Contributing a piece on Clint Eastwood to the first edition of Metrograph's sumptuous new printed magazine

I was thrilled to be invited by editor Annabel Brady-Brown to submit a piece on the Clint Eastwood film Invictus (2010) for the gorgeous new Metrograph magazine. It appeared as part of a career retrospective featuring some heavy-hitting Clint fans: Tarantino, Woo, Desplechin, Denis, Hamaguchi, Assayas, Kurosawa… Pick up a copy at The Metrograph cinema, 7 Ludlow St, NYC.

“Eastwood’s unparallelled ability to articulate only what matters on screen means this wildly ambitious project (a “sports movie” about how the 1995 Rugby World Cup catalysed a momentous rapprochement in South Africa’s history) was always in safe hands. Yielding to Morgan Freeman’s amicably stubborn Mandela – a performance of rare serenity and warmth – Eastwood concentrates his camera on those forsaken places he always films with such economy and profundity: street corners, crowded back-rooms, late night lamplit offices and here, the darkened tunnel before the match, the stadium crowd humming in anticipation.”