Customer Reviews (1)

An anthology of essays by learned authors discussing Hollywood star Clint Eastwood
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Go ahead punk...make my day
a great book highlighing most of the films clint does.many color photo's mostly writing ... Read more

Book Description

Amazon.com
Schickel, a movie critic for Time magazine, surveys the life and career of Hollywood's laconic macho superstar. Eastwood's career has slowly developed: television success in Rawhide; his icon-defining role as the nameless gunslinger in Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns; movie superstardom with the Dirty Harry series; then a softening, and even some intellectual respectability, with his Oscar for directing Unforgiven. Shickel chronicles Eastwood's middle-class upbringing in Oakland, California, details a personal life that included a drive to bed many women, and recasts Eastwood from his role as the male equivalent of the "dumb blonde" to that of "one of the great ironists of the age."Book Description
"Authoritative . . . highly nuanced . . . gives the reader a palpable sense of Mr. Eastwood's career."
--The New York Times

From the moment The Man With No Name first fixed the screen with his murderous squint, from the first time audiences heard Dirty Harry Callahan growl "Make my day," Clint Eastwood has been an icon of American manhood in all its coolness and ferocity. But that icon is also an actor of surprising subtlety, a filmmaker of vast intelligence and originality--and an intensely private man who eludes the stereotypes with which his fans and critics try to label him.

In this in-depth biography, the distinguished film critic Richard Schickel talks with Eastwood's family, friends, and colleagues--and, above all, with his notoriously reticent subject--to produce a portrait more astute and revealing than any we have ever had.

Following Eastwood from his unstable childhood through his turbulent love affairs, assessing films from A Fistful of Dollars to the Oscar-winning The Unforgiven, and locating the subversive streak of rage and solitude that runs through all his work, Clint Eastwood is candid and endlessly fascinating, an unerring closeup of one of our brightest stars.

"Exhilarating . . . substantial, insightful, and right."
--Newsday ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Fawning and ridiculous
Eastwood has always been one of my favorite action stars. Generally a stiff and unsurprising actor, he has played virtually the same character in all his movies. Which is not a problem (for me). My problem is biographies like this one written by Schickel, a usually intelligent and perceptive critic.I'm assuming he had to kiss up to Eastwood in order to get certain information in this book, and his writing reflects this position. Toadish and lacking in objectivity, Schickel finds nothing wrong with Eastwood's constant cheating on his first wife, his inability to work with other directors (he is a control freak), and his hiring of sycophants who would not question his motives--and if they did, they never worked for him again. A major disappointment for anyone seeking an honest evaluation of Eastwood's film career. However, if you worship the ground he walks on--as Schickel obviously does--then this is the book for you!

Padded and Nonobjective...
If you are looking for a thick book about actor/director Clint Eastwood's life and career, illustrated with some unusual photos, then this will fill the bill.If you want an objective biography of Eastwood, together with an objective analysis of his film work, this is not the book you want.Schickel was basically an employee and friend of Eastwood during the researching and writing of the book, and he tends to ignore or downplay the dark side of Eastwood's activities, particularly his alleged "women are like kleenex" philosophy, and his alleged cruelty toward former collaborators.

The long book is made longer by merciless padding, including detailed and completely unnecessary plot summaries of the films.

Viewed from 2004, Clint Eastwood is an important actor--- as good an actor as Jimmy Stewart and as iconic an actor as John Wayne. He is also an important and stylish director, and justifiably famous for his gentle ways with cast and crew, as well as his efficiency in coming in under budget.One of the author's continuing themes, brought up on nearly every page, turns uponthe consistent misunderstanding of Eastwood, both as actor and director, by two generations of famous mainstream film critics.This theme wears thin quickly when one realizes that there is probably not a single case in which famous mainstream film critics have had the slightest clue as to the value, importance and significance of any new film or film star.

Eastwood is an important figure in 20th Century cinema, and he deserves an objective, scholarly, independently-researched analysis of all aspects of his life and career.I don't know of one... we'll keep looking.

Enjoyable read, very informative.
This is an excellent book about the life and work of a legend. Richard Schickel gives us a close look at the free spirited man that's living inside of the veteran actor. Very detail work about Mr. Eastwood's movie making process and his no bulls**t attitude toward the studio execs and anyone who stands on his way. Ms. Pauline Kael should just say it out loud that she's begging for the legend's attention or just shut the hell up. Any Eastwood fan will really appreciate the author's work.

A mixed bag biography
Being a huge fan of Eastwood as well as a close personal friend creates quite the conflict in TIME film critic Richard Schickel as he attempts to write a biography about an artist who closely guards his privacy. This obstacle results in a hap-hazard biography that provides few surprises or insights into the laconic, silent man who has become on of America's true unique artists.

Schickel also drives a stake through the pacing of his writing by providing scene by scene recounts of each of Eastwood's key films. He is overlooking the fact that the majority of his intended audience already has each film memorized. This causes the book to often languish in molasses and cause the reader to skim- never a good thing.

Where Schickel does succeed is in the all-too brief insights into Eastwood's technique and artistic philosophy. Had Schickel chosen to focus in this area, his work would have provided more depth and sustained interest.

As is CLINT EASTWOOD: A BIOGRAPHY is a mixed bag read. Worthwhile only if one is willing to skim.

Sufficient overview of Eastwood's career
With few biographies of Clint Eastwood available, Richard Schickel's 1996 effort fills a void. Unfortunately, the void, though smaller, still exists since this is far from an objective look at either Eastwood the man, the star, or the filmmaker. It's certainly not a surprise. Schickel wrote a 1992 TV special promoting "Unforgiven," and also compiled the film clips for the tribute preceding Eastwood's reciept of the Irving Thalberg Award at the 1995 Oscars. Eastwood cooperated with the author for this biography and even did some interviews in tandem with Schickel to promote the book. And when informing us that the critic for Life magazine praised 1968's "Hang 'Em High," Schickel neglects to point out the name of that critic who just so happened to be...duh, Richard Schickel. When biographer and subject are such good buddies, well, you just have to wonder if you're getting anything closely resembling the truth. But...

As an overview of Eastwood's career, particularly his transformation from a superstar in genre movies to respectedauteur, it is sufficient, even though some easily detected errors go undetected ("Unforgiven" recieved 9 Oscar nominations, not 8 as Schickel says - doesn't anybody bother to check these things?). ... Read more

Book Description
When first published in 1969, Horizons West was immediately recognised as the definitive critical account of the Western film and some of its key directors.
This greatly expanded new edition is, like the original, written in a graceful, penetrating and absorbingly readable style.It provides definitive critical analysis of the six greatest film-makers of the Western genre: John Ford, Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher, Sam Peckinpah,Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood. And it offers illuminating accounts of such classic Westerns as The Searchers, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,Once Upon a Time in the West, Shane, and many many more.
Among the completely new material in this edition is Kitses's magisterial account of the work of the greatest of Western Directors John Ford. Kitses also assesses how the Western has been challenged by revisionist historical accounts of the West and the Western, and by movements such as feminism, postmodernism, multiculturalism and psychoanalysis.
The product of a lifetime's labour and love, Horizons West is a landmark of scholarship and interpretation devoted to what is for many Hollywood's signature genre. It provides a compelling account of the powerful mythology of America's past as forged by Western filmsand the men who made them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A CLASSIC STUDY RE-WORKED AND REISSUED
Back in the late 1960s Jim Kitses wrote an enjoyable study of three western directors who at the time were not nearly as highly regarded as they are today. His chapters on Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher were marvelous because both directors had pretty much completed their contibutions to the western genre. The chapter on Sam Peckinpah left something to be desired since, at the time, Peckinpah had only three feature films--all of them westerns--under his belt. This new edition addresses that problem by providing a career-length reassessment of Peckinpah's contributions to the western. The other new material--mainly on John Ford and Clint Eastwood--is certainly readable, but I'm not certain that it was essential. Nevertheless it is good to have this volume back in print once more.

Magnificent Expansion
This is a magnificent expansion of Kitses' 1970 book, which looked at the Westerns of Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher and Sam Peckinpah.It is fine reading for anyone interested in the Western.

Kitses has added a marvelous chapter on John Ford, which examines all Ford's westerns from Stagecoach (1939) to Cheyenne Autumn (1964).Kitses' comments are sensible and to the point.His discussion of The Searchers is very well done, and he raises excellent points about The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.Also, he has written good analysis of Sergeant Rutledge and Two Rode Together, two late Westerns that few critics pay attention to.

Kitses has left the text of his original work alone, except for adding some to the Peckinpah chapter.While his comments on Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid are perceptive, the Peckinpah chapter is probably the weakest in the book.I am not sure if Kitses dislikes Peckinpah or if he disliked critics who like Peckinpah.

Kitses then adds two chapters, one of Sergio Leone and one on Clint Eastwood.The Leone chapter is okay but is far colder than the rest of the book.However, the chapter on Eastwood is terrific, one that strikes a fine balance between praise for his achievements and an awareness of the flaws in those achievements.This is perhaps some of the best serious analysis of Eastwood as a director that I have read.

Strongly recommended for all readers interested in Westerns. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An idolatrous look at Clint Eastwood and Malpaso.
Fuensanta Plaza takes a studious and critical look at each movie made and/or produced by Clint Eastwood and his Malpaso film company.Starting with the first Malpaso film (the Ted Post directed Hang 'Em High) and ending with Eastwood's White Hunter, Black Heart (just when the actor/producer/director was getting long overdue critical attention) Plaza focuses less on Eastwood and more on the dedicated crew he has built over the years.Composers, cinematographers, costume designers, and even sound editors all have a say in how they help Eastwood craft his distinctive productions.If there is a drawback to this coffee table book edition, then it is Plaza's over praise of Eastwood's movies (with the one exception of the second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force - interestingly it is illustrated with a still from the THIRD Dirty Harry movie, The Enforcer).Every one is called masterful and brilliant and unique, which is untrue.While Eastwood has produced numerous classic movies, none are without flaws.Still, Eastwood fans will love having this around to show off to friends. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Avoid!!
Overpriced and dull, the Authors do not share an insightful thought between them. Better biographies available from McGilligan or Shickel.

Great look at a still underrated filmmaker
The focus of this volume is Mr. Eastwood the director, and this book collects a good variety of American and international interviews with him discussing his process, from PLAY MISTY FOR ME and THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES to BIRD and UNFORGIVEN and up through MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD & EVIL (the book was published in '99, so of course it does not feature any of his works from this new century). If after MILLION DOLLAR BABY you're finally starting to come around and see Eastwood the artist, this book is a great negotiation of his career in the director's chair, in his own, laconic, well-chosen, unpretentious and to-the-point voice. Highly recommended for any budding or hardcore Clint Eastwood fans alike. Or any serious filmfan, for that matter.

DOA from boredom.
I had to read this book for an English class. It's just a collection of articles of people interviewing Clint Eastwood through the years.Want to know how he makes movies?He shoots the first take, moves fast and comes in under budget.His history is told over, and over, and over, and over.Nice to read if you run out of sleeping pills.

Boring
These interviews are dull and repetitive.Just buy the Schickel book.

Good book, but too pricey
An interesting book for serious Clint fans.However, the $45 price tag is a little steep, and unjustifiably so.Very few photos, only black and white.Save your $$ and buy the paperback instead. ... Read more

Book Description
Movie celebrity Clint Eastwood fights an access lawsuit. Christopher Reeve insists what's needed is cure. Those who argue for civil-rights protections for disabled people -- rights guaranteed by federal law for over a decade - are all but silent.

The Americans with Disabilities Act "defies logic and common sense," The New York Times once editorialized. Salon.com dismissed it as "a surreal ideology." Why are disability rights so disliked? Why do detractors insist nobody knows about it, even as thousands of articles have been devoted to it? Why do they claim it's a bad law?

In "Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve & The Case Against Disability Rights," longtime disability-rights journalist Mary Johnson sheds rare light on this issue by examining the case against disability rights in depth. What are its main arguments? Where do they come from? And what is the other side? Can a valid -- strong -- case be made FOR disability rights? It can, says Johnson, who makes a compelling argument that, since the disabled minority is the one minority any of us can suddenly and unexpectedly join, the nation ignores disability rights at its peril. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

This should be required reading!
At the risk of sounding dramatic, I can honestly say that this book
changed the way I see the world. It was my first formal introduction
to the disability rights movement, and more profoundly, to the social
model of disability.

I consider myself a liberal, and civil rights have always been at the
top of the list of issues important to me. Unsurprisingly (but still
appallingly), I'd never really thought about disability rights. I had
always just believed the medical model, because that's how disability
had always been presented to me. I ran across this book by chance, and
more or less decided to read it because the title intrigued me. The
case against disability rights? Who's against the disabled?

Chapter by chapter, Make Them Go Away reversed the way I think.
Mary Johnson combines history, anecdotes, and quotes from other people
to weave several convincing arguments that broke down everything I
thought I knew about disability. I started it knowingnothing about
disability rights, and by the time I finished it I had resolved to
become an advocate for the issue. I have been trying to tell other
people what I learned from it, but the book is so well-crafted, so
effective, that I just can't put it into my own words. I can only
recommend that people read it for themselves.

Despite being an excellent introduction to disability rights, Make
Them Go Away is not a textbook, and is definitely biased in the
direction of the social model. But I don't think that's bad at all. On
the contrary, I think it's exactly what the average person needs in
order to wake up to the reality of the marginalization of millions of
people.

I Won't Go Away!
Quick! Who made the following comment:

"I think it's important to realize that treating all disabled
people as equal--with equal rights and responsibilities--is absurd.
Many of the patients that come through any rehab hospital are there
because of their own ignorance, negligence, stupidity or criminal activities."

A member of a supremacist group? Nope. It was Dr. Kenneth Lefebre
at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. How about this?

"The legal requirement that 'the handicapped' be 'mainstreamed'
is damaging to 'the normal child'."

That was written by Eileen Gardner, appointee to the Reagan
Education Department, in one of her policy papers.

One more, and this one is the real shocker because the
commentator has a disability herself:

"Deny as we may want to, at the point when a person can not be
totally independent physically from others, one is no longer
equal in body. I do not want to be treated equally. I can still
think, but for the life of me I can't think of a way to get rid
of the wheelchair. Therefore, I am not on the same ground I used
to be on. To me that makes my way not equal...How can we bury our
heads so deep and say we are equal to the able bodies around us?
We are not. That's why it is called a handicap, because it is."

Comments like these only bolster the viewpoint Mary Johnson is
fighting against in her perception-shattering book, "Make Them
Go Away: The Case Against Disability Rights". She argues that
people with disabilities are a minority just as women and people
of color are nowadays. Disability, she posits, is a social and
cultural idea, and not merely a "medical problem".

Because people are perceived to be disabled, they are perceived
by society to be unable, incapable of doing much for themselves
or others. Johnson theorizes that the case against disability
rights is strong right now because of this philosophy. It is
also strong because "a disabled person's role in society was
not to criticize it from a minority perspective--for they were
not a true minority--but to work at becoming normal, to be
rehabilitated if not cured."

That, and there have been several lawsuits about the ADA, or
Americans with Disabilities Act. Nobody likes lawsuits, so...

...no wonder most of society still thinks, "Make Them Go Away"!

God Bless America the Ignorance lives on
This book describes what has been happening for years centuries.As an EEO specialist I know my rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should protect my rights at the Federal Level.The ADA Act is suppose to protect me at the local level and it does not.I do believe that EVERYONE has rights in this country our rights are comprised every day.As I read the other reviews I noticed Tomthumbguy believes the Civil Rights Moment 60s is not the same I beg to differ. Disabled people like African Americans in the 1960's are still not allowed to eat , shop, go to the movies, travel and live in certain places because there is limited accessibility or people just don't want us there.If I am not mistaken does that not sound like the segregated south from the 1700s until maybe 30 years ago.Also, let's keep in mind disabled people come from all walks of life and ethnicities.That included African Americans.

Glad this book makes people think.
I have not completely read this book.But I am glad that it is making people think.To the reviewer who is up set with this book...I am white so I have no reference for what it is like for African Americans.However, I am disabled and I too would like to be able to go to the same places that everyone else does.

Good book with some serious questions
I too personally have experienced what Mary Johnson documents in her well-researched work.

Social antipathy against people with disabilities is so mainstreamed in America that progressive activists who rush to condemn other forms of bigotry, engage in bigotry against people with disabilities. We are time and/or money consuming entities that are still honestly not perceived as contributing anything to society let alone being recognized as social equals.

This inequality then leads people to interpret the ADA as a burden on them as opposed to considering the greater burdens which unjust discrimination places on both the recipient and the nation.

However, I have one minor suggestion to ensure that this book gets to those most needing to read it.

Change the title to more accurately reflect that this book is a critique of how society handles disability instead of something itself which opposes the disability rights movement. Because the disability rights movement is acknowledged as seeking liberation of stereotypical attitudes and laws, it aids Mary Johnson's case.
... Read more

Amazon.com
As celebrity biographer McGilligan tells it in Clint, Eastwood's career is the classic tale of power and fame corrupting: a small-town boy (who actually grew up in San Francisco) comes to L.A. with a wide grin and an easy manner; is remade by agents and directors (Sergio Leone said, that at first, "Eastwood had only two expressions: with or without a hat"); becomes one of the richest stars in Hollywood; and stops smiling--except wolfishly. McGilligan depicts him as a master of betrayal, casually discarded friendships, and alleged extramarital affairs (which seem to shock the author), complete with alleged children out of wedlock.

Readable though kiss-and-tell breathless, McGilligan's book sometimes overlooks Clint's full significance as a crafter of classics. He should remember the sage words of the French critic who observed, "If you love the films, nothing else matters." --Gregory McNameeBook Description

Customer Reviews (18)

What a legend!
Clint is still a great guy!This book tends to slam a big screen legend.Don't we all have something in our past that we aren't proud of?Clint isn't perfect, but he is one of the most gifted people in Hollywood.

How could anyone compare to his entertainment artistry?Clint is an enormously talented person and a great actor, director and writer.Buy this book if you want to read about the dark side of a great American.It makes for good reading, but it is an unauthorized biography.

An Amazon friend CLINT BRONSON takes pride in saying Clint Eastwood is one of his favorites and owns DVDs of nearly all his movies.So, this is an important book for Eastwood fans to read which shows a different side of the legend.

But, this other great American I mentioned, CLINT BRONSON, is also talented, funny, clever, a fantastic friend, tequila aficionado, caring and thoughtful individual and Amazon bud is celebrating a birthday on December 26th.HAPPY BIRTHDAY my dear friend and let's all have a shot of the best tequila for him!We all love you!

No Million Dollar Bio
If this biography was a boxing match, the author, Patrick McGilligan, would have been disqualified in the first round for low blows for its condescending tone and tabloid style.Being that as it may, I came into the book thinking there would be major revelations based on the other Amazon reviews I'd read. Hardly. A major Hollywood star of Eastwood's caliber had affairs behind his wife's back? Shocking!Eastwood's style of acting is "wooden"? No way!The only juicy tidbit is that Eastwood was physically abusive toward women.One story depicts him smacking his wife around in front of some friends.The only problem is, this isn't backed up by multiple sources, as the other reviews would have you believe. It's the word of one person, as are the majority of quotes and anecdotes from this biography.Some attributions even have an US Weekly feel to them, saying things like, "A friend added..." Contradictions abound as well. McGilligan claims Eastwood wouldn't allow the characters he played to be badly injured or beaten up to give his screen persona a sense of invincibility.Yet a few pages later he discusses, at length, Eastwood's first major American film "Hang `Em High," where Eastwood's character Cooper is hanged from a tree and left for dead "before the credits roll" and then later shot so many times in a bar fight that the director said it was rather preposterous that Cooper survived.Not to mention Cooper spends a rather long sequence of the film recuperating from the shooting with the aid of, say it isn't so, a woman!This is invincibility, Patrick? I am an Eastwood fan and I hope McGilligan's claims about physical abuse toward women are false.Since he provides little evidence to support these claims, and since Eastwood's films have always championed strong female characters---long before mainstream Hollywood caught on to this idea---I will choose to believe that this wasn't the case. It's true no Eastwood biography written prior to this one was the least bit confrontational or critical of the star, so I understand McGilligan's angle. But if you come to challenge an American icon like that, you better fight a good, clean fight.You can't put lead in your gloves or repeatedly punch someone in the groin and expect to be taken seriously by anyone other than the casual fight fan.

Clint Fans Beware !
Patrick McGilligan's book "Clint: The Life and Legend" presents the reader with a negative account of the life of Clint Eastwood from beginning to end.

One can't help but wonder what was the motivation for McGilligan's vilification of one of the most popular living movie giants.

Little is said of the millions of moviegoers to whom Clint has given unquantifiable enjoyment in timeless works.

McGilligan's biography is unauthorised, which is no surprise after the first few pages.

The attention given to movies varies from too much information to very scant detail. "Where Eagles Dare", for instance, hardly gets a mention.

What a pity to waste an obviously good writing talent in such an unbalanced criticism.

Clint fans should definitely give this a miss.

Truth or Fiction
If you really like Clint then don't bother with this bio. McGilligan paints Eastwood as a total bastard with no positive character attributes whatsoever. It's pretty much a total character assasination. There is some interesting info about his early career but there is an aweful lot of negative. Maybe that was McGilligan's intention to focus only on the negative and present Eastwood as a sod.

is "dirty harry" a "rotten clint"?
john steinbeck said that all good books can be described in one sentence.
following that reasoning, i'd say this: "clint eastwood is not a good person".

according to the 4 year research by the author, eastwood always treated women like garbage, is given to attacks of fury, is an egomaniac, a sloppy director, lazy, holds grudges, is a sadist, is stupid, is a total coward, has no character, is a shmuck... etc.

clint was a sort of a teen idol of mine, i've seen all his films. according to the author, clint's career and myth are a triumph of publicity, of projecting a false image to a worldwide audience.
we all know that people under the spotlight of fame are exposed to false accusations, etc. but even steve mcqueen, with all his faults, had, according to at least 2 biographies, a very human side. according to this book, clint is a block of ice without remission. sometimes, it feels the author is not talking about a human being.

like other reviewers said, the author of the book may have a grudge against clint. but many of the episodes and stories contained in the book are checked and confirmed by 2 or 3 sources, on the record. either this is an extremely violent personal attack or, if it's the truth, well, clint eastwood is a despicable individual.

the author writes well, it's a very readable book. but it's not pleasant to know that dirty harry is, in fact, a "rotten clint".

there are 2 misinformed reviewers here. one says clint sued. but the book doesen't say he beat his ex wife. the book is still in circulation and the judge apparently decided that way. and there is another book by sondra locke which confirms many of the facts presented here. other reviewer says that the author of the book didn't get good reviews. i'd advise him to read the back cover, with praise from prestigious newspapers and magazines. someone also says here that it's an attack on eastwood political values and the author of the book is biased. eastwood supported nixon all through the watergate. any people with any sense of decency or any degree of honesty couldn't ever support nixon's activities in the watergate. need i say more?... ... Read more

Book Description
Clint Eastwood represents probably the single strongest icon of heroic masculinity in popular cinema over the past quarter-century. But how odd that, through ironic allusion and gesture, this figure seems continually to deconstruct its own stature. Such problems form the foundation for Bill Beard's examination of Eastwood. Director, producer, and star, Eastwood has become one of the most important figures in American cinema today. This collection of linked essays examines Eastwood's unique position as overpowering cinematic icon and creative filmmaker; as reflector, perpetuator, and even producer of mainstream cultural and ideological values; and as idiosyncratic, complex manipulator of the narrative he inhabits. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Though best known as an actor, Clint Eastwood has been directing films for 25 years.In that time little has been written about his style or viewpoint. Eastwood has embraced personal projects that investigate the perils of being an artist (such as Bronco Billy and Honkytonk Man) or a misfit or loner (e.g., Breezy and A Perfect World). Eastwood's 18 films as director are analyzed here, showing that they are more a part of his stylistic or aesthetic vision and not merely a showcase for his formidable public persona. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Little information of actual interest or insight.
I have very little interest in the personal lives of artists (be they actors, directors, writers, painters, poets, and so forth) unless it reflects in their work.Andy Milligan is a good example of this, but Clint Eastwood is not.Quiet and distant in the public eye, Eastwood has managed to create cultural icons of Godzilla proportions with the characters of The Man With No Name and Dirty Harry Callahan, yet he has also shown himself to be both a brilliant and sensitive director with films such as Bird, White Hunter, Black Heart, The Bridges of Madison County, and the Oscar winner Unforgiven.But Douglas Thompson does not shed any light whatsoever on the artist or business man (although he does let us know what Mayor Clint did for his beloved city of Carmel by the Sea), instead the author focuses on Eastwood's sketchy history of womanizing and the legal troubles stemming from his acrimonious break-up with longtime companion/lover, Sondra Locke.Only a slim, trim 199 pages in length, Clint Eastwood: Riding High is a quick read, but you will not come away with any greater understanding of this unquestionably unique Hollywood talent and legitimate Living Legend. ... Read more