Clint Eastwood Only Directed One Movie About Filmmaking, and It's Blindingly Dark

To one degree or another, every filmmaker is driven by obsession. Filmmaking is such a finicky and intricate artistic process, and only those who are insatiable with their camera placement, set design, and acting direction can survive this mentally and physically demanding trade. This applies even to a famously expeditious and efficient director in Clint Eastwood, whose inclination to shoot one take per scene and design minimalist sets is well-known among audiences and industry peers. Eastwood, who is more tapped into his own psychology and public image than any other living filmmaker, understands that making the most grounded and straightforward movies requires an obsessive streak. In 1990, two years before defining the modern revisionist Western in Unforgiven, Eastwood embodied the warped psychology of a director in White Hunter Black Heart by playing an avatar of one of Hollywood's most colorful characters, John Huston.