The film was entered into the 1990 Cannes Film Festival . The film received positive reviews with review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes reporting that 29 out of the 33 reviews they tallied were positive for a score of 88 % . The consensus reads : " '' White Hunter Black Heart '' is powerful , intelligent , and subtly moving , a fascinating meditation on masculinity and the insecurities of artists . " The film has grown significantly in critical stature , especially in light of the films Eastwood made immediately afterwards . Many of these , like '' White Hunter , Black Heart '' , turned out to be self-reflexive and self-conscious works criticizing and deconstructing Eastwood 's own iconography . Jim Hoberman of '' The Village Voice '' hailed it as " Eastwood ’s best work before '' Unforgiven '' ... an underrated hall-of-mirrors movie about movie-inspired megalomania . " Dave Kehr and Jonathan Rosenbaum consider it a masterpiece , with the latter pointing out the Brechtian nature of Eastwood 's performance , as he never disappears into the role he is playing ; instead , Eastwood is always recognizably his unique star persona while showing us what he imagines Huston ( i.e. Wilson ) to have been . The result is " a running commentary on his two subjects , Huston and himself — the ruminations and questions of a free man . " '' White Hunter Black Heart '' 's gross theatrical earnings reached just over $ 2 million , well below the film 's $ 24 million budget
1990 Cannes Film Festival
1990 Cannes Film Festival
White Hunter Black Heart