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Clint Eastwood on Spike Lee: "A guy like him should shut his face."
The Guardian ^ | June 6, 2008

Posted on 06/06/2008 4:23:42 AM PDT by 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."

(Excerpt) Read more at film.guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: clinteastwood; hollywood; marines; politicallycorrect; racepolitics; spikelee
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To: montag813

history is written by the winners. Spike Lee get used to it.


41 posted on 06/06/2008 7:07:58 AM PDT by television is just wrong
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To: popdonnelly; Hildy
I found my choice for McCain’s Veep.

I would seriously consider voting for McCain in that case.

42 posted on 06/06/2008 7:09:00 AM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: woofie

Typical libs, Twain uses the “N”-word and that’s all they have to know to denounce it.

Huck starts off the adventure certain he is going to hell for helping to steal his aunt’s “property.”

The best parts of the book were where Huck wrestles with his conscience as he gradually comes to start thinking of Jim as a full-fledged human being as good as him. Then he realizes the only decent thing to do is aid his escape.


43 posted on 06/06/2008 7:10:57 AM PDT by sinanju
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To: montag813

You forgot “bitter.”

:)


44 posted on 06/06/2008 7:11:26 AM PDT by PLMerite ("Unarmed, one can only flee from Evil. But Evil isn't overcome by fleeing from it." Jeff Cooper)
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To: normy

I would recommend that he begin with Pudd’nhead Wilson. Twain’s entire body of work was an indictment of the institution of slavery. Huckleberry Finn is among the most amazing books I have ever read. It is completely different than what I had thought it would be.

Like your neighbor, I’m also a non-native speaker. Twain can be hard to read. We had read the Tom Sawyer painting the fence story in school for an English class. Huckleberry Finn is a completely different character than Tom Sawyer. Just thinking of my experience reading it brings a smile to my face. 2 years gone by since I read it and I’m still relishing it.

I know a gentleman who is 68 now, who read HF 2 years ago as well. He is a voracious reader, and he also acclaims it as 1 of the best of his life.

Of personal interest, Twain shared a birthday (and political orientation) with Churchill. He introduced him once to an audience at the Waldorf Astoria. You should look it up. Your friend will like it.

Twain was always politically active. He campaigned for Rutherford Hayes, and despised Ted Roosevelt. I don’t know the story there, but will some day enjoy reading about it. TR ran as an independent (on a Bull Moose ticket) and the election went to Woodrow Wilson. Twain regretted that.

He also had a lot of fun things to say about France, such as:
France has always been governed by prostitutes.
France is where insignificant Americans go to die.

I’m really excited that he’s going to read Twain. I think everybody should.


45 posted on 06/06/2008 7:15:16 AM PDT by definitelynotaliberal
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To: Bodhi1
But there's one film project on the cards that might interest Spike Lee. Eastwood's next project, The Human Factor, is about Nelson Mandela and how he used the country's victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup as a means of fostering national unity. Will he be sticking with the historical record on that one? He laughs. "Yeah, I'm not going to make Nelson Mandela a white guy."

LOL!!

46 posted on 06/06/2008 7:17:45 AM PDT by avacado
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To: definitelynotaliberal

I will pass your words along to him. By the way, what is your native tongue?


47 posted on 06/06/2008 7:19:46 AM PDT by normy (Don't take it personally, just take it seriously.)
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To: fieldmarshaldj; freekitty; popdonnelly

LOL - it took me a moment but I realized the association. Spike Jones - Funny though! But that’s why God made coffee for the morning!


48 posted on 06/06/2008 7:24:43 AM PDT by Enterprise (Let all Democrats have a half vote. They deserve it!)
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To: driftless2

Oh you have got to be kidding... we’re doomed.


49 posted on 06/06/2008 7:31:45 AM PDT by messierhunter
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To: albie
Wait. Didn't Spike Lee pay "Theo" in Die Hard?


50 posted on 06/06/2008 7:36:34 AM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: Bodhi1
If Spike Lee is so ticked off I suggest he make his own movie about Blacks in WWII.

I know that's a lot to ask from this moron but if he could read he should check into the Red Ball Express. They didn't gain fame then or win a lot of Medals but without those Black Soldiers the European Theater would have taken a lot longer to win.

African Americans Gain Fame as World War II Red Ball Express Drivers

"When Gen. Patton said for you be there, you were there if you had to drive all day and all night. Those trucks just kept running. They'd break down, we'd fix them and they'd run again," said James D. Rookard, a truck driver with the famous World War II Red Ball Express.

Army Gen. George S. Patton's bold armored advance across France in 1944 is credited historically as a significant contribution to the Allied victory in Europe in World War II. The Allied breakout from Normandy and the French hedgerow country in the summer started a race to Paris and points north and east. Patton stretched his supply line to near-collapse.

And thanks to those Black Soldiers in the Red Ball Express, they kept my uncle's Sherman Tank rolling, and him alive - from Utah Beach on 11 July, 1945, through France, on to Bastogne and The Battle of The Bulge, liberation of the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp, and finally to Czechoslovakia. (Patton's Third Army, 4th Armored Division)

But if Spike tries really hard I'm sure he can make whitey the bad guy -- which is his stock-in-trade anyway.

51 posted on 06/06/2008 7:39:11 AM PDT by Condor51 (I have guns in my nightstand because a Cop won't fit)
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To: messierhunter

I wish I was kidding. I know Twain’s book (considered by many to be the greatest novel in American literary history) has been under severe criticism because of the use of the n-word. The critics disregard the anti-slavery message of the book and the fact that Twain’s characters were using the idioms of their times. Just another example of how liberalism is the enemy of logic and reality.


52 posted on 06/06/2008 7:40:24 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: Condor51
*&^%$ stoo-pid typo!

"Utah Beach on 11 July, 1945" should be....
"Utah Beach on 11 July, 1944"
an aside... Ohrdruf was liberated on April 4, 1945, by the 4th Armored Division and the 89th Infantry Division, U.S. Third Army.

Hey! I wonder I my Uncle knew Barry's Great Uncle who was in the 89th???

53 posted on 06/06/2008 7:48:59 AM PDT by Condor51 (I have guns in my nightstand because a Cop won't fit)
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To: Bodhi1
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."


54 posted on 06/06/2008 7:54:08 AM PDT by AFreeBird
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To: Mr. Jazzy

“Spike” is an invention, “Shelton” is more like it.


55 posted on 06/06/2008 7:56:54 AM PDT by count-your-change (you don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: JZelle
Weren’t some here PO’d about Clint’s follow up to “Flags of our Fathers”?

A few idiots were. Apparently we aren't supposed to talk about the Japanese side of the war. Ironically enough, I see quite a few Japanese everytime I visit the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas a few times a year. I've been seeing them for decades.

It's just the liberals in our country that don't want to talk about this stuff.
56 posted on 06/06/2008 8:01:21 AM PDT by af_vet_rr
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To: Bodhi1

It is nice to see that Clint at least seems to lean more towards McCain than Obama. I was pretty heartbroken when I saw Bob Dylan’s ringing endorsement of Obama this morning. I much prefer Bob to stay cryptic and out of politics like he has since he moved away from the “finger pointing songs” of his early albums.


57 posted on 06/06/2008 8:06:07 AM PDT by Mr. Blonde (You ever thought about being weird for a living?)
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To: avacado

He’ll always be Rowdy to me. Rawhide is one of my faves. That’s what sent him on to the spaghetti westerns.


58 posted on 06/06/2008 8:23:04 AM PDT by bushfamfan (The sunrise has turned into a sunset.)
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To: Bodhi1

76 years old and still making movies and still full of piss and vinegar


59 posted on 06/06/2008 8:28:55 AM PDT by dennisw
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To: Mr. Blonde

Bob Dylan = Obama kool aid drinker


60 posted on 06/06/2008 8:30:00 AM PDT by dennisw
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