Clint: The Life and Legend Review

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Clint: The Life and Legend ReviewLet's see if I can remember the list of personal character insults against Clint Eastwood in this book.... He's lazy, he's vain, egotistical, manipulative, vindictive, callus, shallow, mean-spirited, chintzy, disloyal, petty, dishonest.... He has a irrational temper and is a bully. He's a sloppy hack of a director, and a lazy, minimally talented actor. That's just a sampling. (I almost forgot: he's also a racist, is homophobic, and a sexist.) Nothing is too petty for this author. He criticizes Clint's dress (and amusingly claims that he is so cheap that he just took home his Dirty Harry wardrobe for his own use) and even tries to make Clint's workout habits seem like a negative and ridicules his dietary habits! Nothing is too low: he repeats some quote from an alleged one-night stand from like twenty-five years ago that Clint is a "bum lay." He begins this whole mean-spirited diatribe against Clint Eastwood with a coarse, negative examination of his family tree.
Supposedly this author is a movie expert but the deepest analysis of Clint's movies he offers is his criticism that Clint takes his shirt off too often. In an interview the author admitted a distaste for rewatching movies, and it shows. A few times the author makes the claim like Clint has a perversion for liking scenes of him in a bathtub, pointing to High Plains Drifter as a reprise of his scene in a bathtub in the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Of course, in the Leone movie it was Eli Wallach who had the bathtub scene, not Clint. Oh well. What's a little detail like that when you have an agenda to push.
And the inside book jacket claims this is a "balanced" book. Hahahahaha. That's pretty funny. An example of how "balanced" and "well researched" this book is: the author reads Sondra Locke's book and repeats her story here, without reserve as the definitive truth of the situation. As if nothing in her version of the story is at all suspect. Uh-huh.
The author claims that Clint, while in his Rawhide days, ran a hopeful actor out of Hollywood. As though a co-star in a popular TV series would have that power, to ruin another's career, and in effect literarily force them out of Hollywood and L.A. The author also claims there is no evidence that Clint showed any interest in directing during his Rawhide days, or had ever made any suggestions about camera shots, or had ever asked to direct an episode of the series. So in effect, Clint is a big fat liar, who has all along manipulated the media and spread his own propaganda to the public. Even though Clint was to very competently direct his first movie, Play Misty for Me, a mere five years after the series ended.
Does Clint have flaws as a human being? Absolutely. His womanizing has been chronicled in at least two other books (including his "official" biography), and he doesn't deny it. Has he made mistakes? I'm sure. Is he the despicable man that the author portrays? I find that very unlikely. The author clearly has a bias (and some very evident psychological issues), and while your average reader won't be in any position to question the validity of facts that occurred in private, there is much in the book that any casual fan of Clint's can spot right off as untrue.
Author's claim: Clint has a history of gay-bashing in his movies (and private life.) Well, I don't know what he's ever said in private and maybe he has said something spiteful at one time-- maybe -- but I would bet the author of this book has said much worse in private. Just my personal assertion. But his movies are out there for anybody to watch, and there's very clearly no instance of gay-bashing in any movie (including The Eiger Sanction), nor does the author actually give an example. He just makes the claim.
Author's claim: Clint has a sordid history of mistreatment of blacks in his films. Author's support: Dirty Harry is clearly a racist. (He's clearly not.) The scene with the black bankrobbers. Portraying a black guy as a pimp in Magnum Force. As though these are the only roles Clint ever had black actors play in his movies. The author will use even the flimsiest of evidence to try to make his case. Watch his movies and decide for yourself.
Author's claim: That Clint has portrayed women in his movies in a negative manner. The Beguiled, Play Misty For Me, and The Enforcer are three he singles out. Yes, there is sexism at the beginning of the Enforcer, but it's done with humor in mind, and to show how far Harry comes around. The movie could even be seen as an endorsement for affirmative action, though I doubt that was what interested Clint. As for the other two.... well, the author is apparently holding onto some archaic notion that women are pure of heart and only men are capable of greed, obsession, passion, deceit, etc. It's okay for a movie like Taxi Drive to show a man as a sociopath, but not okay to show women as such. In other words, women aren't allowed to have good roles in movies! I guess they're just supposed to look pretty, but not actually do anything. He also claims Clint had a hidden agenda to force Sondra Locke into roles where she's a hooker or is otherwise assaulted. Even though he always gave her good roles, roles that would require real acting, and give her a chance to shine. Whether or not she performed up to the roles is a separate issue. Then girlfriend Francis Fisher also plays a whore in Unforgiven, and a-ha! we have a pattern here, the author claims. If you really, really want to believe that, then go ahead, but Clint's movies speak for themselves. Go back and watch them, and you'll find he always had far stronger women in his movies than any other male star, and that holds true even in this age.
You could go on, but what's the point. His assertions of things we all in the public can see are false lead me think there is nothing in this book that is not questionable. This author isn't the first to parasitically try to ruin a celebrity's reputation for personal profit and spite, and I'm sure he won't be the last, and there will always be those in the public who want to see the worse in stars--they expect it, they even crave it, this idea that stars are by nature depraved and perverse.
One last note. I found it interesting that the controversy surrounding Tightrope was totally glossed over, and Tuggle given full credit for directing it, with the exception of some minor scenes involving Clint and his daughter that Clint directed. Now it's well known that Clint wrested directing duties from Tuggle early on in the production because of dissatisfaction with Tuggle's methods, but was not able to take credit due to a policy that was created after the Outlaw Josey Wales controversy. You would have thought that the author would have found this yet another example of Clint's egotism and... whatever else. But no. It seems that Tightrope is one of the few movies that the author actually likes of Clint's, even going so far as to concede through a quote by Tuggle that Clint can, actually, act when he wants to. Very strangely the author seems fascinated by the sexual content of the movie (which seems to hint at the author's own....no, never mind, I'm not going there.) The obvious conclusion is that the author thinks highly of the movie, and of the directing of the movie, and is not about to give Clint any credit if he can help it. No mention of the controversy is mentioned, not even to deny that there was a controversy, which Schickel detailed thoroughly in his bio of Clint. Interesting. Now tell me the author didn't have some (sick) agenda in this book.Clint: The Life and Legend Overview

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