«Few directors create one classic American movie, but since 1992, Clint Eastwood has created not one or two, but arguably nine.»
It may be his most unique work as a director. And his finest—and quirkiest—as an actor. But what’s remarkable about Clint Eastwood’s most recent release, The Mule, isn’t just how fresh the movie is, or how different it is from anything he’s ever done. This movie directed by, and starring, an 88-year-old about a 90-year-old Korean war vet turned horticulturist turned drug runner landed at number 2 in its opening weekend at the Box Office.
More remarkable, three of the last four films Eastwood has directed have opened at either number 1 or number 2 at the box office. American Sniper, released in 2014, was the highest grossing of his career, raking in nearly $500 million in worldwide box office receipts.
Read more: All of Clint Eastwood’s movies ranked from worst to best
How has he done it? Algorithms? A team of data scientists? The answer is something more archaic; his gut instincts. And the love of a good story. Indeed, Eastwood’s movies are a throwback to a time when stories—great stories and character development—dominated the movie landscape.
«The modern screenplay is where you build a set and then you blow it up,» the writer and director Billy Wilder famously replied when asked, in his later years, to describe the movies modern Hollywood seemed to care most about making.
That’s not Clint Eastwood’s world. Senseless violence, gratuitous nudity, robots, chase scenes, and endless explosions play no part in the films he directs. The human heart does. The human condition does too, in all its varied forms. And American stories—particularly stories of grown up American men and women—in all of their broken beauty.
He’s directed 38 movies in his career. And since 1992, he’s been on a creative streak, making 21 in the past 26 years. And not just any films. Few directors create one classic American movie, but since 1992, Eastwood’s created not one or two, but arguably nine.
And it all started with what may be his best movie, and one of the greatest westerns ever made: Unforgiven. How do you begin to summarize what makes the movie so good? It’s one of those timeless movies that appear on cable TV endlessly, and when stumbled upon is simply impossible to not watch until the end.
Gone in this Eastwood film are affectations from his Josey Wales days. He’s stripped his hero, William Munny, to the core. Unforgiven’s protagonist was created, it seemed, as a rebuttal to the very mythology Eastwood helped create in his early work in westerns. There’s a price to pay for all the violence, and Eastwood’s lead character paid it.
“It’s a hell of a thing killin’ a man,” Munny laments to a young, wannabe gun slinger. “You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.”
In the movie’s final showdown, Little Bill Daggett (played flawlessly by Gene Hackman) is lying on the ground, staring down the barrel of a gun positioned just inches from his face. “I’ll see you in hell,” Daggett tells Munny, knowing his fate is sealed. “Yeah,” Munny replies. He knows Daggett’s right. He then proceeds to shoot Daggett in the head.
It is often referred to as a revisionist western, Unforgiven. Eastwood created it to be the genre’s epitaph. This film, Eastwood was telling the world, is where the myth of the west dies.
Clint Eastwood holds up his two Oscars at the 65th Annual Academy Awards 29 March 1993 that he won for Best Director and Best Picture for «Unforgiven.» MIKE NELSON/AFP/Getty Images
His next classic may be his most underrated: » A Perfect World contains a prison break, the taking of a hostage, a chase across Texas, two murders, various robberies, and a final confrontation between a fugitive and a lawman,” wrote Roger Ebert. “It’s not really about any of those things, however. It’s deeper and more interesting than that. It’s about the true nature of violence and about how the child is father to the man.”
The film stars two iconic actors of their generation. Kevin Costner plays the role of a fugitive who takes a boy hostage, and Eastwood plays the Texas Ranger who leads the pursuit. But the movie is about so much more. Like all Eastwood movies, it is about relationships. Relationships gone wrong. Relationships redeemed.
The heart of the movie is the relationship between the outlaw and the kid Costner’s character kidnapped. “You can look hard, but you won’t be able to guess where this relationship is going,” Ebert continued. “It doesn’t fall into any of the conventional movie patterns. Butch isn’t a terrifically nice guy, and Phillip isn’t a cute movie kid who makes and then loses a friend. It’s not that simple.”
Eastwood’s best movies seem simple, but rarely are. «I don’t know nothin,'» mutters Eastwood’s character in the film. «Not one damn thing.» In so many of Eastwood’s best movies, the characters don’t seem to know themselves. We watch alongside them, as life surprises them. As they surprise themselves. And us. For better and worse.
Eastwood would continue to surprise all of us with Bridges of Madison County, an unexpected treasure, and a subtle movie about two people who meet, fall in love, but decide not to spend the rest of their lives together.
Based on the best seller by James Waller, Eastwood turns in a restrained and gentle performance as a professional photographer. Meryl Streep’s performance may be the best of her life, playing the part of an Italian immigrant who finds herself raising a family on an Iowa farm.
There was a lot of negative press about the film glorifying adultery, but that criticism missed a deeper and more profound truth about love. And life.
“I’ve seen the movie twice now and was even more involved the second time, because I was able to pay more attention to the nuances of voice and gesture,” Roger Ebert confessed in his review of the film. “Streep and Eastwood weave a spell, and it is based on that particular knowledge of love and self that comes with middle age.
