I get the honor of closing out today’s Clint Eastwood birthday celebration so I’m going to share my favorite picture of Mr. Eastwood. This is from a 2014 issue of Esquire and it features a great American with a symbol of the great American pastime.
Happy birthday, Clint Eastwood!
by Martin Schoeller
In 1996, a security guard named Richard Jewell should have been proclaimed a hero. He spotted an abandoned backpack in Centennial Park during the Atlanta Summer Olympics. Thinking that it could be a bomb, Jewell, insisting the proper security protocols be followed even though there was a concert going on, moved as many people as he could away from the backpack before it exploded. Two people died as a result of the explosion and 111 were injured. The number would have been much more catastrophic if not for Jewell’s actions.
Jewell saved lives but he soon found himself the number one suspect. Overweight, a little bit nerdy, Southern accented and possessing a spotty work history, Richard Jewell did not fit the popular conception of a hero. After the FBI leaked that Jewell was their number one suspect, the press literally reported as if Jewell’s arrest was imminent. I’m old enough to remember the way that, for a month, the nightly news seemed like the counting the days until Jewell was charged. Jewell, however, was never arrested and eventually, he sued several media outlets for libel. After anti-abortion fanatic Eric Rudolph emerged as the number one suspect in the bombing, the three FBI agents who attempted to railroad Jewell were disciplined. One was suspended for five days without pay, which seems a light punishment for ruining a man’s life.
Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell was about the persecution of the title character, with Paul Walter Hauser playing Jewell, Kathy Bates playing his mother, Jon Hamm playing the arrogant FBI agent, Olivia Wilde playing the unethical journalist who first reported that Jewell was a suspect, and Sam Rockwell playing Jewell’s attorney. When Richard Jewell was released in 2019, there was a lot of debate about the way it presented both the media and the FBI. This was during the first Trump presidency and many critics felt that it was not the right time for a film about an irresponsible reporter and a corrupt FBI agent. But Eastwood’s film isn’t about the reporter or the FBI. Instead, like many of his films, it’s about a loner who does the right thing, refuses to compromise, and suffers for it. If the FBI and the media didn’t want to be presented as being villains in a movie about Richard Jewell, they should have thought twice before announcing to the the world that they thought he was a murderer.
Because of the controversy, Richard Jewell is one of Eastwood’s unfairly overlooked films. Along with directing in his usual straightforward manner, Eastwood gets a great performance out of Paul Walter Hauser and reminds us that not every hero looks like the Man With No Name. Even more importantly, Eastwood pays tribute to a man who deserved better than he was given by the world. Richard Jewell died 12 years before the film that was named after him was released. A lot of people wanted to sweep what happened to Richard Jewell under the rug. Eastwood, in one of the best of his later films, refused to let that happen.
Paul Walter Hauser and Clint Eastwood
I love baseball and all of its traditions.
I love the idea that a pitcher has a mental connection with his catcher. I love the stories of the minor leaguers who get their chance in the majors and who stun the world by coming out of nowhere to hit a home run on their first at bat. I love all the stories about which batters corked their bats and which pitchers could still manage to get away with throwing a spitball. I love baseball because watching it is a relaxing way to spend an afternoon but at the same time, the game is unpredictable. Just one hit can change the momentum of an entire game and, until that final out, the game could be won by anyone. I especially have a place in my heart for the legendary baseball scouts, the grouchy old men who would drive out to the middle of nowhere to watch a game and search for the next great homerun hitter.
That’s one reason why I hated Moneyball. I thought Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Pratt, and Jonah Hill all did a good job and I loved Brent Jennings’s performance as Ron Washington but I hated the idea that the scouts and their instincts weren’t necessary because everything could just be determined by sabermetrics. The idea that an algorithm could tell you everything you needed to know about how to put a team together felt like a crime against everything that makes baseball special and it deeply offended me as a fan. Moneyball may feature a baseball team but it’s a movie about business, not the game.
That’s why I’m thankful for Trouble With The Curve.
Clint Eastwood stars as Gus Lobel, one of those plain-spoken, no-BS scouts that I love so much. All of the team owners might be into sabermetrics but Gus knows that the best way to scout a player is to actually hit the road and see him play. For Gus, scouting is all about instincts and his own gut feeling. Gus is everything that I love about baseball. He’s knows the game, he knows the players, and he doesn’t need an algorithm to tell him whether or not someone should be on the field.
The movie is about Gus scouting a player who has trouble hitting the curve. That’s something that Gus notices but the algorithm overlooks. Accompanying Gus is his daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams), who is proud to have grown up surrounded by plain-spoken, unpretentious baseball scouts like her father and who doesn’t understand why Gus never took her on the road when she was younger. Mickey falls for a younger scout named Johnny (Justin Timberlake), their love based on their shared knowledge of baseball. I liked Mickey and Johnny as a couple and I appreciated the scenes where Mickey and Gus worked on their strained relationship but the best thing about this movie is that Gus gets to prove that he knows more about baseball than all the young whipper-snappers who think they understand the game.
Trouble With The Curve is a tribute to everything that baseball is truly about. It’s a movie that loves the game as much as I do. Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams are a perfect father/daughter duo. Who needs an algorithm when you’ve got Clint and Amy?
The Bridges of Madison County starts with a mystery. A sister and her brother try to find out why their mother requested that she be cremated and her ashes scattered from a bridge rather than be buried next to her late husband. Going through their mother’s things, they learn about four-day affair that she had with a photographer who was just passing through town and taking pictures of covered bridges.
Meryl Streep plays their mother, an Italian war bride named Francesca. Clint Eastwood plays the photographer, Robert Kincaid. The movie shows how Francesca, trapped in a loveless marriage, rediscovered her passion for life and love during her four-day affair with Robert. Robert rediscovered his love for photography. (I like to take pictures so I was happy for him.) With her family due home after a trip to the Iowa State Fair, Francesca had to decide whether to abandon them to pursue her affair with Robert. Since this is the first that her children have ever heard about the affair, it’s easy to guess what she decided to do.
My aunt loved this film and I like it too. It’s the most tasteful film about a woman being tempted to abandon her family that I’ve ever seen. It’s a film about adultery that the entire family can enjoy! The film looks beautiful and Meryl and Clint … wow! Let’s just say that they seemed to be really into each other. The two leads give such heartfelt performances that every moment felt authentic and by the end of the movie, I very much wanted to see Francesca’s ashes dumped over the side of that bridge. Whenever anyone says that Clint Eastwood could only play cops and cowboys, tell them to watch Bridges of Madison County.
In 1984’s City Heat, Clint Eastwood plays Lt. Speer, a tough and taciturn policeman who carries a big gun, throws a mean punch, and only speaks when he absolutely has to.
Burt Reynolds plays Mike Murphy, a private investigator who has a mustache, a wealthy girlfriend (Madeleine Kahn), and a habit of turning everything into a joke.
Together, they solve crimes!
I’m not being sarcastic here. The two of them actually do team up to solve a crime, despite having a not quite friendly relationship. (Speer has never forgiven Murphy for quitting the force and Murphy has never forgiven Speer for being better at everything than Murphy is.) That said, I would be hard-pressed to give you the exact details of the crime. City Heat has a plot that can be difficult to follow, not because it’s complicated but because the film itself is so poorly paced and edited that the viewer’s mind tends to wander. The main impression that I came away with is that Speer and Murphy like to beat people up. In theory, there’s nothing wrong with that. Eastwood is legendary tough guy. Most people who watch an Eastwood film do so because they’re looking forward to him putting the bad guys in their place, whether it’s with a gun, his fists, or a devastating one-liner. Reynolds also played a lot of tough characters, though they tended to be more verbose than Eastwood’s.
That said, the violence in City Heat really does get repetitive. There’s only so many times you can watch Clint punching Burt while various extras get gunned down in the background before it starts to feel a little bit boring. The fact that the film tries to sell itself as a comedy while gleefully mowing down the majority of the supporting cast doesn’t help. Eastwood snarls like a pro and Reynolds flashes his devil-may-care smile but, meanwhile, Richard Roundtree is getting tossed out a window, Irene Cara is getting hit by a car, and both Kahn and Jane Alexander are being taken hostage. Tonally, the film is all over the place. Director Richard Benjamin was a last-minute replacement for Blake Edwards and he directs without any sort of clear vision of just what exactly this film is supposed to be.
On the plus side, City Heat takes place in Kansas City in 1933 and the production design and the majority of the costumes are gorgeous. (Unfortunately, the film itself is often so underlit that you may have to strain your eyes to really appreciate it.) And the film also features two fine character actors, Rip Torn and Tony Lo Bianco, are the main villains. For that matter, Robert Davi shows up as a low-level gangster and he brings an actual sense of menace to his character. There are some good things about City Heat but overall, the film is just too messy and the script is a bit too glib for its own good.
Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood had apparently been friends since the early days of their careers. This was the only film that they made together. Interestingly enough, Reynolds gets the majority of the screentime. Eastwood may be top-billed but his role really is a supporting one. Unfortunately, Reynolds seems to be kind of bored with the whole thing. As for Clint, he snarls with the best of them but the film really doesn’t give him much to do.
A disappointing film, City Heat. Watching a film like this, it’s easy to see why Eastwood ended up directing himself in the majority of his films.
Some of the best scenes in Eastwood’s 1993 film IN THE LINE OF FIRE include John Malkovich’s assassin and Clint Eastwood’s secret service agent engaging in intense conversations over the phone. I love the movie and these scenes.
Check this one out, and take note, it’s definitely NSFW!
We continue the Shattered Lens’ celebration of Clint Eastwood with 1985’s Pale Rider, one of my favorites. This was a film my long time friend Jay shared with me many years ago, as he owns most of Eastwood’s library of films. I like to think of it as a softer version of Eastwood’s own High Plains Drifter, which my father loved, but I couldn’t really get. It’s a tale of vengeance, but wrapped more in miracles.
You should first know that Westerns aren’t really my genre when it comes to film types I often watch. I don’t have a lot of historical background when it comes to Westerns overall. If you asked for a short list of my favorites, I’d give up Rustler’s Rhapsody (it’s a fun comedy), The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (my Dad watched it often), Blazing Saddles, and in terms of books, the first few books of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. I only recently watched Shaneafter Logan was first released, and I love the Red Dead Redemption games.
Pale Rider takes place in California around the time of the gold rush. Outside the town of LaHood, named after the wicked Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart, The Thing), we have a group of miners settled in that are hoping to strike it rich. It’s somewhat difficult with LaHood’s henchmen trying to drive them out at every turn, to steal the land. Hull Barrett (Michael Moriarty, Q The Winged Serpent) hopes to be successful, living with his fiancé Sarah (Carrie Snodgress, The Fury) and her daughter, Meghan (Sydney Penny, The Wife He Met Online). The most recent attack from LaHood’s men has shattered the miners’ morale and few are spared. Even Meghan’s dog is killed, causing her to wish for a miracle.
When LaHood’s son, Josh (Chris Penn, True Romance) and some other baddies (including The Thing‘s Charles Callahan, reuniting with Dysart) confront Hull, a stranger steps in. He handles them all easily with an axe handle, and as thanks, Hull welcomes him to the Miners area for room and board. Of course, having a stranger brings up all sorts of questions from the townsfolk, who don’t appear to be too trusting. Is he an outlaw, possibly? Even Meghan’s a little apprehensive at first, with her quote from Revelations 6:8 forshadowing the Pale Rider’s presence. Everyone is put at ease when they find our stranger is actually a Preacher, though Hull is still a bit curious about the six bullet sized scars on the man’s back. Can the Preacher help the Miners keep their land and stop LaHood?
From a casting standpoint, Pale Rider is damn near perfect. Although Eastwood is the main star in his own film, he comes across more as an accessory for everyone else in scenes. Moriarty does most of the heavy lifting, as does Snodgress and Penny. Their characters are all easily likable and the supporting cast (particularly Doug McGrath’s Spider) shine in their parts. Dysart’s LaHood is a dark character and there’s a wonderful verbal conflict between him and Eastwood in one scene that’s just sweet to watch to see who loses their cool first.
Pale Rider is both pretty simple and well executed from a story standpoint. It bears some similarities to Eastwood’s other film, High Plains Drifter. Though the town isn’t painted in red, there are allusions to the idea that the Preacher may be something of.a specter or ghost of vengeance. We’re not given any kind of full story as to why the Preacher’s here. We are shown that both The Preacher and LaHood’s Marshall, Stockburn (John Russell, The Outlaw Josey Wales) share a history, but that’s it. The story, like the Preacher and the events around him, moves in mysterious ways.
What I love the most about Pale Rider is the way the Preacher changes the minds (and hearts) of those around him. The miners learn to fend for themselves. His enemies are often in shock over what he does (and at least one flips from bad to good). It kind of reminds me of Wild West version of John Wick or Nobody, with a character whose reputation precedes him.
Bruce Surtees was the Cinematographer for Pale Rider, who also worked on a number of Eastwood’s earlier films, including The Outlaw Josey Wales and Play Misty for Me. Pale Rider has some beautiful landscape shots of the West (as the film was filmed in Idaho). Despite all the well lit shots, there are still moments where faces are obscured by the brim of a hat or the contrasts in a candlelit room.
The story isn’t without some dark areas or some odd moments. A dog is killed, and there’s a scene where Meghan is nearly raped, but there’s some intervention before things can get out of hand. Both instances help to show how dark the villains are in the overall tale. Both Sarah and Meghan seem to take their own shine to The Preacher, one already in a relationship and the other too young for what she’s asking for, but I took it to just be that their both a bit mesmerized by the Preacher’s presence in different ways.
Overall, Pale Rider is a wonderful offering by Eastwood, with fine performances by everyone involved. The Preacher does what he can to make things better around him with a peaceful approach. When push comes to shove, however, the guns come out blazing.
Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences claim that the Oscars honor the best of the year, we all know that there are always worthy films and performances that end up getting overlooked. Sometimes, it’s because the competition too fierce. Sometimes, it’s because the film itself was too controversial. Often, it’s just a case of a film’s quality not being fully recognized until years after its initial released. This series of reviews takes a look at the films and performances that should have been nominated but were, for whatever reason, overlooked. These are the Unnominated.
1982’s Honkytonk Man was a Clint Eastwood film that I had never heard of, until I came across it on Prime. I decided to take a chance and I rented it. I’m glad that I did because it turned out to be one of Eastwood’s best films.
Clint stars as Red Stovall, a country singer turned farmer during the Great Depression. Kyle Eastwood stars as Red’s nephew, 14 year-old Whit “Hoss” Wagoneer. When Red gets an opportunity to perform at the Grand Old Opry, he decides to head for Tennessee. Since Red is dying of tuberculosis and barely knows how to drive a car, he is accompanied by Grandpa Wagoneer (John McIntire) and Whit. Whit may be young but he knows how to drive and soon, he’s driving Red and Grandpa across the country. When a highway patrolman (Tim Thomerson) stops them, he says that Whit is too young to drive. After watching a speeding Red struggle to keep the car in the right lane, the patrolman pulls up beside them and says, “Let the kid drive.”
Honkytonk Man features an unexpected performance from Eastwood. Typically, we think of Eastwood’s characters as being the epitome of cool. Red is definitely not that. Red is a screw-up, someone who gets arrested while trying to steal chickens and who frequently gets conned by those that he meets during his journey. When the car breaks down in Arkansas, Red is too busy drinking to remember to catch the bus to Tennessee. He spends the night with a hitchhiker named Marlene (Alexa Kernin). The next morning, Whit wakes Red up and informs him that he only has a few minutes before the next bus leaves. Marlene announces that she’s pregnant. “HOLD THE BUS!” Red yells as he hastily puts on his clothes.
That said, Whit loves his uncle and the two Eastwoods, Clint and Kyle, both give excellent performances in Honkytonk Man. In fact, his performance here is probably the best that Clint Eastwood has ever given. Clint plays with his own image here. Initially, the film almost feels like a satire of Clint’s hypermasculine persona. (There is one scene where Eastwood handles a gun but it doesn’t play out the way that you might expect it to.) But, as the film progresses and Red’s illness grows worse, we start to understand Red and his way of looking at the world. Red is flawed but he loves his nephew and he loves music and, in the end, what’s important is not whether or not his song were recorded but instead that he spent his final days with Whit. The film may start out as a comedy but it ultimately becomes a meditation on aging and how one faces the inevitability of death.
As a director, Eastwood takes his time. He lets the movie play out slowly, with the casual pace of country story. It’s a film full of wonderful performance and beautiful visuals and it more than earns our patience. Wisely, Eastwood the director realizes that this story really isn’t about Red. The story is about Whit (or Hoss, as he asks to be known) and his experiences with his uncle. Whit worships his uncle but he also comes to learn that the most important thing is to be able to respect yourself. In this film, Clint Eastwood knows the story that he’s telling and he knows exactly how to tell it.
Honkytonk Man went unnominated as far as the Oscars are concerned. In the year when the well-intentioned but dramatically inert Gandhi dominated the awards and the nominations, Honkytonk Man was forgotten. That’s a shame.
Previous Entries In The Unnominated:
We’re taking just a short break from our Eastwood-a-thon so that I can share my Oscar predictions for May.
As I say every month, don’t read too much into anything this early in the year. I do think Sinners has a decent chance of getting nominated, despite being released early in the year. And since Cannes has now emerged as a semi-reliable precursor, you’ll find a lot of this year’s winners mentioned below. That said, in all probability, the actual Oscar nominations will look completely different from what’s below. That’s part of the fun of doing monthly predictions!
I should note that Clint Eastwood is apparently working on another film. Given how quickly he directs, he might be directing this year’s next sudden contender.
Click here for my April predictions!
Best Picture
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Deliver Me From Nowhere
F1
Hamnet
It Was Just An Accident
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Sinners
The Smashing Machine
Wicked For Good
Best Director
Jon M. Chu for Wicked For Good
Ryan Coogler for Sinners
Joseph Kosinski for F1
Jafar Panahi for It Was Just An Accident
Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value
Best Actor
Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme
Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine
Michael B. Jordan in Sinners
Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent
Jeremy Allen White in Deliver Me From Nowhere
Best Actress
Cynthia Erivo in Wicked For Good
Lucy Liu in Rosemead
Renate Reinsve in Sentimental Valure
Amanda Seyfried in Ann Lee
June Squibb in Eleanor The Great
Best Supporting Actor
Miles Caton in Sinners
Colman Domingo in Michael
Paul Mescal in Hamnet
Stellan Skarsgard in Sentimental Value
Christoph Waltz in Frankenstein
Best Supporting Actress
Elle Fanning in Sentimental Value
Ariana Grande in Wicked For Good
Gabby Hofman in Deliver Me From Nowhere
Kate Hudson in Song Song Blue
Nia Long in Michael
In 1980’s Bronco Billy, Clint Eastwood plays Billy McCoy.
Billy is an aging cowboy, a trick-shooter who owns Bronco Billy’s Wild West, a traveling circus that has definitely seen better days. Bronco Billy and his friends travel the country, going from small town to small town and putting on a show. Billy is definitely the star and the highlight of each show is him shooting balloons and tossing a knife while his female assistant is strapped on a revolving disk. Unfortunately, Billy’s latest assistant flinches and gets a knife in her leg. Billy needs a new assistant and, wouldn’t you know it, Antoinette Lily (Sondra Locke) needs a job!
Antoinette is a runaway bride. She married John Arlington (Geoffrey Lewis), not because she loved him but because she needed to get married by the time she turned 30 or she would lose her inheritance. After the ceremony but before the wedding night, Antoinette fled. The police assume that John murdered her and promptly arrest him. John, suspecting that his wife is still alive, pleads insanity so that he can avoid the electric chair.
As Billy’s assistant, Antoinette challenges the way that Billy has always done the show, often to such an extent that you really have to wonder why she sticks around. Since this is a Clint Eastwood film, there a bar brawl where Billy rescues her from being assaulted by a couple of rednecks. Unfortunately, Antoinette’s arrival coincides with a string of accidents and other unfortunate incidents. The other members of the show start to suspect that Antoinette might be bad luck. Myself, I’m not superstitious and I don’t think that people can bring bad luck. I think people make their own luck. However, it’s hard to overlook the fact that Antoinette finds out that her husband is facing the death penalty due to her disappearance and her reaction is to basically shrug it off. Sondra Locke gives a rather flat performance was Antoinette, suggesting none of the quirkiness necessary to make her anything more than a very childish and very self-centered person. Antoinette is a role that demands the eccentricity of a young Sissy Spacek or Shelley Duvall or even Beverly D’Angelo, who did such a good job in Every Which Way But Loose. Sondra Locke gives a boring performance and it drags down the film.
That said, there is a lot to like about Bronco Billy. In many ways, this film feels like Clint Eastwood’s take on a Robert Altman film. The plot is episodic and casual and the best scenes are the ones the emphasize the members of the circus as being a family of misfits. (Indeed, one reason why Locke’s performance feels so jarringly wrong is because both she and Antoinette never seem to be interested in the other members of the show.) Billy may be their leader and their main attraction but every member of the show plays a role in keeping Billy’s Wild West alive. Scotman Crothers, Sam Bottoms, Bill McKinney, Dan Vadis, and Sierra Pecheur all give likable performances that bring the film’s world to life. The film becomes about more than just the aging Billy trying to find his place in a changing world. It’s a film about a group of people who have come together to form their own community and, by the end of the movie, it’s a community that you can’t help but love. In many ways, this film features both Eastwood the director and Eastwood the actor at his gentlest and most humanistic. Billy and his show bring the old west to a new America and, in the end, you’re happy they did.
Through the Shattered Lens 