Following up on my last post, I also love Clint Eastwood and Michael Mann - pretty much for opposite reasons.
Those who know me have seen some minimalist aesthetic tendencies, and Michael Mann is the film industry's master of economy. When it comes to performance, when it comes to story, or stunts, or anything at all, he cuts through all the distractions and gets right to the point.
For that same reason, those moments where he lets the elevated emotions out (or brings out the heavy artillery) come across as super important, instead of merely expected.
On the other hand, Clint Eastwood is one of the emotionally richest filmmakers working today, and he gets his feelings across simply. His films are about careful, attentive performance, with delicate use of color, with astute cinematography... He loves his actors, and it never gets more complicated than that. If there's a touching moment in an Eastwood film, it's touching because the actors have affected one another so profoundly that we, in turn, are affected.
No five hundred foot swirling crane shot is going to replicate that. As much as I love Titanic, and I do, the shot of the two characters on the bow was about the SHIP, people. It was romantic because the ship, which demands a long shot because it is very, very big, reminds us these characters are living on borrowed time, even if they live beautifully. In the wake of that one iconic shot, every filmmaker who wants to emphasize an emotional point pulls way, way back with the camera - every one except Eastwood. Thank god.
Just imagine the helicopter shots of Tara we'd be bombarded with if they remade Gone with the Wind. No thanks. There's a fortress at the very heart of Hollywood's finest traditions beset on all sides by zealot cyborg teenagers, and Clint Eastwood defends that fortress single-handedly.
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