New Wave Cinema 2.0: The Films of Clint Eastwood

English: “© Universal Pictures”. Photographer unknown., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By Geoff Carter

In The New Wave 2.0 series, The Pen in Hand Blog will be examining the work of today’s most provocative and influential filmmakers, artists whose singular filmic stylings and compelling storytelling have stretched the boundaries of cinema. Drawing upon Francois Truffaut’s definition of an auteur, these pieces will be looking at writer/directors whose singular works have transcended the art of filmmaking and taken it into the realm of genius. This week, The Pen in Blog will be looking at the variations of the traditional cinematic hero as defined—and redefined—by Clint Eastwood.

Fallen Heroes: The Films of Clint Eastwood

He hardly fits the mold of a film auteur. He never went to film school, and he has no background in independent film. He shows little interest in the production design like younger auteurs such as Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, or David Lynch. 

He came up through the ranks of the Hollywood movie-making machine, starting his career as an actor in such potboilers as Revenge of the Creature. He was—very—briefly featured as a jet pilot in the B-movie sci-fi classic Tarantula, eventually gaining fame as a steely-eyed Western hero in the classic spaghetti Westerns A Fistful of Dollars, its seemingly endless spinoffs, and as police detective Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry series.

He is—of course—Clint Eastwood, director of the Oscar-winning masterpieces Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby—and many, many others. It might be a stretch to think that this product of the mainstream film industry might be considered an auteur, but his work speaks for itself.  He has worked in virtually every type of traditional genre from Westerns to police dramas to war movies and to psychological thrillers. While he has been criticized for his somewhat stiff and one-dimensional acting skills, Eastwood’s commanding screen presence is undeniable. And it is precisely his manipulation of himself as a screen persona that defines his exceptionality as an auteur.

His films are well-made, compelling, and mostly traditional narratives that tell the stories of outsiders and loners—variations of the Western hero, a role Eastwood typically plays himself—and that’s who Clint Eastwood is. Of course, the gunslinger or the vigilante cop who takes justice into his own hands—the outlaw—is an American mythic icon, but Eastwood—through his sixty-year career as an actor and director—has introduced more variations on that archetype than anyone. As an actor, he perfected the squinty-eyed steely stare of the gunfighter and the contemptuous sneer of the vigilante, but it was a director that he fully—and deliberately—explored the layers of dissonance and contradictions within these archetypal icons. 

Eastwood has been directing films since 1971—and he has improved with age. He is known for not liking to rehearse and filming a movie as quickly and efficiently as possible. As a result, his films seem deliberate, controlled, and—oddly—more realistic than your typical Hollywood movie. His tendency to underplay his characters underlines this quality; it also seems to rub off on other actors; as a result, his characters, and by proxy, the world of the films, seem to have unspoken—and possibly richer internal lives. It is this internalization of emotion that allows Eastwood to experiment with the conventions of traditional archetypes.

His early works, like the neo-western The Outlaw Josey Wales, bend audience expectations only slightly. Even though a typical Western hero is an outlaw—a loner—Josey Wales finds himself surrounded by outcasts (mostly people he has rescued), as a sort of surrogate family. The outlaw label—already ambiguous—has been flipped, and in his typically underplayed style, Eastwood’s Wales does not reveal his feelings or his intentions, thereby leaving the audience guessing. 

Will Munny (Eastwood), the cold-hearted killer in Unforgiven, is introduced to the audience as an incompetent pig farmer who no longer drinks or carries a gun. He has (on the surface) become a good man. When the cocky Scofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) approaches Will with the proposition of killing two cowboys for the bounty on their heads, Will accepts, recruiting his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to accompany them. 

After Will, sick with fever, rides into town, he is accosted by the sheriff Little Bill (Gene Hackman), another killer, who beats the hell out of him. In a strikingly pitiful scene, Will crawls out of the saloon on his belly, like an invertebrate, as Little Bill scoffs at him. Will recovers and does what he came to do. During the killings, he discovers Bill has slaughtered Ned. Angry—and drunk—Will returns and—in stunning fashion—wreaks his revenge, showing his true colors. Again, in typical Eastwood fashion, the director has chosen not to reveal the heart of his character—whether he is a good man or a snake crawling on its belly.

Eastwood has often ventured outside the genre for which he is best known. In Million Dollar Baby, he plays Frankie Dunn, a boxing trainer who takes on Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), an extraordinarily talented fighter. Dunn is afraid of making a mistake with his boxer—of endangering her; when his fears are horribly realized, he does the unthinkable—he renders mercy, which is also his penance. Dunn tries to protect his people, to be a hero, but finds he cannot—that no one can. Dunn is not a hero. 

Cry Macho, The Mule, and Gran Torino are later films starring and directed by Eastwood. His stature as an auteur doesn’t lie in technique, writing (he pens none of his scripts), or production design. If Tim Burton and Wes Anderson’s palettes are art direction, mood, and production design, then Eastwood’s strength as an auteur is his screen presence—himself, and his restraint.  He uses his persona as his palette. Over the years, his vision as an artist has progressed as a direct reflection of himself. As he has aged, his characters have become surprisingly deeply rendered and complex portraits of the American anti-hero, variations on his huge body of work as the steely-eyed killer.

To argue that Eastwood is an auteur is to consider his body of work as written on the lines of himself as an actor–and his own weather-worn face.