Clint Eastwood is the only actor to win the Oscar for
directing twice, and his most recent victory, Million
Dollar Baby, is just out on DVD. Eastwood stars
as an old boxing trainer who reluctantly takes on a female boxer (Hilary
Swank) and puts her on the road to a championship. Baby is one of the better sports
films because it’s more of a human drama that turns in an unexpected
direction and because Eastwood avoids the obvious clichés. Reaction
to the film was a bit strange. Critics lauded it as a masterpiece, but
right-wing pundits vilified it as liberal propaganda. Both views smack of
overreaction. Baby is
certainly a well-constructed and well-acted drama, but I just can’t
see it as the best film of 2004. Perhaps if Hollywood hadn’t
forgotten the fine art of making serious dramas, then more competition
could have changed the landscape.
Eastwood has come a long way since his debut year in
movies, in which he had uncredited roles in Revenge
of the Creature and Tarantula, and he’d probably
like to forget his credit for appearing in Francis
in the Navy. His co-starring role in the TV
series Rawhide led
to his major breakthrough in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti-Western
trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad
and the Ugly (1966). Eastwood cited Leone as
one of his main directorial influences, along with Don Siegel, who began
Eastwood’s other legendary movie series as director of Dirty Harry (1971).
Eastwood’s long run as a major star has included
numerous hits, but, as with any successful actor, some of his best work
seems to have slipped by. When Eastwood unexpectedly ventured into comedy
with the mediocre Every Which Way but Loose (1978) it became his biggest hit, but when he followed that
with a good comedy, Bronco Billy (1980), audiences stayed away. Eastwood stars as a
modern-day cowboy who runs a traveling Wild West show. Bronco Billy is basically a lazy
slice-of-life comedy focusing on a quirky group of characters. In that
respect it bears a slight resemblance to Million
Dollar Baby.
Eastwood’s grizzled old-timer in Baby appeared earlier in
another incarnation as a dying Depression-era country singer in Honkytonk Man (1982). Much like
Bronco Billy, Honkytonk Man is a road film in
which Red Stovall (Eastwood) heads for Nashville for one last shot at
stardom in the Grand Ole Opry. Some of the elements that made Baby a huge success are present
in both films, which Eastwood also directed, and I would rank them among
his best work. Eastwood will next direct, but not star in, Flags of Our Fathers, about the
raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima.
DVDs scheduled for release Tuesday
(July 19): Constantine, Ice Princess, and Man of the
House.
This article appears in Jul 14-20, 2005.
