Jack McCann: "I never earned a nickel from another man's sweat"
Claude van Horn: "You didn't earn the gold Jack, you took it from Nature. You raped the Earth."

It seems all too commonplace to overlook the later works of Nicolas Roeg: the accepted practice seems to be to laud praise on his first five films as director, but to consider his works after 'Bad Timing' 1980, to be less than the great works that cineastes had come to expect from Roeg. Part of the problem may simply be that Roeg's first five films were all absolute masterpieces from a great visionary. Indeed, Roeg's vision was so strong that many consider John Schlesinger's 'Far From the Madding Crowd', 1967, to be a Nicolas Roeg film (it was one of Roeg's last films as cinematographer, made three years before 'Performance', 1970), this is due in no small part to the fact that Roeg's vision as cinematographer almost completely eclipsed Schlesinger's vision as director. Nevertheless, there seems to be a growing interest in Roeg's later work, and 'Eureka' is fast becoming accepted as being one of Roeg's great overlooked works. There is in fact much to commend Roeg's later work, and to commend 'Eureka' as an especially fine example of a Nicolas Roeg film, one in which his auteurist vision is clearly evident and in which many classically Roegian themes are dominant. The film is especially interesting as ideas, themes and characters that are explored in earlier Roeg films are seen again in different guises. The film again pairs Roeg with producer Jeremy Thomas ('Bad Timing'), scriptwriter Paul Mayersberg ('The Man Who Fell To Earth', 1976), and with Theresa Russell ('Bad Timing') whom Roeg married during the years in between the making of 'Bad Timing' and 'Eureka'. The central character in the film is played by Gene Hackman, who delivers an exceptional performance as Jack McCann, the gold prospector who finds his fortune fairly early in life, and who subsequently struggles to give meaning to the rest of his life as his ultimate goal has been accomplished. In many ways this reverses the structure of 'The Man Who Fell To Earth', where Newton struggled and ultimately failed to fulfill his goal, though found (a kind of) solace at the end of the film. No such solace is granted to McCann though, and the parallels with 'Eureka' and 'Citizen Kane' 1941, have been frequently cited; although 'Eureka' takes a darker turn, and unlike Kane who waits for old age to take him, McCann seems desperate to bring about his own early demise. McCann's death is instigated by the gangster Mayakofsky (played by Joe Pesci), although the pair never meet. The similarities between McCann and Mayakofsky are suggested in various scenes during the films, in many ways reminding the viewer of the earlier parallel between Chas (also a gangster) and Turner in 'Performance'. The reasons for the relatively overlooked status of this film have almost nothing to do with the quality of the film itself, and almost everything to do with the usual problems of a film that baffles its distributors; it was shelved for two years, and then received only the most meager distribution. Nevertheless, one must not overlook Roeg's problem of bad timing; this was a film made in the heyday of Ronald Regan and Maggie Thatcher, and Roeg was trying to remind us that although money may make the world go round, it will not necessarily make us happy.