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Celebration 2000 |
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 FOR A FEW DOLLIES MORE |
EASTWOOD WITHOUT A NET Actor or Director, Clint Eastwood has taken daring leaps from day one of his long career |
Clint Eastwood isn't afraid to mess with his action he-man image
By
RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
IF THE HEADLINE in tomorrow's edition of the Hollywood Reporter
announced that superstar Clint Eastwood will appear next as a
cross-dressing gunslinger in something called "For A Few
Dollies More," it wouldn't surprise me a bit.
Not that I think Clint's a sissy or anything like that. I'm pretty
sure he's all-man and wouldn't dream of slipping into a pair
of lace undies when nobody was looking. (Even if I did think
so, I sure as hell wouldn't say it where he might hear me!)
No, the reason I wouldn't be surprised is that I know Clint Eastwood is absolutely fearless when it comes to taking on challenges as an actor. If he read a script that was compelling enough and honestly required him to play a cowboy who dressed up like a girl, he'd probably think it was worth a shot--even if he knew the critics would be laying for him.
I'm not kidding either. Think how many times the guy has surprised us by putting his macho image as the screen's No. 1 action hero at risk by playing some completely off-the-wall character. When are we going to stop being surprised by the guy and admit he's damn good at working without a net?
My favorite example is his "White Hunter, Black Heart" (1990), in which he played a very unsympathetic movie director who becomes obsessed with bagging an elephant while on location filming a big-budget adventure movie in Africa. Based on one of my all-time favorite books, "White Hunter, Black Heart" is a very thinly disguised portrait by author Peter Viertel of the late John Huston while he was making "The African Queen."
Eastwood not only played the arrogant and often abusive character exactly the way Viertel wrote him, but he also did something nobody in the world ever expected him to do: He played the role while affecting a very good imitation of exactly how John Huston talked. Eastwood nailed Huston so well that he could have taken the act on the comedy club circuit.
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Eastwood
as a cafe impressionist? Hey, wipe that scornful look off your
face. He's done stuff like that before, lots of times. Remember
him in "Honkytonk Man"? In that 1982 film, Eastwood
played a seedy 1930s country singer trying to barnstorm his way
through the Great Depression and into the spotlight at the Grand
Ol' Opry. No, he didn't put Garth Brooks to shame, but he convinced
me he was the genuine article--and I grew up listening to guys
like that.
Even if you think that was a peculiar anomaly in Eastwood's mainly
action career, the truth is he actually once starred in a real
musical--the 1969 film version of Broadway's "Paint Your
Wagon"--and sang his own solo number. (Director Joshua Logan's
bizarre cast of singers also included Lee Marvin!)
My theory is you don't take risks like that as an actor if you
don't want to learn and stretch your boundaries as far as you
can. Eastwood also learned something else real early: If you
don't want to be typecast, then don't be afraid to mess with
your image.
If you stop and think about it, Eastwood has been doing that throughout his career, starting with his first feature film, "Revenge of the Creature," in 1955. Though Eastwood was tall, rugged and handsome, his small role in that Universal-International horror picture made him out to be a clumsy lab attendant, searching all over for the lab mouse that he absent-mindedly put in the pocket of his white lab coat.
After his tour of duty as Rowdy Yates in TV's "Rawhide" (1959-66), Eastwood was in real danger of being typed as a western hero at a time when westerns already were starting to lose favor with moviegoers. He was smart enough to accept the offer to star in Italian director Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), which not only established him as an international star in movies, but also introduced him to the notion that you didn't have to take blood & thunder roles like The Man With No Name too seriously.
"Actually, Leone has a very strong satiric element in those westerns," Eastwood said at a 1971 press conference when I asked him about the complaints of violence in his "spaghetti" westerns. "The violence can be a catharsis."
That press conference--which turned out to be the only time I ever had the chance to talk with Eastwood--came at a tribute to him by the San Francisco International Film Festival, where he first showed his debut film as a director, "Play Misty for Me." That was a major turning point in his career because it was the first significant public acknowledgment by the film world that Eastwood wasn't just a box office star, but also an extremely talented filmmaker.
By then, Eastwood clearly was comfortable about taking risks with his image in order to make people see him as more than just Rowdy Yates, the Man with No Name or Dirty Harry Callahan. Earlier that year, he had made "The Beguiled" for director Don Siegel, playing a wounded man who becomes the victim of the vengeful women who take him in. In "Play Misty for Me," he was a victim again: A Carmel radio deejay being stalked by a murderous female fan (Jessica Walter) with whom he'd had a brief fling.
In my original review of "Play Misty for Me," I wrote that it was "a dazzling little thriller" with an especially good performance by Eastwood and predicted it would mean "a much expanded career" for him. It certainly turned out that way, both for Eastwood the actor and the director.
In his 1973 western "High Plains Drifter," Eastwood totally liberated himself from any lingering doubts about his willingness to poke fun at himself. Though as exciting as any Eastwood western, "High Plains Drifter" was close to being a parody of his spaghetti westerns, starring him as another drifting gunslinger who's hired to defend a town against a band of outlaws.
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Clint's
drifter breaks all the rules of western heroism, starting by
actually raping the town floozy, who's a mercenary wench used
to wrapping men around her fingers. He also goes out of his way
to humiliate all the town big shots while fleecing them of all
the money and comforts he can dream up. He deputizes the town
midget (Billy Curtis) as his right-hand man, which also irritates
the hell out of everybody. Eastwood does all this tongue-in-cheek,
but never lets the film get away from him into silliness.
In "Every Which Way But Loose" (1978), Eastwood took
the trail to outright comedy, teaming up with "Clyde,"
an orangutan, but including enough choreographed fist-fights
and other kinds of action to satisfy fans of his grimmer fare.
Though critics groaned, the public loved it and he did a sequel,
"Any Which Way You Can" (1980), that also was a big
hit and proved the once poker-faced Eastwood could do broad comedy
as well as anybody out there. Eastwood's broad comedy style also
was perhaps the best thing about his "Pink Cadillac"
(1989), an otherwise unsatisfactory comedy.
When Eastwood finally earned the Academy Award as a director, it was with his "Unforgiven" (1992), a great popular hit that also won the Oscar as best picture. This truly revealed him as an extraordinary filmmaker. He dared show himself as an aging gunfighter who can't even keep from being dragged through the mud by his farm animals in his earlier scenes, but later gave his most sensitive, most insightful performance ever as an actor in the scenes where he explains to his juvenile sidekick what it really means to kill another human being. Ultimately, he pays off his action fans with one of the most sensational shootout sequences in the history of the movie western.
Eastwood was on a tightrope all through "Unforgiven," taking chances all the way. He never missed a step, turning in a classic film that demystifies the western legends built up in so many of his other western films.
Though many saw "Unforgiven" as the coda for Eastwood's career, he has kept right on taking risks and making most of them pay off with renewed appreciation from his admirers. An excellent example: "The Bridges of Madison County" (1995), a bittersweet romance that reminded us how charming a man Eastwood can be, even playing a character far from his usual people--a photographer who falls in love with a married woman he meets on the road. The fact that Eastwood was working opposite the screen's finest actress, Meryl Streep--and holding his own with her every step of the way--was yet another tribute to how much he has learned from stretching himself as an actor repeatedly.
Finally,
in his latest hit, "Space Cowboys," Eastwood is back
messing with his image again, playing an over-the-hill test pilot
who has to whip himself into good enough shape to become an astronaut
for a do-or-die mission in space. He seems to be having so much
fun in that movie that it's easy to imagine he now knows he can
probably do anything on the screen and get away with it bigtime.
Though he's now 70 and certainly has nothing left to prove, it's
refreshing to know that he's bound to keep coming up with lots
more surprises for us, just when we thought we'd probably seen
them all.
© 2000 by Ron Miller.
Eastwood cartoon © 2000 by Jim Hummel.
You
can share your own favorite Clint Eastwood stories with us by
sending an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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