The Man from Malpaso (Part 2).

Following on from last week’s post on Clint Eastwood where he had just starred and directed the superb western Pale Rider (1985). He followed this up in 1986 with directing and starring in the war drama Heartbreak Ridge where he played a U.S. marine gunnery sergeant nearing retirement.

The next few years were a relatively lean period for Eastwood. In 1988 he directed the biographical musical drama Bird about jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker, which was critically lauded but failed to find an audience.

He followed this up in 1990 with the excellent adventure drama White Hunter Black Heart which is is a thinly disguised account of the filming of the 1951 classic The African Queen, which was filmed on location in Africa at a time when foreign location shoots for American films were rare. Eastwood’s performance as the director was a subtle take on John Huston who directed The African Queen. Again the film was well received by the critics but failed to generate an audience.

But it all came together for him in 1992 with the superlative western Unforgiven. The film tells the story of William Munny, an aging outlaw and killer who takes on one more job, years after he had turned to farming. The film co-starred Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris.

The film is primarily concerned with deconstructing the morally black-and-white vision of the American West which was established by traditional works in the genre, as the script is saturated with unnerving reminders of the now teetotal Munny’s own horrific past as a drunken murderer and gunfighter who is haunted by the lives he’s taken.

Unforgiven marked the first time Eastwood was nominated for Academy Awards – for Best Actor, Director and Film (as producer) where we won for Best Direction and Best Film, cementing the film as one of the great westerns.

The film was a key marker in Eastwood’s film career as going forward he concentrated more and more as being a film director rather than as an actor, although his following film In The Line Of Fire (1993) he was excellent as an aging Secret Service agent trying to prevent an assassination attempt on the U.S. President.

His next directorial effort was the under-rated A Perfect World (1993) where his role as a Texas Ranger was secondary to Kevin Costner’s role as an escaped convict.

In 1995 he directed and starred in The Bridges Of Madison County a lovely romantic drama co-starring Meryl Streep which he followed up in 1997 with directing Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, which although overlong, was an engrossing story, based on a true story, of a wealthy antiques dealer on trial for the murder of a male prostitute who was his lover.

Eastwood started the 2000s directing the hit Space Cowboys starring Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner as four older “ex-test pilots” who are sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite.

In 2002 Eastwood directed and starred in Blood Work as a retired FBI agent. Although not a box office success it’s a film I have always enjoyed but it did lead to the start of a run of six superb films that truly cemented him as one of America’s great film directors.

Mystic River (2003) was a neo-noir crime drama starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney. The film is a deeply somber and quite a depressing drama that unfolds in layers and conveys the tragedy of its story with visceral power winning Academy Awards for Penn and Robbins with nominations for Eastwood as director and producer (Best Film).

Eastwood then directed and starred in the outstanding Million Dollar Baby (2004) a sports drama which follows an underdog amateur female boxer (Hilary Swank) who is helped by an under appreciated boxing trainer (Eastwood) to achieve her dream of becoming a professional.

Eastwood’s assured direction, combined with knockout performances from Hilary Swank and Clint himself, helped Million Dollar Baby to transcend its clichés, and the result is deeply heartfelt and moving film. The film won Eastwood his second Academy Award for Directing and also for Best Film, Actress (Swank) and Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman). I’ve always felt this was Eastwood’s best acting performance and he was very unlucky not to take home the Best Actor award.

Incredibly, in 2006, Eastwood would remarkably go to direct back-to-back WWII films about the war in the Pacific in Flags Of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. Flags Of Our Fathers is taken from the American viewpoint of the Battle of Iwo Jima, whilst Letters From Iwo Jima is from the Japanese viewpoint of the battle.

Then in 2008 Eastwood would then direct the film I regard as his directorial masterpiece in Changeling which is a story based on real-life events, specifically the 1928 Wineville Chicken Coop murders in Mira Loma, California. It stars Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins a woman united with a boy who she realises is not her missing son. When she tries to demonstrate that to the police and city authorities, she is vilified as delusional, labeled as an unfit mother and confined to a psychiatric ward. The film explored themes of child endangerment, female disempowerment, political corruption and mistreatment of mental health patients.

Eastwood respected the script by not playing to the melodramatic aspects and not telegraphing the story’s scope from the start. I should also add Eastwood even wrote the film’s haunting score.

Also in 2008 Eastwood directed and starred in Gran Torino playing Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean War veteran alienated from his family and angry at the world, whose young neighbour is pressured by his cousin into stealing Walt’s prized Ford Torino for his initiation into a gang. Walt thwarts the theft and subsequently develops a relationship with the boy and his family.

The film was huge box office success and again was a major critical success with Eastwood himself delivering another outstanding performance.

After this run of six films, Eastwood’s output in quality tended to drop off although he had a final critical and box office hit with American Sniper (2014) a biographical war drama film about Chris Kyle who became the deadliest marksman in U.S. military history with 255 kills from four tours in the Iraq War.

Otherwise his films in the last 15 years – Invictus, Hereafter, J. Edgar, Jersey Boys, Sully, The 15:17 To Paris, The Mule, Richard Jewell and Cry Macho have not hit the heights of his previous films, although I did enjoy The Mule.

Still going strong at 93, Eastwood is finishing directing Juror No. 2. Whether it becomes his swan song only time will tell but one thing is for sure – Clint Eastwood is one of the greatest ever movie stars to have graced the screen whilst being cinema’s greatest actor/director over a film career that has been going for over 60 years. Long may he continue.

Enjoy.