This Clint Eastwood Neo-Noir Is Way Grittier & Sleazier Than ‘Dirty Harry’
The 1984 neo-noir is a far sleazier, grittier, and meditative film than the star's most famous work.
Clint Eastwood has established himself as an effortlessly cool and confident archetype of masculinity, but in 1984’s Tightrope he’s a struggling single father with a complicated relationship with women. The film stars Eastwood as Wes Block, a middle-aged New Orleans police detective attempting to sort out his own sordid desires while solving a series of grisly murders. Unlike his roles in Dirty Harry and the Dollars Trilogy, here is an Eastwood that isn’t breezing through the carnage with ease, but is instead hanging by a thread to provide both emotionally and financially for his two daughters, the oldest of which is played by Eastwood’s real-life daughter Alison Eastwood.
Early on in the film, the dichotomy between Block’s home life and his work as a detective of heinous crimes is put front and center. As Block is preparing to watch a Saints football game with his young daughters Amanda (Alison Eastwood) and Penny (Jenny Beck), he is called into work to take a look at the evidence for the first in the series of murders. The disappointment on the faces of Amanda and Penny is palpable, and Eastwood successfully portrays the sympathetic father who just wants some quality time with his daughters. Instead, he is pulled into the New Orleans dark underworld, and he soon becomes indistinguishable from the kind of people he is investigating.
Usually in films in which a police detective is investigating brothels, strip clubs, and drug dealers, there is a clear line drawn between the keepers of law and order and those trying to disrupt the social order. However, in Tightrope, this dichotomy is immediately proven false as Block receives a sexual favor from the prostitute he interviews following the first murder. Block’s hope resides in his daughters and in the relationship he develops with self-defense instructor Beryl Thibodeaux (Geneviève Bujold) with whom he develops the first normal, healthy relationship he has had in quite a while. Tightrope balances tender human drama with a lurid plot that pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable in a mainstream film.
‘Tightrope’ Is Clint Eastwood’s Grittiest and Sleaziest Film
Tightrope is significantly more downbeat and somber than not only the majority of Clint Eastwood’s own filmography but of many 80s films in general. Tightrope is closer in tone to Taxi Driver or Hardcore than to the many, fluffier cop films of the era. The film is much darker than many of those of the time not only because of its disturbing subject matter but also because of the matter-of-fact manner in which the film’s events are presented. The score is minimal or even completely absent. There are no swanky horns or elaborate arrangements. Oftentimes the only music present is diegetic. The sleazy underbelly of New Orleans is never sensationalized as Block goes on an investigative odyssey into the depths of human depravity.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this section of the film is Block’s struggle with his degenerate desires. This is where the title of the film comes into play, as Block is simultaneously repulsed and titillated by what he sees at night in the French Quarter as he hunts down the killers. In one of the film’s most revealing scenes, Block has a dream in which he is the murderer. The scenes which depict the aftermath of the crimes are shocking in their sheer bluntness. For a film made almost forty years ago, Tightrope‘s lurid depiction of New Orleans’ kinky underworld remains as transgressive today as it did in 1984.
‘Tightrope’ Is Part Brian De Palma, Part Paul Schrader
Tightrope owes much of its aesthetic and tone to films like Hardcore and Taxi Driver, as well as the distinctive sleazy sensibilities of many of Brian De Palma‘s films at the height of his career, such as Blow Out and Dressed to Kill