Investigating Interviews: Clint Eastwood

One of the strongest supports to a written claim is the primary source. Material from the origin, whether it be newspaper print about an accident, live interviews with witnesses, or leftover penmanship from related individuals, the original unadulterated perspective offers rich context to subject matters.

As a cinephile myself, investigating box office blowouts, their budgets and source material resonates deeply. One day I could be in-part responsible for the production of one, and the time spent searching, seeking would support that.

Today, I have snippets from an interview, from March 1997, with director and actor, Clint Eastwood. I lift personal comments and anecdotes to highlight the man and art he uses to express himself.

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^{His motto was "never to be depedent on anyone else."}
One motif that ripples throughout the lives of individuals of note, their paths are seldom linear.

Eastwood's life led him through many courses:

• After graduating high school in 1948, he worked as a lumberjack and firefighter in Oregon and a steelworker in Seattle
• Eastwood was drafted into the Army in 1951 and was made a swimming instructor at Fort Ord, California.
• Meeting several actors there, like Martin Milner and David Janssen, he received encouragement to go to Hollywood following his service
• He attended Los Angeles City College in 1953 and began acting. For his rugged looks, Universal signed him on as a contract player
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• After 18 months of bit roles in obscure titles, Universal Studios dropped him
• He ended up pumping gas and digging swimming pools in the San Fernando Valley Hills
• Eating with a friend in the basement of CBS television studios, a producer asked him to test for the role of Rowdy Yates in "Rawhide", the TV series about cattle drives on the Great Plains that ran from 1959 to 1966

And so his journey began...

I highlight some of Eastwood's resonant responses, similarly to the style of Thoreau's Observatons on the Days of the Year.

It's a burden when other people impose their thoughts about who I am. Macho was a fashionable word in the Eighties. Everybody was kind of into it, what's macho and what isn't macho. i really don't know what macho is. I never have understood it. Does it mean somebody who swaggers around exuding testosterone? And kicks the gate open and runs sprints up and down the street? Or does handsprings or whatever? Or is macho a quiet thing based on your security? I remember shaking hands with Rocky Marciano. He was gentle, he didn't squeeze your hand. And he had a high voice. But he knew he could knock people around, it was a given. That's macho. Muhammad Ali is the same. If you talked with him in his younger days, he spoke gently. He wasn't kicking over chairs. I think some of the most macho people are the gentlest.

I've never thought about that. If making movies is an art, I guess I'd be considered an artist. But I don't know if it's an art or a craft or whatever anybody wants to call it. A lot of people get pompous and claim a film director has to be an auteur. Or are you really just a craftsman who is in a leadership capacity and who guides people along? Besides, isn't there an art to everything? There's an art to it if you know to do it and you do it well. A good bartender could be an artist. A bad one is not.

No. Half the fun of making a movie is doing something that's outside your experience. In fact, if you do something outside your experience, you have a much better chance of bringing a fresh eye to it.

^{Photography by David Rose}

Leaving Reviews in the Letterbox

I made an account here per the recommendation of community members. Here, I hope to dive into more of what makes a movie a success, which Clint may've alluded to during this interview. I'll parse that information later, but my investigations will center on genres, years of production, and source material as a starting place. As with our lives, everything is subject to change, thus I might transform how I define a good film and what parameters might indicate it in the future.

I'm curious to see how much a good review still earns in this attention economy, marked by brief snippets in video format. Can I make a business out of writing good lists? They'd better be real good, right? Right?

Stay tuned for my review of Eastwood's 1997 film, Absolute Power.

Post Summary

• Looking into source material might give inspiration.
• I'm following actors as I enjoy movies, and might make one, one day.
• Life goes, often in ways we don't expect. I might want to embrace that.