American Rebel

by Marc Eliot

  He changed not a single word of Straczynski’s script and within weeks of the first cast reading, he was ready to shoot the film. Every available over-thirty actress had put herself up for the sure-to-win-an-Oscar-nomination part. Clint cast Angelina Jolie because, he later said, he thought her face was perfect for period films (as he had Swank’s for Million Dollar Baby).

  Production began on October 15, 2007, and was shot on location in and around Los Angeles, and principal photography was completed in just under thirty days. The atmosphere on the set was relaxed; Clint was in total and unchallenged control and able to easily guide his actors through their most intense moments. Angelina Jolie recalls how it was to work with Clint:

  My character, Christine Collins, came up against so much pain and hardship, and she fought hard and she became a real hero of mine and I wanted to tell people about her. Fortunately, I had someone like Clint to work with who is such a supportive director and so economic with your emotions. He didn’t drain me and he helped me through all the very difficult, emotional scenes.

  Six months later, on May 20, 2008, Clint debuted the film at Cannes, where it was enthusiastically received. Its distributor, Universal, then scheduled it for its big fall 2008 release. Even before the film’s spring French preview, a recharged Clint had already begun work on his next film, one that would bring him back to the front of the camera.

  Like everything else in Hollywood, schedules are subject to a million different factors, any one of which can cause delays, sometimes interminable ones. Before Changeling had come his way, Clint had actually begun preproduction on another film, The Human Factor, a biography of Nelson Mandela, which, for one reason or another, had to be postponed for a year. After flying through production of Changeling, and with The Human Factor still delayed, Clint looked around for another project. Gran Torino came his way, and he decided that that was the one he would make to bring himself back as an actor.

  The original script had been written by Nick Schenk, a popular TV actor (Butch the Janitor, on Let’s Bowl), writer, and producer; Gran Torino was his first try at a screenplay. Schenk had actually written the script years earlier based on his experiences working at a Minnesota Ford assembly plant side by side with several Korean War veterans, who had returned from active duty loaded with prejudice and anger toward all Asians. While working and living in Minnesota, Schenk had discovered the Hmong, a mountain-based, migratory sect of Chinese, many of whom eventually relocated to Laos and fought on the American side during the so-called secret incursion against the Pathet Lao during the Vietnam War. After the Americans left in 1974, many Hmong wound up in Communist prison camps, while others came to America and set up communities in various cities.

  Schenk (and his brother’s roommate, Dave Johannson) developed the screenplay, which set a Korean War widower against the Hmong, who have taken over his neighborhood. He is at first bitter and prejudiced toward the Hmong, seeing in them the reflection of the North Koreans and Chinese he battled during the war, but gradually he begins to learn about their culture, helps rescue the daughter of the family next door from a violent street gang, and helps her brother resist being recruited by the same gang. In the end, the grizzled old vet makes the ultimate sacrifice to save the boy, in a top-heavy Christians-save-“savages” plot twist. The final scene is replete with crucifixion images that were affecting, important, and dramatic. But as Schenk found out prior to Clint’s involvement, the studios considered it completely unmarketable.

  The main objection had been the age of the lead character, Polish-American Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski. The youth-dominated film industry—not just the makers but the audiences for whom they made their films—felt that such a story would have no audience; the Chinese were not a huge factor in ticket-buying demographics, and the elderly rarely went to the movies.

  After receiving turn-down after turn-down, Schenk sent his screenplay to Warner producer Bill Gerber, who gave it to Clint, knowing he was actively searching for a project to replace The Human Factor. In Walt Kowalski (with the name’s distinctive echoes of Tennessee Williams’s celebrated bear-man in A Streetcar Named Desire) Clint found yet another reluctant, one-last-time character who is not afraid to use force against those he feels are his enemies and to defend those he thinks are his friends. In many ways Kowalski was an amalgam of the Man with No Name, Dirty Harry, and William Munny, here aged and cynical but willing and able to fight on whenever the need arose.*

  Using local Hmong on location in Michigan, where Warner, after green-lighting the film, had suggested moving the shoot to take advantage of tax incentives, Clint blew through the shoot in his standard thirty days, and Gran Torino made it into theaters by December 12, only two months after Changeling had opened. It had been rushed into limited release to qualify for the 2008 Oscar race, and went into wide release in January 2009. This step-by-step release pattern, known as “platforming,” is used to build word of mouth for films that don’t have an immediate and apparent appeal to a large audience; it was augmented here by a statement that was “leaked” to the press and that flooded the Internet, in which Clint was supposed to have said that this was his farewell performance as an actor.* Whether he said it or not—and later he claimed he idn’t say it exactly that way—the reason was not hard to see; even if this film wasn’t his last, it was almost certainly his last chance to win a Best Actor Oscar, and to do it in highly dramatic fashion.†

  Gran Torino received out-and-out raves, among the best of his career. The New York Times said that “Clint Eastwood has slipped another film into theaters and shown everyone how it’s done.” The Wall Street Journal called Clint’s work in the film “the performance of a lifetime,” and the Los Angeles Times called it “a move audiences are wise to follow.” Andrew Sarris, in the New York Observer, proclaimed that “Clint makes my day as aging avenging angel … he caps his career as both a director and an actor with his portrayal of a heroically redeemed bigot of such humanity and luminosity as to exhaust my supply of superlatives … the result is a genuinely pioneering production very much worth seeing for the emotional thunderbolt that it is.” Dozens more were just as enthusiastic.

  Audiences too responded to the film, and it, rather than Changeling, became the sleeper crowd-pleaser of the Christmas–New Year season. Its box-office take grew every week until its wide release quickly sent it over the $100 million gross.

  In early January the Oscar nominees were announced, and to the surprise of many and shock of some, both Clint films were all but ignored. Angelina Jolie was nominated for Best Actress for Changeling and Tom Stern was nominated for Best Cinematography, but there was nothing for Clint’s direction of either film or, even more outrageously, for his performance in Gran Torino. The film itself, like Changeling, was left out of the Best Picture category, which included Steven Daldry’s The eader, David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, and Gus Van Sant’s Milk. None of these films held either the resonance or the grand career summation that Clint’s Gran Torino did.* The cocktail parties and Internet debates started immediately—the Academy was too old; the Academy was too ignorant; Clint had passed his “darling” phase and returned to making movies that only the public liked; nobody went to see films about the Chinese; Clint was too old-looking; Clint was too old; the film’s mood was anti-Obama’s national sense of uplift; the film was too negative and prejudicial.

  And on it went, the low din of whispers that had followed Clint around for his entire career, like Shakespeare’s infamous sound and fury. It was all part of the game, he knew, but it never failed to prick his very tough if not always thick skin. But he couldn’t let it bother him. As Robert Frost, one of Clint’s favorite poets, expressed in his famous poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” he felt that he too had miles to go before he slept. Already he had a half-dozen new projects dancing like juggler’s balls in his head; the Nelson Mandela pic, with his buddy Morgan Freeman in th
e starring role; a biopic of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, tentatively titled First Man; a film for DreamWorks called Hereafter; a jazz documentary about Dave Brubeck, another one about Tony Bennett … there was even talk of yet another Dirty Harry sequel. That had made him laugh: “Dirty Harry VI! Harry is retired. He’s standing in a stream, fly-fishing. He gets tired of using the pole—and BA-BOOM! Or Harry is retired, and he catches bad guys with his walker? Maybe he owns a tavern. These guys come in and they won’t pay their tab, so Harry reaches below the bar. ‘Hey guys, the next shot’s on me.’”

  While his career moves remained uncertain, Clint’s personal life had settled down. Dina regularly organized huge weekend outings for all the Eastwoods. She had performed the mighty task of bringing the entire Eastwood clan together, the mothers, the sons, the daughters, even some of the ex-girlfriends, give or take an unforgiving one or two. Even Maggie, who lives in the same area and remains Clint’s business artner, often attends. Both agree they get along much better now that they’re not married. Today the Eastwood ranch feels like a vast homestead, like the Kennedys’ Hyannis Port, or the Bushes’ Kennebunkport, or even Bick Benedict’s Texas ranch in George Stevens’s 1956 epic, Giant, released after James Dean, its star, was killed in a car crash. Clint had appeared in his first movie the same year Dean died. A lot of movies and movie stars had come and gone since then, but Clint was still going strong, willing and able to play the game. He was in no hurry to get to those woods, lovely, dark and deep.

  Soon enough, but not quite yet.

  *The six men were Franklin Sousley, Harlon Block, Michael Strank, John Bradley, Ira Hayes, and Rene Gagnon. The three who survived the battle were Bradley, Hayes, and Gagnon.

  *A few other films had tried to show both sides, without much success. The biggest was Richard Fleischer and Kinji Fukasaku’s Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The film, which had two directors, did not succeed at the box office and discouraged further attempts to show World War II from more than one point of view. No American film before Letters from Iwo Jima was ever made that showed any war issue completely and solely from the other side.

  *Clint was no stranger to public battles with other filmmakers. In 2005 he publicly vowed he’d kill Michael Moore if the documentarian ever showed up at his house, the way he had at Charlton Heston’s in Bowling for Columbine.

  *Flags of Our Fathers received two nominations, for Sound Editing (Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman) and Sound Mixing (John T. Reitz, David E. Campbell, Gregg Rudloff, Walt Martin). It lost the first to Letters from Iwo Jima and the second to Dream-girls (Michael Minkler, Bob Beemer, Willie D. Burton).

  *A “changeling” is a being in West European folklore and folk religion, the offspring of a fairy, a troll, an elf, or other legendary creature, that has been secretly left in the place of a human child.

  *Age had taken its toll on Clint as well. His six-foot-four frame had “shrunk” to six foot one due to chronic back problems.

  *“Clint Eastwood, who has played strong, silent types on-screen for more than 50 years, is done with acting. Eastwood, 78, says he has no plans to step in front of the camera after Gran Torino, which he directed, and starred in … ‘That will probably do it for me as far as acting is concerned,’ the Academy Award–winning director told Britain’s Sunday Express. ‘But I’ve got no plans to stop making films.’”—Cathy Burke, various newswires, December 15, 2008.

  †In an interview in the New York Times to promote Gran Torino, Bruce Headlam asked Clint about the persistent Internet and wire service stories that this was to be his last acting assignment. Clint’s reply: “Somebody asked what I’d do next, and I said I didn’t know how many roles there are for 78-year-old guys. There’s nothing wrong with coming in to play the butler. But unless there’s a hurdle to get over, I’d rather just stay behind the camera.” New York Times, December 14, 2008.

  *Best Director nominees were Daldry, Fincher, Boyle, Howard, and Van Sant. Best Actor nominees were Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Richard Jenkins (Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor), Sean Penn (Milk), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), and Mickey Rourke (Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler).

  SOURCES

  Research Institutions

  Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California

  New York Public Library, New York City

  New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, New York City

  Los Angeles County Court, public records, Los Angeles

  British Film Institute

  Cinémathèque, Paris, France

  Library of the Los Angeles Times (librarian Scott Wilson)

  Bibliography

  Albert, James. Pay Dirt: Divorces of the Rich and Famous. California: Diane Publishing, 1989.

  Bach, Steven. Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven’s Gate. New York: William Morrow, 1985.

  Bingham, Dennis. Acting Male: Masculinities in the Films of James Stewart, Jack Nicholson and Clint Eastwood. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994.

  Biskind, Peter. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998.

  Bragg, Melvyn. Richard Burton: A Life. Boston: Little, Brown, 1988.

  Clinch, Minty. Clint Eastwood. London: Coronet Books, 1995.

  Duncan, Paul, ed. Movie Icons: Clint Eastwood. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006.

  Eliot, Marc. Burt! New York: Dell, 1983.

  Engel, Leonard, ed. Clint Eastwood: Actor and Director. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2007.

  Frayling, Christopher. Clint Eastwood. London: Virgin, 1992.

  Haskell, Molly. Holding My Own in No Man’s Land. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

  Kaminsky, Stuart M. Clint Eastwood. New York: New American Library, 1974.

  Kapsis, Robert E., and Kathie Coblentz, eds. Clint Eastwood Interviews. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999.

  Kinn, Gail, and Jim Piazza. The Academy Awards. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal, 2002.

  Knapp, Laurence F. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1996.

  Locke, Sondra. The Good, The Bad & The Very Ugly. New York: William Morrow, 1997.

  McGilligan, Patrick. Clint: The Life and Legend. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.

  Nichols, Peter M., ed. The New York Times Guide to the 1,000 Best Movies Ever Made. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004.

  Randall, Stephen, ed., and the editors of Playboy magazine. The Playboy Interviews: The Directors. Milwaukee, Ore.: M Press, 2006.

  Reynolds, Burt. My Life. New York: Hyperion, 1994.

  Richards, David. Played Out: The Jean Seberg Story. New York: Random House, 1981.

  Rickles, Don. Rickles’ Book. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.

  Rose, Frank. The Agency: William Morris and the Hidden History of Show Business. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

  Sarris, Andrew. The American Cinema. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968.

  ___, Confessions of a Cultist: On the Cinema, 1955–1969. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970.

  Schickel, Richard. Clint Eastwood: A Biography. New York: Random House, 1996.

  Siegel, Don. A Siegel Film: An Autobiography. London: Faber and Faber, 1993.

  Thompson, Douglas. Clint Eastwood: Billion Dollar Man. London: John Blake, 2005.

  Verlhac, Pierre-Henri, ed. Clint Eastwood: A Life in Pictures. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008.

  Wallach, Eli. The Good, the Bad, and Me. New York: Harcourt, 2005.

  Wiley, Mason, and Damien Bona. Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards. New York: Ballantine Books, 1986.

  Zmijewsky, Boris, and Lee Pfeiffer. The Films of Clint Eastwood. New York: Citadel Press, 1993.

  NOTES

  Epigraphs and Introduction

  “You go to an Eastwood movie …”: Molly Haskell, Playgirl, November 1985.

  “Clint Eastwood is a tall …”: James Wolcott, Va
nity Fair, July 1985.

  “Eastwood has …”: Robert Mazzocco, “The Supply-Side Star,” New York Review of Books, April 1, 1982.

  “People can know …”: Quoted in John Love, “Clint Eastwood at 50,” San Antonio Light, November 2, 1980.

  “There is something …”: Quoted in Haskell, Playgirl.

  “I’m an actor …”: Quoted in Newsweek, July 22, 1985.

  “I grew up …”: Interview by Charlie Rose, PBS, October 8, 2003.

  Chapter One

  “My father …”: Quoted in Dick Kleiner, syndicated Hollywood columnist, collection of columns and notes, Margaret Herrick Library.

  “Well, those were the thirties …”: Interview by David Thomson, Film Comment 20, no. 5, September–October 1984.

  “My father was big on …”: Interview by Bernard Weinraub, Playboy, March 1997. This was the second interview Clint gave the magazine.

  “I can’t remember …”: Quoted in Wayne Warga, Washington Post, July 8, 1969.

  “I remember Gertrude Falk … she made up her mind …”: Zmijewsky and Pfeiffer, Films, 9.

  “dummy”: Thompson, Billion Dollar Man, 19.

  “When I sat down …”: Ibid., 20.

  “I would lie …”: Weinraub interview, Playboy.

  “I’d never seen a musician …”: Quoted in Schickel, Eastwood, 40.

  “really adrift”: Quoted in Frank Thistle, “Filmland’s Most Famous Gun-slinger,” Hollywood Studio, February 1973.

  Chapter Two

  “Basically I was a drifter …”: Quoted in Frank Thistle, “Filmland’s Most Famous Gun-slinger,” Hollywood Studio, February 1973.

  “You can only dig …”: Quoted in Dick Lochte, Los Angeles Free Press, April 20, 1973.

  “One of my auxiliary …”: Interview by Michel Ciment, “Entretien avec Clint Eastwood,” Positif 31 (May 1990).