VETERAN filmmakers Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen offer interesting insights into directors? development, and their prospects in their senior years:

Woody Allen began his entertainment career as a gag writer for name comedians in the ?50s, and became a star comic himself soon after. However, he really came into his own when he made movies that he not only starred in but also directed.

What was unique about those films (?Annie Hall,? ?Hannah and Her Sisters? and ?Crimes and Misdemeanors?) were their relatively modest financing and scope. Many of his low-budget movies dealt with contemporary relationships and romantic-sexual mores that made them breezily appealing to young and sophisticated urban viewers.

Three-way relationship

Allen?s latest movie, ?Vicky Cristina Barcelona? is illustrative of his continuing interest in how love (and lust) can inform and transform his with-it protagonists? lives. In this instance, a passionate Spanish visual artist?s advances force two female friends to reexamine their views on love, sex and life, with decidedly risky, yet illuminating effects on their unique three-way relationship.

Contrastingly, Clint Eastwood began his film career on the other side of the show biz tracks, as it were, with his early starrers as a ruffian cowpoke in films like ?For a Few Dollars More? and ?The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.? Their Italian takes on US cowboy lore appealed to an entirely different audience than Allen?s. So, it?s fascinating to see how, four decades later, their careers have converged, and they are now regarded as the top senior indie filmmakers in US movies.

After his ?Italian cowboy? period, Eastwood launched into his even more popular ?Dirty Harry? phase. Then, he surprised everyone with a radical shift to actioners that were not only popular but also offered significant themes and content (like ?Unforgiven,? ?Mystic River,? ?Flags of Our Fathers? and ?Million Dollar Baby?). Eastwood?s latest movie, ?Gran Torino,? is an even more significant production, since it deals head-on not just with the wellsprings of genuine heroism, but also with hard-edged racist themes that are seldom dramatized or even acknowledged by most other US filmmakers.

What is even more instructive about Allen and Eastwood?s current position in cinema is that they have become such icons that they can now make pretty much any movie they like, when and where they want. This is an enviable position that other writer-directors should evaluate, because it assures the freedom of expression and communication that most artists covet.

Viewership

Allen and Eastwood have managed to pull it off not just because they?re uniquely gifted filmmakers, but also because they?ve sized down their financing requirements, while building up a loyal viewership that supports most of the movies the make.

These twin thrusts have enabled the two senior filmmakers to make some of their best movies in recent years. Would that other directors in their 60s and 70s could be as consistently productive and successful.

In the Philippines, we see the local equivalent to Allen and Eastwood in our own senior icon, Eddie Romero, who?s already in his 80s and yet manages to write and direct a new film every two years. While Romero has to work harder to secure financing and has a less dependable viewership, his feat is no less admirable than his two US counterparts? achievements.