Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director: New Perspectives [Paperback]

Leonard Engel (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 2007

In his recent films — Unforgiven, Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby — Clint Eastwood has revealed himself as a greater figure than moviegoers had imagined him to be. While he has been an exceptionally successful actor, creating iconic characters in two genres, Western and detective films, as a director, his recent films have reached a surprising power, depth, and maturity.

The contributors to this volume revisit and examine his career as an actor and director, and are part of a growing critical evaluation of Eastwood's films. A common thread, however, is their respect for his cinematic storytelling. They examine how he put his individual stamp on particular genres, while extending and enriching our understanding of his achievements.

 

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This volume of essays, relying upon film theory but accessible to the general reader, provides a fascinating lens through which to view Eastwood's career and contributions to the Western film genre."—Western Historical Quarterly

 

"A strong, engaging collection of critical essays by writers trying to say something new about one of this country's most filmmakers. For my money, they have succeeded."—Southwestern American Literature

About the Author

Leonard Engel is chair of the English Department at Quinnipiac University. He is the author of The Big Empty: Essays on the Land as Narrative and Sam Peckinpah’s West: New Perspectives (University of Utah Press, 2003).

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: University of Utah Press; 1st Edition edition (November 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874809002
• ISBN-13: 978-0874809008
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,397,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An anthology of essays by learned authors discussing Hollywood star Clint Eastwood, January 4, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director: New Perspectives (Paperback)

Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director: New Perspectives is an anthology of essays by learned authors discussing Hollywood star Clint Eastwood, who has made a stand-out name for himself as a top-notch director through films such as "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby". Individual essays include "Mocking Success in 'Every Which Way but Loose'", "Irony as Absolution", "Mystic Moral Miasma in 'Mystic River'", and much more. The essays have a scholarly tone and a perceptive eye toward meticulous analysis of theme; Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director is especially recommended for film studies students and professionals who would learn from Eastwood's work, as well as cerebral Clint Eastwood fans.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please, make my day!, November 10, 2008

By 

Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director: New Perspectives (Paperback)

The peculiar artistic journey of Clint Eastwood has been signed by two very distinctive features. His undeniable passion for jazz and his indeclinable attractions poles: the thriller and the Western genre (which has been the true North American mythology) under Sergio Leone direction. Those spaghetti Westerns began to shape in his mind and febrile creativity three important periods. The first one belongs to the seventies as the renegade detective who works without rules according his own basic instincts ( we should not forget the self made personal justice begins probably with Sam Peckinpah's "Straw dogs" and two cult movies of John Borman, the almost forgotten "Point blank" and the classic "Deliverance") then would come the unforgettable saga of four films in which Charles Bronson starred - Harry Callahan typified as no one else the merciless and relentless detective in those out of control and desperate early seventies. The second period is perhaps the most introspective, searching by the unconscious roots of the antihero that concludes with "Bird" . The third period meant for him the concretion of a wider spectre of livings, happenings and situations in which an existential revisiting to the Western genre "Unforgiving") political affairs, corruption, love story, intense personal drama "Mystic river" and clever War episodes have become a sort of living gallery of deconstructions, memories, obsessions, little personal triumphs and disillusions of people who evidently don't occupy the main front pages.

His influences are so vast and multiple that forcefully leads us to realize ourselves he has become what Fassbinder meant for the German nation, or Jean Luc Goddard for France, the embodiment of the repressed feelings of anonymous human beings, the not desired mirror image of the social body, it's to say the ethical voice of the nation. Names of his most visible influences? Samuel Fuller, Mike Nichols, Sam Peckinpah, Billy Wilder, Sergio Leone, Martin Ritt, John Casavettes, John Ford, Otto Preminger, Reinhard Hauff and David Lean.

This is a very smart attempt to decipher and explore the basic clues of the famous artistic trajectory of one of the most important and lucid ethical voices of a nation.