EASTWOOD ON THE PITCH

While there are those who will inevitably accuse Eastwood of gilding the lily, of telling one of the few optimistic stories to be plucked from a South Africa that remains rife with despair, the counter proof is right there in Invictus itself. For all the celebratory atmosphere of the World Cup Final, the movie ends not with the pomp and circumstance in Ellis Park Stadium or with the crowds of joyous revelers spilling into the Johannesberg streets but rather on the simple, quiet image of the president, seated in the back of his limousine, removing his glasses and massaging the bridge of his nose.

“You see him as a lone figure in the car,” Eastwood says. “You can tell he’s tired. This is just one hurdle, and you get the feeling he’s got a long way to go. You know, he was 75 when he took over as president, which is really old, even by today’s standards” — curious words coming from a man who, six months shy of 80 himself, seems committed to a more feverish pace of work than ever. “In South Africa, there’s still a lot to do after apartheid. There’s still tension there, and the crime rate and other things. This was just a start. I don’t know how this guy Zuma’s going to be,” he says of South Africa’s newest leader, Jacob Zuma, who took office during the Invictus shoot, following a heated power struggle with outgoing President (and Mandela successor) Thabo Mbeki. “You just hope somebody will come and carry the mantle.”

Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

Team huddle: Eastwood calls the play on the Invictus set.

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• Springboks
• Clint Eastwood
• Nelson Mandela
• Racial Issues
• Prisons

Eastwood’s words echo something said to me back on Robben Island, by the convict turned judge Derrick Grootboom, who, like many I talked to during my time in South Africa, spoke of a nation still sharply divided along racial and economic lines, where the evil of apartheid has been replaced by an equally insidious form of internecine political warfare. As suggested by the this year’s thinly veiled science-fiction allegory District 9, much of the country’s black population still lives in dire poverty in the townships, an AIDS epidemic rages, and violent attacks on immigrants have become increasingly commonplace. Yet, as Grootboom gazed out over the azure waters of Table Bay on that beautiful spring day, his back turned toward the prison that had stolen five years of his youth, something like hope flickered in his eyes. “We are in our Wild West period right now,” he said. “But we are moving quickly into the period where we will realize there is no such thing as ‘free for all.’ You will see us solidifying the rules, and holding people accountable.”

From somewhere behind us, as if to complete Grootboom’s thought, comes Eastwood’s voice, gently issuing a directive to Freeman and crew: “Action.”