Clint Eastwood on Spike Lee: "A guy like him should shut his face."

The Guardian ^ | June 6, 2008

[Bodhi1]

Eastwood has no time for Lee's gripes. "He was complaining when I did Bird [the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker]. Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else." As for Flags of Our Fathers, he says, yes, there was a small detachment of black troops on Iwo Jima as a part of a munitions company, "but they didn't raise the flag. The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate." Lee shouldn't be demanding African-Americans in Eastwood's next picture, either. Changeling is set in Los Angeles during the Depression, before the city's make-up was changed by the large black influx. "What are you going to do, you gonna tell a [edited] story about that?" he growls. "Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I'm not in that game. I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is. When I do a picture and it's 90% black, like Bird, I use 90% black people."

Eastwood pauses, deliberately - once it would have provided him with the beat in which to spit out his cheroot before flinging back his poncho - and offers a last word of advice to the most influential black director in American movies. "A guy like him should shut his face."

[freekitty]

Eastwood, Jones,

Eastwood, Jones,

Eastwood, Jones

I pick Eastwood. It’s so easy to pick the one that isn’t the race baiter and race hater.

[Rummyfan]

"A guy like him should shut his face."

Alright Clint!

[brwnsuga]

So black guys can be geeks too.

I have two geeky married brothers. My little brother loves comic books, comic book movies, computers and video games. My big brother loves anything to do with computers, computer programming, visual effects and is always inventing goofy things. He does sound and light technical stuff for a living. They are textbook examples of geeks.

[normy]

While I liked “Get on the Bus”, “She's Gotta Have It” and “Do the Right Thing’ they were amateurish, like Van Dam's early movies but pretty entertaining. Since he tried to go bigger budget all his movies suck. He only knows race issues. The big budget stories with big budget actors suck.

[woofie]

years ago a liberal told me Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was racist...I suppose because it has the “N” word in it , In truth Mark Twain was the exact opposite of a racist and Huck Finn was far advanced for its time in portraying the black experience.

[normy]

Thank you for objecting. Now if we could vote for John McClain instead of John McCain. While we’re at it his VP could be the guy who ran the airport in Die Hard II, what was his name.....?

[traderrob6]

Related...

http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com/2008/05/go-back-and-study-your-history-and-stop.html

[fieldmarshaldj]

Who the heck is Jones ?

[normy]

My Canadian neighbor by way of Ukraine told me that Mark Twain is banned in Canada. I don’t know what that means but as we sat out back listening to his new bluegrass CD (I live in suburbia by the way) he told me “this is how I imagined the South, hot, humid and I drink my beer. I think I will read Mark Twain.”

[Swordfished]

But though he has been associated in the public mind with Republican viewpoints, he's something of an individualist. "I don't pay attention to either side," he claims. "I mean, I've always been a libertarian. Leave everybody alone. Let everybody else do what they want. Just stay out of everybody else's hair. So I believe in that value of smaller government. Give politicians power and all of a sudden they'll misuse it on ya."

Eastwood, a real man. And, most definitely, NOT a neo-con.

[popdonnelly]

I found my choice for McCain’s Veep.

[freekitty]

Sorry, to early in the morning.

Eastwood, Lee.

[popdonnelly]

Could it be SPIKE Jones, humorist and band leader?

[JZelle]

Weren’t some here PO’d about Clint’s follow up to “Flags of our Fathers”?

[crghill]

Dirty Harry for president 08...

[sinanju]

Urkel!!!

[driftless2]

"Twain"

Canada has banned "Huckleberry Finn" as have a lot of American public libraries.

[sinanju]

The funny thing about Spike is that his movies tend to be a lot more intelligent than his personal rants.

[Admin Moderator]

Please use original headlines. Saves work for us.

[Gondring]

I recall complaints in a review about Memphis Belle...about the lack of women. My girlfriend (now wife) had the most hilarious reaction to reading that...I can still recall her incredulity at the idiocy of the reviewer. :-)