THE 10 CLINT EASTWOOD LANDMARK FILMS
The great American filmmaker and actor Clint Eastwood turns 84 today!
After his beginning playing bit parts and supporting roles in numerous TV shows, most notably Rawhide, he rose to fame with his iconic portrayal in the excellent Sergio Leone Dollars Trilogy, where he portrayed the central character - the man with no name.
Clint Eastwood also arguably bettered himself when he transitioned from in front to behind the camera - one of the best actor to director careers to date in fact! - becoming a two time Academy Award winning director for his films Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004) and the receiver of an honorary award in 1995.
Today we celebrate his birthday by chronologically retracing 10 films, which we identify as his landmark films - a hard choice in a career where quality and quantity walked almost perfectly hand in hand (we forgive you for Breezy, Clint...)
1. - A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (Per Un Pugno Di Dollari), Sergio Leone, 1964
With A Fistful of Dollars, Sergio Leone kickstarted one of the most influential sub-genres the world and cinema has ever seen - the celebrated Spaghetti Western. Still, much of the credit goes to Clint Eastwood with his iconic performance as "the man with no name". Yet, did you know he wasn't even on Leone's wish list for the part? Originally, the legendary Italian filmmaker wanted Henry Fonda - much too pricey. The second pick Charles Bronson dismissed the offer saying that the script was too bad! It was fellow American actor Richard Harrison who recommended Clint for the part. Harrison had starred in the first official Italian western Gunfight at Red Sands (directed by Spaniard Ricardo Blasco in 1963), had dreaded the experience and declined the part, but suggested Eastwood for the role. The rest is history...
MEMORABLE QUOTE - "The heart, Ramone. Don't forget the heart. Aim for the heart, or you'll never stop me!"
2 - THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo), Sergio Leone, 1966
After A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, Clint Eastwood had completely redifined his good cowboy image of the Rawhide days and quickly rose to popularity. Yet, this was to be the third and final collaboration between the actor and Sergio Leone. Sadly, the relationship between the two had deteriorated, both claiming the rights to each other's successes. Money, of course, had a lot to do with it as well, and before shoot even began, Eastwood was clearly unhappy with the script, worried he might be upstaged by Eli Wallach and famously claimed "In the first film I was alone. In the second, we were two. Here we are three. If it goes on this way, in the next one I will be starring with the American cavalry".
MEMORABLE QUOTE - "You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."
3 - WHERE EAGLES DARE, Brian G. Hutton, 1968
This film famously predated early war themed shoot-em-up videogames in body-counts, and certainly never would have won any awards for authenticity. Yet, even today, it stands as absolutely kick ass and a lot of fun. For Eastwood, Where Eagles Dare (which he called Where Doubles Dared) was particularly important, as it came two years after The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and he was still shaking the cobwebs off his iconic turns as the man with no name. Seeing him in a war uniform would probably have been enough - here he is only slightly more articulate. Funnily enough, while Eastwood is known for other violent films, this is the one where he "kills" the most people on screen.
4 - DIRTY HARRY, Don Siegel, 1971
How many actors get two play two truly iconic character in the course of their careers? Well, with Dirty Harry, Eastwood is part of that very elite group. And once again, he was not the first considered for the role. Initially cinematically conceived for Steve McQueen, it was Paul Newman - upon dismissing the character as "too right winged" - who suggested Eastwood could be the right man for the job (could it be due to Eastwood's well known sympathies for the Republican Party...?). When the script landed his way, he was finishing up his own directorial debut Play Misty For Me. He loved the screenplay so much that he not only decided to accept the role but also decided to produce it through his own company, Malpaso. In many ways, this is seen as the ultimate on screen performance by Clint, who would go on to play the role of San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan four more times.
MEMORABLE QUOTE - "I know what you're thinking, punk. You're thinking "did he fire six shots or only five?" Now to tell you the truth I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and will blow you head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself a question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?"
5 - THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, Clint Eastwood, 1976
Not Clint's directorial debut, but certainly one of his best ones, Eastwood took over on directorial duties after an agument between him and original helmer Philip Kaufman, due to Kaufman's meticulousness. The Outlaw Josey Wales now enjoys a reputation as one of the most memorable anti-war films ever made - and almost certainly the greatest anti-war western ever made. Eastwood himself has stated, "As for Josey Wales, I saw the parallels to the modern day at that time. Everybody gets tired of it, but it never ends. A war is a horrible thing, but it's also a unifier of countries. . . . Man becomes his most creative during war. Look at the amount of weaponry that was made in four short years of WW2—the amount of ships and guns and tanks and inventions and planes and P-38s and P-51s, and just the urgency and the camaraderie, and the unifying. But that's kind of a sad statement on mankind, if that's what it takes."
MEMORABLE QUOTE - "Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is. "
6 - ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ, Don Siegel, 1979
Escape from Alcatraz is one of the best prison dramas American cinema ever produced. Yet, it was the cause of a huge dispute between long time collaborators and friends Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood. When the script landed his way, Clint decided he should direct it. But somehow, Don outmaneouvred his buddy and purchased the rights to the film for $100,000. While the two once again made a great film together, and Siegel agreed to bill this a Malpaso-Siegel production, the split was made definite when Siegel went to rival company Paramount Pictures and would never direct Eastwood in a film again.
MEMORABLE QUOTE - "Wolf wanted to get friendly. I didn't."
7 - UNFORGIVEN, Clint Eastwood, 1992
We're going to be bold and say that Eastwood's 80s were pretty weak, especially considering what was to follow. So, we skip ahead to Unforgiven, the film that established him as a great filmmaker and earned him his first golden statuette, the Academy Award for best director. The concept had been around since the late 70s, but Eastwood preferred to wait before he would make it, as he wanted to age enough to be able to play the lead. He had always envisioned this as his final Western, therefore he wanted it to be perfect. An important films in ways more than one, Eastwood also dedicated it "to Sergio and Don", the former being Sergio Leone and the latter Don Siegel. This was a great gesture not only as an acknowledgement of the contribution the two filmmakers had on Eastwood's excellent career, but also as some kind of a tribute, thank you and apology for clashing with them during their final collaborations together.
MEMORABLE QUOTE - "I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you done to Ned."
8 - MYSTIC RIVER, Clint Eastwood, 2003
If Unforgiven was the ultimate noir in western clothing, Mystic River is the western in noir clothing. While he did not actually star in this film, unless you count narrating the teaser trailer, he sure gathered up an amazing cast for it with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins winning an Oscar in their respective roles for their trouble. Eastwood also insisted that Penn, Robbins and Bacon were his original choices. On top of that, during a press conference for the film, he even had time to stick up for his lead Penn's political activism which had garnered attention after a controversial visit to Iraq after the outbreak of the Iraq war. On this occasion, he would go against his much publicised Republican views - not for the first time or the last - by calling the war a mistake and saying that he would have done the same thing as Penn had it not been for his age.
MEMORABLE QUOTE - Sean Penn as Jimmy Markum: "We bury our sins here, Dave. We wash them clean."
9 - MILLION DOLLAR BABY, Clint Eastwood, 2004
One after the other! The year after Mystic River, Eastwood dished out another great one - Million Dollar Baby, which earned him his second Oscar for best directing and should probably have earned him one for best actor in a leading role as well but nevertheless once again directing another actor - in this instance Hillary Swank - to an Academy Award winning performance.. It's hard to believe that this film took four years to see the light of day, stuck in development staged and rejected by countless studios even after Eastwood was signed on as both actor and director. Interesting to note how the third part of the film called for an uproar among film critics and journalists, who were forced to wonder about their own ways and meditate upon whether or not it would be right to even mention a 'spoiler alert' in the critiquing of the film. But the most conflicted of all was the reception of the 'Christian media', who actually found themselves wondering whether it would be right to give away the ending to favour their strong viewpoints on quite a delicate subject.
MEMORABLE QUOTE - "Mo cuishle means my darling. My blood."
10 - GRAN TORINO, Clint Eastwood, 2008
We end our focus on the prolific and influential cinematic legend named Clint Eastwood with Gran Torino. Eastwood knew he had another iconic performance left in him when he directed himself as the grunting and disenchanted, openly right winged vigilante Walt Kowalsky. Nevertheless, he never openly stated why he so strongly wanted to make the film, except for perhaps identifying with his character's paternal aspects. And in the spirit of understanding and inclusion, he cast real Hmong with little or no acting experience, which went down well with the Hmong community.
MEMORABLE QUOTE - "Oh, I've got one. A Mexican, a Jew, and a colored guy go into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, "Get the fuck out of here.""
- Matt Micucci, 31/05/2014