All language subtitles for CLINT EASTWOOD - Discovering - Documentary (2019)

That's just been five minutes
of our conversation.

.

(THEME TUNE TO THE GOOD, THE BAD
AND THE UGLY)

Hello.

I think you can honestly say that
Clint Eastwood is a living legend.

That's just been five minutes
of our conversation.

I think he is one of very few actual
superstars

who represent the Hollywood
tradition, still alive and at work.

Are you gonna pull the pistols
or whistle Dixie?

Clint Eastwood is like no other
Hollywood star.

He's bigger than almost all
of them.

And his longevity is extraordinary.

NEIL: Clint Eastwood has made an
indelible mark

on the Western genre
and on the cop thriller.

His ability to take control
of his career -

produce, direct and star - became a
template for people after that.

You're looking at a living legend,
Lilly.

An amazing actor who you can watch
on the screen become who he is

and that's a very rare thing.

I don't know what that means.
I thought I might use it someday.

Clinton Eastwood Junior was born on
May 31st 1930

in San Francisco, California.

His father, Clinton Senior, was
a steelworker amongst other things.

Erm...and his mother Ruth
was a homemaker.

In the 1940s, they settled in
Piedmont

and he went to the local high
school.

He was asked to leave and
then he went to a technical college.

He was not a good or enthusiastic
student.

He tended to not do well on grades.

He like doing car mechanics and shop
and in the end,

there's some doubt over whether he
actually graduated at all.

IAN: Coming out of school, the young
Clint Eastwood had no direction.

And you have a short period of years
where he tried different things.

He worked in a steel furnace.
He was a firefighter in a forest.

He worked as a grocery clerk.

But there was no fixed bearing for
the young star to come.

So he did what many other young men
at the time did -

he joined the army.

NARRATOR: During his service,
Eastwood would predominantly work

as a lifeguard at Fort Ord in
Northern California.

DEREK: When he left the army after
two years,

he had seen no fighting at all.

But by that time, he was determined
on an acting career

so he went to Los Angeles which
everybody aspiring

did go to in those days.

While drifting around Los Angeles
looking for work,

the young Clint ran into
an old friend called Chuck Hill.

Now, he know Chuck Hill from
his Fort Ord days in the army.

And Chuck Hill, by chance,
had contacts at Universal.

And in the young Clint went
for his audition,

and the producer who met him could
see he was striking

but he said he was terrible. He said
he was stiff.

He had this tendency to talk through
gritted teeth.

His facial expression didn't change.

Little did he know, this producer,
that actually,

that would be the very ingredients
in which client would make a legend.

Universal gave him a 40-week
contract which was something.

But then he was dropped again
because they didn't think

he was really likely to be
a very good actor.

He made three or four films for them.

Erm...very, very forgettable.
Very forgettable roles.

Completely unsuited to him.

Plays a scientist in a terrible
horror film called Tarantula.

Until he landed the role

of Randy Yates in the TV series
Rawhide.

# Keep rollin', rollin', rollin' #

BONNIE: I was a little girl then.
I remember this series.

I remember him. He was handsome.
The theme song was fantastic.

And it was a wonderful series.

He's a kind of greenhorn cowboy.
The young guy of the ranch.

He has to, kind of, learn
many lessons.

Eastwood often said that he found
him a real burden to play.

He was the do-gooder but
he was beloved.

And this series would last
for six years.

You know. It really was
an institution of its day.

Eastwood was almost 30 by then and
he...he felt

as a actor that the part wasn't big
enough for him.

It couldn't allow him to develop
himself.

It was also gruelling. This was
television.

You had to turn a show out
every week so you're in studio

seven days a week and it was just
gruelling.

By the end of his period on Rawhide,

he was even directing trailers.

He never quite got to the level of
directing in a visual episode.

He was directing various trailers
for the show.

He kind of moved up within the show
to become something prominent.

It was towards the end of Rawhide
that the Italian director,

Sergio Leone, was casting around for
an American actor

to star in his western A Fistful
of Dollars.

And he landed on Clint Eastwood and
the legend was born.

Don Miguel Rojo,
I wanna talk to you.

Don Miguel,
I hear you're hiring on men.

Well, I might just be available.

Sergio Leone wanted
a hard, silent western.

He wanted the hero to be the
character

who Clint Eastwood would go on
to play many, many times -

The Man With No Name, the hard guy.

Saying very little, straight mouth,
firm jaw.

IAN: Unable to speak English, the
direction on set was very minimal.

And Eastwood really had to just,
sort of, stand there and grimace

into the sunlight usually with a
cheroot cigar

stuck between his teeth.

Cigars that he hated.

A lot of that strange look
of distaste he has on his face

through those films
is merely the horrible little cigars

he had to smoke.

Get three coffins ready.

The plot of A Fistful of Dollars was
clearly based

on Kurosawa's Yojimbo about
a lone Samurai

which causes a bit of a problem
because Kurosawa tried

to stop the film being made.

They settled it but the Man With No
Name is kind of thought of

as a takeoff from what Kurosawa
was doing.

Everybody talks about Ramon.
And many speak of you too.

My dear brother included.

Well, I hope they're sayin' nice
things.

Leone is an incredible director
for him.

First of all, he hires the great
Ennio Morricone

to write the score, and tells
Morricone

"Do not score in post production"

which is what most composers do. "I
want you to do it the night before.

Because what I want, is I want you
to play the music

while I'm directing so I want to be
able to do this to this music."

He only has this incredible
soundtrack which is all dubbed.

The voices are all dubbed but also,
the sounds are all dubbed.

It's almost as if every part of the
soundtrack is muted.

Every sound of wind, every clash,
every gunfight.

It's all very carefully composed and
prepared.

This created a slightly strange
aura.

A slightly out-of-place way the
characters talk

which, somehow, is very effective.

They were completely different to
your average American movie.

Less script, more close-ups of
people.

And...And of course, the great thing
about them was that they had...

They were enormously visual.

(GUNSHOTS)

Intriguingly, the critics hated it.

They called it sadistic, violent,
brutal, amoral.

They just showered, sort of
opprobrium on it.

That didn't stop the film being
an enormous success.

People just loved it. They loved it
from the word go.

And they just loved Eastwood. They
loved that character.

Eastwood was not yet a star

though he was noticed in A Fistful
of Dollars.

No question of that.

But in his next outing for Leone,
he certainly became a star.

NARRATOR: Such was the success
of A Fistful Of Dollars,

that the following year,
Leone approached Eastwood to star

in the film's sequel
For A Few Dollars More.

What are you doing here?
You're not running away, are you?

No, I'm not running away. I'm going
after them and I'm going alone.

Our partnership is dissolved.
Let's wait and talk it over.

Yeah? Well, all we've done is talk.

I've been reasonable with
no results.

Now take it easy. We only knew
the Santa Cruz part of this plan.

Well, you were the one who had the
strategy all worked out.

I'm gonna meet Indio. I see.
I'd better go along.

A Few Dollars More had the added
bonus of Lee Van Cleef

and it was about two rival bounty
hunters

going after an escaped convict.

All told with the wonderful sense of
timing and flashback.

And again, the lovely textures of
Almeria have gone up a notch.

Absolutely wonderful film.

Erm...developed a little bit
of the character.

I mean, these are very, sort
of, cold, hard, brutalist westerns.

But there was a little bit
of humanity creeping in sometimes.

Certainly in the relationship
between Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef

which was...erm...beautifully
organised.

Of the three, in a funny sort of
way, it's my favourite.

(THEME TO THE GOOD, THE BAD
AND THE UGLY)

..according to the power invested
in us,

we sentence the accused here
before us...

Tuco Benedicto Pacifico, Juan Maria
Ramirez...

Known as The Rat. ..and any other
aliases he might have

to hang by the neck until dead.
And may God have mercy on his soul.

NARRATOR: By 1966, and thanks largely
to his work with director
Sergio Leone,

Clint Eastwood was a big name in
European cinema.

However, due to the films not yet
being released in America,

he was still yet to become
a household Hollywood name.

This would all change when Leone
approached him to star

in the third film of the trilogy.

The fee is now $250,000 which was
quite a lot more

than he got paid for A Fistful
of Dollars

which was around $15,000.

Eastwood decided to go back and do
the third in the series,

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
and very good job he did

because it was the epic conclusion to
the trilogy.

This is the first example we see of
Eastwood actually understanding

his screen persona, what it's doing
to the audience

and how he can, sort of,
manipulate it.

The first sight we have of Blondie,
as he's known in the film,

is sitting on a horse wearing
a white hat.

Clint Eastwood in a WHITE hat? This
is the Man With No Name.

It's ridiculous. He's usually got a
battered Stetson and a poncho.

He looks positively angelic...

and they actually play that up
in it.

The way I figure, there's really not
too much future

with a sawed-off runt like you.

What do you mean? Cos I don't think
you'll ever be worth

more than $3,000.

What do you mean?

I mean our partnership is untied.

Oh, no. Not you. YOU remained tied.

I'll keep the money and you can have
the rope.

You not only have Lee Van Cleef but
you have the wonderful Eli Wallach.

And you create this kind of dynamic
between...

certainly between Eastwood
and Wallach that's kind of, almost

Laurel and Hardy like. It borders
on comedy.

It's again about bleakness
and moral ambiguity.

It's again about a person...

You can't really root for any
of these people.

But it makes you look at The West
in a kind of ambiguous way...

that it must have been. It was
a revolution.

You talked! No, I didn't talk.

If I did, I probably wouldn't be
here now.

So only you know your half
of the secret?

Hm-mm.

(CHORTLES)

Blondie, I'm very happy you're
working with me.

Across the course of all three of
those Sergio Leone films,

we now think of Clint Eastwood as
being The Man With No Name.

In fact, he had three different
names.

Technically, he plays a different
character in every film.

He's Manco in A Few Dollars More

and Blondie in The Good, The Bad
And The Ugly.

Mainly for copyright reasons.

If you have the same character go on
into the next film,

then the previous writer should be
paid for the intellectual property.

So...he is. Though at no point
is his name ever used.

And that was the marketing.

The marketing in America was The man
With No Name.

So these three films that, together,
make a kind of trilogy,

were finally launched in America
in 1967.

Erm...and became, over the years,
you know,

an enormous cultural moment.

If it wasn't certain at the time,
looking back, you know,

they changed the texture of the
western.

They change a feeling about
what European filmmaking could do.

Erm...they changed the attitudes
of the studios.

And they created, Clint Eastwood
the superstar.

(THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY THEME
MUSIC STARTS UP)

It'll be a lot easier with that.

Coming out of the Spaghetti
Westerns,

again, Eastwood has learned things.

He's learned a lot from Leone. He
always praised him

as a great influence on his career.

But he returned to America now
determined

to be the master of his domain.

Clint Eastwood wanted
to be dictating to some level

the films he did
and how he did them.

So Hang 'Em High, a film he returned
to American to make,

was ostensibly an Eastwood
production.

This is the point where
Malpaso Films,

which is his own production company,

named after a creek on his own land,

erm...the production company
he still has today, was launched.

I just came from the Johansson
place.

His herd was gone.

I found Johansson and his wife
on the kitchen floor.

Gunned down.

Dead.

No.

Hang him.

You're making a mistake.

The story is about a man
who is lynched but he survives

and he comes back for his revenge.

This is a theme that will carry on

through many, many, many of
Clint Eastwood's film.

Most of them westerns but
not exclusively so.

The idea that someone who has been
unjustly damaged in some way

erm...returning apparently
from the dead,

to seek revenge on his tormentors.

All right, marshal. What did you say
I'd done?

You don't remember me, do you? No.

When you hang a man, you'd better
LOOK at him.

It was an usual western, quite
unlike American westerns generally.

And Hang 'Em High was, really...

Eastwood's attempt to do something
rather like Leone

but really in his own image.

And you get a sense with this film,
which became an instant hit,

for United Artists, that, in some
respects,

Eastwood had taken up the mantel
of the American west,

in cinema from John Wayne
and James Stewart.

And he had, kind of, moved it on.

He was the next generation star
of that genre.

What kept you?

Oh, I was very lucky.

I ran into this fabulous blonde.

She was lying on a snow drift.
Did she have a friend?

No, you're out of luck.

Thanks for waiting up for me anyway.

No problem.

1968 is Where Eagles Dare after the
book by Alistair MacLean.

Eastwood's agents said, "Why don't
you do a picture

with a big actor,
a real senior actor?"

Try yourself up against a big guy.

So the big guy was Richard Burton.

The film is about Burton
and Eastwood as two commandos

leading a mission
to rescue a British officer

who's been captured by the Germans
and held in this castle

on unfeasibly impenetrable clifftops
with the most outrageous defences.

And so, they have to worm their way
around it.

It's a very tense thriller.

One of the chief delights
in Where Eagles Dare

is watching Richard Burton
eloquently tell us

this, kind of, endless confusion and
what's going on.

And then we cut to Clint Eastwood's
befuddled face.

You know, completely confused,
just as the audience are...

of what on earth is going on.

Lieutenant, in the next 15 minutes,

we have to create enough confusion
to get out of here alive.

Major, right now, you got me
as confused as I ever hope to be.

It is unusually violent, actually.
Even for a war film.

And it has been said,
of all the films that Clint has made,

and he has lot of death dealing
in most of his films,

either as a gunslinger or
whatever it is,

he kills more people in this film
than any other movie.

Everybody recognised Eastwood was
more than just a star of westerns.

That he could be a genuine actor.

# Her laughter was an April song

# That echoes on and on #

Paint Your Wagon
is a very unusual film.

It has Lee Marvin;
it has Clint Eastwood.

Lee Marvin is a prospector; Clint
Eastwood his buddy.

They are trying to get gold.
Get women.

In many ways, a classic western.

What's unusual about it is
it's a musical.

Neither Clint Eastwood nor Lee
Marvin have what I would describe

as a great singing voice.

But the personality of the film is
almost that gruffness.

It's what makes it work - gives it
its charm.

His rendition of I Talk To The
Trees...er...

is one of the funniest things I've
ever heard, actually.

Erm...I'm not surprised that
the trees didn't talk back to him...

or sing back to him!

# Then I'll try to find the words
to say

# All the things you mean to me #

NARRATOR: In 1970, Clint Eastwood
would star

in an ensemble cast for the classic
war movie, Kelly's Heroes.

How many more bars of gold like this
do you have, cowboy?

Vierzehn.

Come on. Speak English. Come on.
Na, ja...

How many bars like this in your
trucks?

14. 14 what?

Thousand.

14,000?

Kelly's Heroes, it's a great film.

It's a Second World War movie that's
really about Vietnam.

And Clint Eastwood is a grizzled
frontline officer who is fighting.

The command don't seem to know
what's going on. He's exasperated.

And one of his men discovers that
behind enemy lines,

there's a bank which is filled
with gold guarded by the Nazis.

What is lovely about this film is
that it combines

all the elements of something like
Bilko and M.A.S.H,

all those humorous elements and
the, kind of,

slightly subversive military
operations,

and even Catch-22, and yet...

still makes it an action movie. And
the action is authentic.

I have orders this bank isn't
to fall into the hands

of the American Army. Sergeant, this
bank's not gonna fall into its hands.

It's gonna fall in our hands.

We're just
a private enterprise operation.

You are the American Army.

No, baby. We ain't.

You know what's inside that bank,
man?

There's $16 million worth of gold in
that bank...

sweetheart.

You have Donald Sutherland as
the hippy tank driver.

You have Don Rickles, Telly Savalas.

None of these characters fit a kind
of tradition

of Second World War heroes.

And Eastwood very easily moves
himself into something more modern

that the film depicts.

(BANK ALARM RINGS)

I know what you're thinking.

Did he fire six shots or only five?

Well, to tell you the truth,
in all this excitement,

I've kind of lost track myself.

But being as this is a 44 Magnum,

the most powerful handgun in
the world, and would blow your head
clean off,

you've got to ask yourself
one question.

"Do I feel lucky?"

Well, do you, punk?

NEIL: One of Clint Eastwood's early
mentors was the director Don Siegel.

Together, they made Dirty Harry.

Dirty Harry did for the cop thriller

what A Fistful Of Dollars did to
the Western.

In many ways, Dirty Harry
is a western but set in a city

with people in cop clothes.

I've got a wife and three kids.

I don't want him on the streets any
more than you do.

Oh, he won't be out there long.

What is that supposed to mean?

I mean, sooner or later, he's gonna
stub his toe and I'll be right there.

This office won't STAND for
any harassment.

You know, you're crazy if you think
you've heard the last of this guy.

He's gonna kill again. How do you
know?

Cos he likes it.

He plays this tough police inspector
who's no nonsense.

He doesn't go by the book.

He doesn't follow Miranda Law where
you're supposed to read rights.

All that kind of stuff. He just
doesn't do this.

Dirty Harry was just a huge,
huge hit.

It became in institution.

This fantastic kind of look
at San Francisco.

Look at the, kind of, the idea of
how a cop operated on the streets.

That was just seminal.

(SIRENS BLARE)

Now you know why they call me
Dirty Harry.

Every dirty job that comes along.

A lot of people reacted
very negatively to the way

the violence was depicted

and the way that Eastwood rejected
certain liberal values

in his work as a cop - he was the
cop who got things done

and killed when he had to not
someone who was gonna, you know,

give people space and that...that
was a very, very divisive...

erm...idea.

This is Dave Garver with
a little verse, a little talk,

and five hours of music
to be very nice to each other by.

NARRATOR: In 1971, Clint Eastwood
would take his first steps

into directing with the film
Play Misty For Me.

Caramel, Dave Garver speaking.

Hello. Hi, what'll it be?

Play Misty for me. Misty, huh?

I'll have that right on
the play rack. Thanks for calling.

I see you got your little Misty
chick calling you again.

All right. Swing along.
You take it easy now, huh?

It's such an unusual film for him
to start his directing career with.

You would have expected a western
or some kind of thriller.

But this is a different kind of
movie.

It's a story of a DJ who is,
you know, a bit of a womaniser.

And gets involved with a fan.

And she turns into a stalker.

It's strange to watch him and
feel that he's in terrible danger,

when, normally, he's the one dealing
the danger out.

It's a great contrast to his career.

Are you trying to say you don't love
me anymore?

I never told you that I loved you!

Well, not in words maybe but Dave...

there are lots of ways of saying
things

that have nothing to do with words.
I'm sorry you read it that way.

People were surprised that Eastwood
should play such a part.

But they... They certainly approved
of it.

The critics liked the film.

They recognised that Eastwood was a
pretty good director.

This film is a blockbuster.

Nobody thought that would come out
of him.

And it's... It is...

about the most feminist thing
you'll ever see

but in terms of what he breaks
through in convention,

it is a very, very important piece
of work.

And absolutely unexpected.

Howdy.

Howdy. The name's Josey Wales.

I've heard of that name.

Some said you'd be headed this way.

And they said a man could get rich
on reward money...

..if he could kill you. Seems like
you was looking to gain money here.

The Outlaw Josey Wales is about a
Missouri farmer

who joins a Confederate gorilla unit
and...

During the Civil War, the American
Civil War, and is on the run.

It was originally directed by
Philip Kaufman.

A very fine director, in fact. But
Eastwood and he fell out.

And he got him fired from
the picture

and then took over the direction.

The Directors Guild
of America didn't approve

and they introduced something called
The Eastwood Rule -

no star could sack the director and
take over directing themselves.

All right, you can let him up
now, boy.

Let him up!

Get up, goddamit!

(GASPS RAGGEDLY)

Whupped them again, didn't we,
Josey.

Whupped them again, boy.

It is expansive. It is humane.
It has humour.

It has a very big canvas.

And again, essentially, it is about
a man who is seeking revenge

for the death of his family
at the hands of...Union soldiers.

It's about people who don't fit in.

You know, don't fit in this great
idea of America.

So it's his first great exploration,
I think, from Eastwood,

about...erm...America's working
class, almost.

You know, a subject he would come
back to repeatedly

and was very interested in.

What does this country offer people?
What does it do? What does it mean?

I'm looking for Josey Wales.

That'd be me.

You're wanted Wales.
Well, I'm getting right popular.

You a bounty hunter?

A man's got to do something
for a living these days.

Dying ain't much of a living, boy.

That was a huge feather in his cap
with the critics

who, many of them thought,

it was one of the best westerns of
all time.

And they certainly do today.

Now...

Clyde, this has gotta stop. People
are gonna talk, you know.

NARRATOR: By the late '70s, Clint
Eastwood was not just an acting star

in Hollywood
but also a renowned director

which made his decision to appear in
the offbeat comedy

Every Which Way But Loose,
all the more surprising.

Every Which Way But Loose is
Clint Eastwood being silly, really.

He does it occasionally. He's sort
of silly in Kelly Heroes.

But most of the time, he's hard.

What they do here, they set his hard
man persona

alongside an Orangutan.

He basically plays
an itinerant bare-knuckle fighter

who wins this Orangutan in a fight

and then is, of course, saddled
with him.

Now, on paper, this sounds absurd.

And it kind of IS absurd.

But what's really good about
this picture,

and why it became a massive,
massive hit,

is two reasons -

one is the soundtrack which is all
Country and Western

which became really iconic for
bikers,

for truck drivers who used to play
the soundtrack on the radio.

And the character, it's Clint
Eastwood with this...

with this lovely animal next to him.

And they go into these adventures.
That's really what it is.

What you gonna do with the baboon?

Orangutan, ma. Clyde's an orangutan.

Well, what's the difference?

12 ribs, just like you and me.

What you gonna do with him?
He's comin' with me. Come on, Clyde.

When are you comin' back?

When are you comin' back?
Whenever it's time, ma.

This was madness, you know.

All Eastwood's advisors were, like,

"Whatever you do, don't do the
monkey picture."

And, of course, that was red rag
to Eastwood.

And he said, "The reason I did Every
Which Way But Loose

is cos they all told me not to."

It's got all of the ingredients
of the Eastwood film,

but it's also got slapstick.
It's got very, very broad humour.

It became a huge hit because
I think, really, it spoke to people.

You know, it really communicated
with people

that Hollywood weren't providing
films for.

# Shall-a-bam, oo-shal #

# Any which way but loo-oo-se #

How long's it been since you fired
a gun at a man, Will?

Nine, ten years?

11.

Jeez. Hell, I don't know that it was
all that easy even back then.

And we was young and full of beans.

I mean, if you was mad at 'em, Will.
If they'd done you some wrong,

I can see shooting 'em. We've done
stuff for money before, Ned.

Well...we thought we did.

All right.
So what did these folks do?

Cheat at cards? Steal some strays?

Spit on a rich fella? What?

No, they cut up a woman.
What?

NARRATOR: In 1992, Clint Eastwood
made the critically acclaimed Western
Unforgiven.

NEIL: Unforgiven came as a complete
surprise.

It was a period when the western had
fallen out of fashion.

Clint Eastwood single-handedly
revived it.

Unforgiven is the film, I think,
that takes Clint Eastwood

from...just being a star of the '80s

and being an older star,

and elevates him to, you know,
a kind of legendary status.

You think he's gonna die?

You think we killed him?

They shot me.

Yeah.

We killed him. I guess.

As a performance,
it's just astonishing, I think.

You know. Everyone talks about
Unforgiven very much as like...

Eastwood the director at work.

If you watch it again and just look
at Eastwood the actor,

the subtleties he puts into it.

The idea of a man reacquainting
himself

with the dark centre of his person.
You know.

He's been a farmer; he's raised his
kids; he's lost his wife.

It's a man who knows he's betraying
the spirit of his wife

who, clearly,
has saved him from himself.

It shows how the reality of the West
was pretty dirty.

It was pretty unpleasant. It was not
in the slightest bit heroic.

And it also shows very clearly,

and this is something that Eastwood
had, of course, not done in the past,

the real human impact of violence.

You be William Munny out of
Missouri.

Who killed women and children.

That's right.

I've killed women and children.

Killed just about everything that
walked or crawled

at one time or another.

And I'm here to kill you,
Little Bill...

..for what you did to Ned.

It's a fabulous exploration of not
only the mythology of the West,

and debunking it... So you have
Eastwood's kind of old gunfighter,

a gun for hire, dragged out of
retirement cos he needs the money.

I think it's been called one of the
best westerns ever made.

It won the Oscar for Best Film.

He won Best Director and Gene
Hackman won Best Supporting Actor.

So it was a huge success for him.

Man, what a day. What a day.

My wife had to work early
so I took my kid to his new school.

He won't stop crying. Says he wants
to move back to Chicago.

Broke my heart, Frank.
Any more excuses?

No. Good.

When you work with me,
you be punctual. You got it?

1993, In the Line Of Fire...

..stars Clint as a CIA agent looking
for a maniac, basically.

In The Line Of Fire tells you
Eastwood was just

on the hottest of hot streaks.

You're into the '90s, he's a much
older man,

yet he's reinforced himself now...

as a superstar again.

He is the ageing presidential
bodyguard

who is burdened by the sins
of the past.

Burdened by the fact
he couldn't stop JFK being killed.

Eastwood allows himself in this one,
not only to, sort of,

carry the weight of guilt but also
to do it in such a minimal way

you don't feel he's overplaying it.

You're looking a living legend,
Lilly.

The only active agent who ever lost
a president.

The further on in his career
he goes,

the more vulnerability he allows
to show.

And, in this case, it's a man whose
life was broken.

Who's trying to put his life
together.

I was just picking you some flowers.

Oh.

Men still do that, don't they?
I'm not out of date, am I?

Picking flowers for a woman as a sign
of appreciation.

No, not at all except those are
poisonous.

Bridges Of Madison County
was originally a best-selling book.

And when Clint Eastwood took
on directing and producing it,

people weren't sure that he was the
right man for the job.

IAN: It's about an Italian wife
who has had this happy marriage

but her husband went off
in the summer.

And into her life wafts
this very handsome photographer.

A dream of a man, totally at ease
with his soul and being an artist,

who loves to take photos of these
covered bridges over the rivers.

It's a cornball idea.

First of all,
the book was a huge success.

It was one of the things everybody
was dying to see.

Meryl Streep plays the Italian
housewife.

She gets an Oscar for it but
she's supported by Clint Eastwood.

Clint Eastwood gives her the space
and you can see his generosity

as this photographer.

I'm not gonna apologise for who I am.
Nobody's asking you...

I'm not gonna be made to feel I've
done something wrong. No.

You're not gonna be made to FEEL
anything!

You carved out this part for
yourself in the world

where you get to be a voyeur and
a lover whenever you feel like it.

The rest of us are supposed to be
incredibly grateful

for this brief moment you touched
us. Go to hell!

It isn't human not to be lonely.
It isn't human not to be afraid.

You're a hypocrite and you're a
phoney.

It's a very, very adult film.
Very mature.

And it sounds soppy but there is
absolutely nothing soppy about it.

The two of them work terrifically
well together

and I think that a lot of people
who had grown up with Clint Eastwood

and those who didn't particularly
like his films,

were very, very pleasantly surprised
by it.

I'm gonna need that speed bag back.
This bag?

Yes, that bag. That's my bag, and if
you're hitting it,

people'll think I'm training you.
Is that such a bad thing?

Yes. Yes, it is. Every time you
touch it, you're losing me business.

I got it. Can't have me here
embarrassing myself.

Yeah. Well, I can't just lend it
to anybody, you know. I understand.

Million Dollar Baby, the next big
Oscar winner for Eastwood,

I think is one of his great
performances.

Million Dollar Baby is one of those
really extraordinary films

I can't think of anybody who could
have made it in the same way.

It's about a female boxer and her
ageing trainer.

Clint Eastwood plays the trainer;
Hilary Swank plays the boxer.

Having trained her, promoted her

and got her into her first big
championship fight,

she is so badly damaged, she becomes
a paraplegic.

It's about guilt and what do you do?
And how do you accommodate it?

And if anyone argues that Clint
Eastwood couldn't act,

I'd direct them towards
the scenes in Million Dollar Baby

where he goes into the church.

And you see the anger, yet, his own
guilt.

And the, kind of, tears come
to the surface.

But now, she wants to die.

And I just want to keep her with me.

And I swear to God, Father,

it's committing a sin by doing it.

By keeping her alive,
I'm killing her.

Do you know what I mean? How do I
get around that?

You don't. You step aside, Frankie.
You leave her with God.

She's not asking for God's help,
she's asking for mine!

In terms of awards,

Million Dollar Baby was one of
Eastwood's most successful films.

That's my mum Vu, I'm Sue and that's
my brother, Thao. We live next door.

So?

Thao wants to say something.

I'm sorry. Sorry for what?

For trying to steal your car.

Let me tell you something, boy,

you step on this property again,
you're done.

As a late entry in this twilight
years,

to come up with a film like Gran
Torino,

is little short of remarkable.

I think Gran Torino shows, once
and for all,

how well Eastwood understood
his own screen persona.

He's a grizzled old man, you know,
who looks after his lawn

and looks after his car,
his Gran Torino.

It's another one of Clint's very
car films -

an embodiment of the American dream.

Erm...who is forced to kind of...

come between these young immigrant
kids and the gangs.

He begins to break down
his prejudices.

And it's really about the coming
together of people in the community.

He understands that his neighbours
aren't just the rude names

he thought of them and that...
It's very nicely done.

It's about never being too old to
learn, I think.

What happened to your knuckles?

I slipped in the shower. No big
problem.

Now, look, now Yum-Yum... If he
doesn't ask you, I'm gonna ask you.

Look, don't listen to him, Wa Xam,

he's a white devil. Yeah, I am.
I'm the white devil.

It's something about Clint,
the elderly Clint,

that's much more charming, in a way,
than his middle career.

His frown has become one
of the great special effects...

on the cinema screen. There's just
something indomitable about it.

Gran Torino was a huge hit.

It's not always talked about in
terms of his canon.

But I think it's one of his most
touching films.

You've come a long way. I'm proud to
say that you're my friend.

But you've got your whole life ahead
of you. Me, I finish things.

That's what I do.
And I'm going it alone.

No! Wait! Walt!

Walt!

Clint Eastwood is still making
motion pictures.

He's still a one-off.

Go ahead.

He had an extraordinary ability
to be himself

in whatever part he played.

An extraordinary man.

He was the man who brought the
western to American city streets.

What the hell are you doing? Have you
lost your mind?

I think what's staggering
about Eastwood's career as an actor,

is that how he has remained the same
- indomitable, fixed, an icon.

And our pleasure in going to see
his films

is knowing that we'll get
Clint Eastwood on the screen.

You get those holes a-leaking,
I'm gonna whupp you
with a knotted plough line.

He was someone
who was as big a star

as anybody had ever been in
Hollywood.

He is the only actor I can think of
who...

understands the value
of his screen persona

to the extent he can manipulate it
through a variety of nuances.

I've never known an actor to explore
the idea of his own mythology

quite as much as Eastwood has and
I think that makes him priceless.

Adios.

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