Clint Eastwood: the turbulent life of the actor and film director – Cinema and TV – Culture

Clint Eastwood he came to the screen with the firm conviction that he would be one of his masters: his deep gaze, his imposing 1.93 height, an athletic body the result of swimming, in addition to this pose of a bad and shy boy at the same time, they opened doors for him in Hollywood. And they conquered more than one woman. In a blink he was already considered an icon of masculinity.

But it crashed. And loud: it rained hundreds of critics for having a grim and expressionless face, an eye with strabismus and the mania of gritting his teeth when saying his dialogues. Interestingly, what were initially flawed today are the hallmarks of a performance that completes six decades on screen, a race that has diversified as a director and producer and has left him five Oscars, among many accolades.

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The actor’s personal life has for years been the favorite topic of heart magazines: extramarital children, infidelities, scandals and masculinity. “Clint had a philosophy of collecting trophies when it came to women,” says Patrick McGilligan in the biography he wrote in the 1990s about the turbulent daily life of women. Eastwood.
Of his eight children – at least the renowned – Kyle is a famous jazz bassist and the others followed film-related careers, with actor Scott Eastwood being the most recognized.

Clint Eastwood he was mayor of Carmel, California, between 1986 and 1988; his puritanical thinking and his sympathy for republican ideas have brought him abundant criticism, as much as those which cause his fondness for arms and the laws which favor his unlimited possession and use. He is a long-time grumpy man who gives few interviews, hates having his birthday celebrated and is famous for not ending his romantic or work relationships well.

The veteran actor has returned to direct and act. Cry Mascle is the title of the film that premieres tomorrow and takes him into one of the most memorable characters of his career, as a cowboy.

“Mike Milo is a guy who’s worked a lot on the roundabout and the ranch over the years, but he’s not doing any of that right now. His former boss is a wealthy rancher and he wants to send him on a mission to Mexico. to get his son back Mike knows there are many other guys who could do this and he doesn’t want to go, but things have gone wrong for him and he has no choice.Cry Male narrates his adventures to bring the child back “It’s the story of a second chance,” he said.

In the film there is no tone of revenge or ambition, these elements that characterized his roles in the most classic westerns. Here is a man with ruined life, who has lost his family and the days of glory on the back of a wild horse were left in the past. Old Mike is weighed down by years. And although the same could happen to old Clint at 91, his marked wrinkles, slow pace and completely white hair contrast with the vitality he conveys in the story he also directs.

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Gone is the nameless Man, that character with whom Eastwood became popular in the famous trilogy of Sergio Leone – the father of spaghetti western, as the subgenre of cinema of the west of the 60 was known made with little budget -: By a handful of dollars (1964), The death had a price (1965) and the good, the bad and the ugly (1966). Silent, cold, moved by money and with an unknown past, the Nameless Man took root in the hearts of lovers of cowboys who had forged legends like John Wayne, Henry Fonda or Gary Cooper.

The first recognized role of Clint Eastwood he was, precisely, that of a rather sweet, naive, and enamored cowboy in the 1958 Rawhide television series. He was 28 and had just faced the terrible comments of his on-screen debut, but the show was an unexpected success. Then his path crossed with that of Sergio Leone.

“I got tired of playing a good guy, the hero who kisses old women, dogs and is kind to everyone,” the actor commented on the Rawhide TV series. “I decided it was time to be an antihero.” His angelic figure with a hat became that of a rogue who smiles halfway with his cigarette between his lips and was the one who outlined what would be his next big role: Harry the Brute, a master at expelling from behind.

In the words of writer Eric Lichtenfeld – a prestigious author of analysis on Hollywood and its stereotypes – “Harry Callahan was the first true archetype of action cinema.” In 1971, the San Francisco police detective who used unorthodox methods to chase a murderer became the highest-grossing film of the year and the space where Clint Eastwood directed a sequence for the first time. .

Musician and director

In his career, Eastwood has combined different trades on the big screen: starring in and directing his films – The Unforgivable (1992), The Bridges of Madison (1995), Play Misty for Me (1971), Gran Torino (2008) ) -; to act to orders of other directors – Harry the brute (1971), the trilogy of Sergio Leone (1964 to 1966), the legend of the city without name (1969), Escape from Alcatraz (1979), In the line of fire (1993) -, or directing without acting – Mystical River (2003), Letters from Iwo Jima and The Flags of Our Parents (2006), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), Sully (2016), Changeling (2008), Invictus (2009) -. Since 1967 he has had his own production company -Malpaso productions- and every time he finishes filming he includes a car in his contract as part of his salary.

This man of cinema was a gocetas in his youth. The son of an employee of a metallurgical company and an important assistant at IBM, he is the eldest of two brothers (Jeanne is four years younger) and had an affluent childhood and youth in Piedmont, California. He was expelled from a major school for his rebellion – he smashed the grass with the bicycle he refused to leave at the entrance – and ended up graduating from a technical institute. “I think what happened is that he started going out and having a good time,” explains his friend Fritz Manes.

He was a lax student: he had to repeat several years because of his bad grades, but at the end of his high school he tried to study music, which he was passionate about. But the U.S. Army recruited him. From that time he was left with several scars after surviving a plane crash – he and the pilot swam more than 3 kilometers after the aircraft ran out of fuel and fell into the sea – and a patriotic devotion. overflowing that he has embodied without pain in his films, sometimes generating more hatred than love.

Before becoming an actor, the young man Clint he handed out newspapers, put out wildfires in the woods, was a swimming instructor, helped customers at a department store, and loaded the sticks of various golfers. Becoming a professional musician turned out to be a chimera for him, although he learned to play the piano on his own and fell in love with jazz, a genre in which he has composed several songs.

Deserving of Oscar honorary Irving G. Thalberg in life and work, in 1995, and four more statuettes – as producer and director of Million Dollar Baby (2004) and The Unforgivable (1993) -, the career of Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) has been admired and attacked, especially by a limited record in her performance.

“He has sought to work with directors who have not taken him to the limit. As a director he is extremely competent and has vision. However, he has never put anything and wheel with what falls into his hands, he never reviews a handlebars,” he said. adds McGilligan in his biography.

They don’t abound, but there are interviews of Clint about his work. “I like the first shots because you’ll never be able to match the surprise of hearing a dialogue for the first time,” he said at a meeting with the media at the Cannes Film Festival, the farthest place he travels to for promotion. “Some of my teachers, like Don Siegel (who directed him in several of Harry the Dirty’s films) did so, which is why I don’t like rehearsals either, because if you repeat the dialogues a lot they become monotonous. ‘Analysis leads to paralysis’ , said Don. He was very efficient. I learned a lot from him. “

Clint Eastwood is a man of contrasts and difficult to decipher: the same flirt and sexist was the one who vindicated a boxing champion in his film Million Dollar Baby -written by the great screenwriter and director Paul Haggis- or whatever being able to defend the use of weapons on the streets exposes the terrible impact of violence through one of its dialogues in fiction. The truth is that he is already a god of the Hollywood Olympus and his cinema is inscribed in the history of the most powerful industry in the world.

SOFIA GÓMEZ G.
CULTURE THE TIME
On Twitter: @ s0f1c1ta

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