THE CLINT EASTWOOD GUIDE TO MAKING MOVIES ADD PASSION, COMMITMENT AND THE ABILITY TO WORK QUICKLY - AND GET MOVIES LIKE THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED 'MYSTIC RIVER'.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Clint Eastwood still gets the occasional call from some producer asking him to play an angry cop or a vengeful father or maybe a dispassionate (but right-minded) antihero. Those phone calls don't usually last too long. Eastwood has covered righteous anger in his career, and it doesn't interest him anymore as an actor.

``I can't put the poncho back on,'' Eastwood says. ``To repeat what I've done in the past isn't in the cards for me. I've been an action actor at one time, and I liked it. It was fun. But I don't want to be Dirty Harry again. That was then, and now is now. I'm a different person, hopefully somebody who has evolved a little bit.''

He pauses, and then adds with a laugh, ``I guess the trick is to become wiser and better before you lose your memory and start forgetting everything.''

If Eastwood's latest movie, the chilling, hard-minded ``Mystic River'' is any indication, the 73-year-old Oscar-winning director has continued to evolve in some pretty profound ways. The film, which opens Wednesday, takes many of the themes of Eastwood's later work as a director - the brutal consequences of violence, the hard price the executioner pays for revenge, the cruel randomness of fate - and taken them to even more disturbing places.

``Mystic River'' premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May to raves. There was also no small measure of incredulity that Eastwood had been able to make the movie in the first place. The film, adapted from Dennis Lehane's best seller, deals with three men haunted by a horrible act of violence that took place 25 years earlier during their youth. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon play the leads; Eastwood does not act in the movie.

Off pitch

When Lehane's book was published in January 2001, several studios called expressing interest. After listening to a few inane pitches from movie executives who wanted to radically change the story by lightening the tone and reworking the ambiguous ending, he pulled the novel off the market.

``Better that than seeing it destroyed,'' Lehane says.

Then Lehane's agent told him he might want to listen to one final offer - from Eastwood. After a brief phone conversation, it was clear to the writer that Eastwood had actually read ``Mystic River'' - ``a rarity,'' Lehane says - and he got it.

``You know Mamet's line: 'Film is collaborative - now bend over,' '' Lehane says. ``Well, this was a true collaboration. He would listen. He wouldn't always agree with me, but he would listen. Sean Penn said very early on, 'You realize it will never be this good again.' I have no doubt that he's right.''

It isn't surprising that Eastwood would connect with ``Mystic River,'' since Lehane's novel contains so many of the ideas that have fueled his work as a director, particularly since winning the Oscar for the harrowing 1992 Western ``Unforgiven.'' ``Mystic River'' is fundamentally about the loss of innocence in a dangerous world where damaged men feel the need to take the law into their own hands. The results prove tragic, even more so than in Eastwood's underrated ``A Perfect World'' (1993), in which Kevin Costner's trigger-tempered Butch died, but only after rescuing a small boy from abuse.

``The consequences of the action ... that's the thing,'' Eastwood says. ``I happen to be one of those people who feel that child molestation is a capital offense, maybe the most capital offense. Yet everyone is always looking at the molester and what's going on in his head instead of examining the victim's life, which is never the same. 'Mystic River' examines not just one victim's life, but three - three lives that had been stolen. When I read it, it got me.''

Against the tide

Lehane's novel was a popular best seller and Eastwood is, well, Eastwood, but that didn't mean it was easy selling the project to studios.

``I'm not sure anyone wanted it,'' Eastwood says. ``We shopped it around when 'Spider-Man' and all this stuff was coming out, so a lot of people said, 'It's a nice story, but maybe not.' One studio said, 'Sorry, but we're looking for another comic book character.' You'd think there were enough of them.''

Warner Bros. eventually stepped up, splitting the costs with production partner Village Roadshow - and demanding that Eastwood come in with a $25 million budget. (Eastwood waived his salary.) That mandate didn't stop Eastwood from filming ``Mystic River'' on location in Boston (Toronto, of course, had been suggested) and signing a cast of intelligent, intense actors. (In addition to Penn, Bacon and Robbins, the movie features Laurence Fishburne, Laura Linney and Marcia Gay Harden.)

``He could have had bigger stars,'' Bacon says. ``They were out there, interested. But that's not the way he works. He's unique that way. Come to think of it, he's unique in pretty much every way.''

Talk to any of the film's actors, and they will bend your ear praising Eastwood's famously lean shooting style (``never more than three takes,'' Robbins says) and the sheer enjoyment he brings to the set. Penn calls Eastwood the ``least-disappointing icon'' he has ever met, a compliment that Eastwood typically deflects, wondering if Penn has met some really disappointing icons in his time.

Emotion over frustration

Given the intensity of the subject matter, Eastwood saw economy as even more of a necessity than usual.

``I hate to take a real emotional subject like this and dry it out with a lot of rehearsal and a lot of takes,'' Eastwood says. ``I once talked to a director who likes to rehearse it until it's bad and then keep rehearsing it until it gets good again. I thought that was an odd way to go. I like directing the way I like being directed, which is, let me come in and show you my stuff. And if my stuff's no good, then tell me about it and we'll work on it. But don't say, 'Stand here, say this and let's do it 25 times,' because it's going to be stale.''

Says Robbins: ``With material like this, you have to get some pretty strong depths of emotion in order to tell the story, and you really don't want to be doing that 20 times a scene. With Clint, that's not even a choice. You bring it with everything you have on the first take.''

To accomplish that, the ``River'' cast would often return to their Boston hotel at night and rehearse scenes for the next day. Once, early on, they invited Eastwood to listen. He thought about it, then told them to keep up the good work and that he'd watch them on the set - with the pleasure of hearing their words for the first time - tomorrow.

``I like to tell the story of when I was making 'Unforgiven,' and we were doing a scene in the jail house, and I asked Gene Hackman - a friend for many years, but we'd never worked together - to run through a scene while I thought about where to put the camera,'' Eastwood says. ``So he and Saul Rubinek started in, and they sounded so great, I said, 'Stop! Let's just turn the camera on.' I felt desperate. It sounded so good, I didn't want to lose the spontaneity and the freshness.''

Riding the 'River'

To keep some of that freshness in his own life, Eastwood won't be working for a few months at least. (In addition to ``Mystic River,'' Eastwood recently directed an episode of Martin Scorsese's ``The Blues.'') He says he wants to take a deep breath and enjoy time with his wife, Dina, and their 6-year-old daughter, Morgan, and just, generally, ``have a terrific time with family.'' And, truth be told, he wants to savor the great reviews coming his way for ``Mystic River.''

``It's always frustrating to work hard on something and then not take the chance to enjoy it, to put it out there, let it breathe and say, 'OK, that's how I felt about it,' '' Eastwood says. ``It's hard to get this type of movie made nowadays. It's another statement for: 'Gee, fellas, whether it's me or someone else, don't be afraid to make films from something other than comic book characters. It can be done, and you might feel better about yourself for doing it.''

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Play `Mystic' for me

Clint Eastwood returns to the director's chair to helm adaption of acclaimed novel

(2) Clint Eastwood