book exactly, it retains the cynical spirit of it. The book was a best-seller and Clint must have decided that he could afford to take a risk on the seemingly anti-patriotic stance of the book/movie, and the anti-hero nature of the central character, whom he plays with a little more warmth than the book's character. Thayer David was an excellent "Dragon" and the acerbic exchanges of the book translate well to the movie. An almost impossible project - but he did it!
It's not supposed to be realistic......it's purely escpaism. I love the wry lines, and of course the climbing sequences are great. The John Williams score is also very noteworthy.
Universal had Eastwood read the book. Eastwood said it was difficult to make a good script out of it because Hemlock had no motivations other than money. The part of the story with the agent who gets killed in the beginning being a friend of Hemlock's was actually Eastwood's idea.
It's not supposed to be realistic......it's purely escpaism.
The Eiger Sanction is indeed a sheer adventure, but it features some realism in its remarkably authentic mountain climbing sequences and its dour deconstruction of espionage romanticism. In some senses, its tone may be caught between James Bond-style mythology, a parody of Bond, and a more bitterly sober view of the espionage and Cold War drama that Bond romanticized in those days. The film thus emerges as a pastiche, perhaps uneven yet fascinating for that reason. share
It's definitely a satirical work about mistrust in the government - a theme not all that uncommon in the post-Vietnam era......a stark, even shocking, contrast to films of the 40s and 50s.
I've always found the mountain climb interesting because of this idea of paranoia intermingled with the trust that is required among the climbers.
Ben may represent America during this time - betrayed by a friend.
I've always found the mountain climb interesting because of this idea of paranoia intermingled with the trust that is required among the climbers.
Yes, that point proves keen. Mountain climbing serves as a metaphor for espionage because both fields of work (or sport) combine the conflicting feelings of paranoia and trust. And when espionage plays out on a mountain climbing mission, then the conflicts of paranoia and trust are vastly amplified. share
i agree
6/10When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...