Thanks, David.
Toochis
--- David Kusumoto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Well lookee here:
>
> I just found, buried on page three of the BACK
> section of today's Arts &
> Leisure -- a BETTER story about Clint -- appearing
> in print, in the same
> paper, on the same day.
>
> If it had been up to me, I would've put David Carr's
> story below about Clint
> on the front page and pushed Frank Rich into some
> corner where nobody would
> notice.
>
> After reading this, you will love Clint more.
>
> -d.
>
> ------------------
>
> NEW YORK TIMES
> February 13, 2005
> Clint Eastwood, Still Fighting for the Green Light
> By DAVID CARR
>
> BURBANK, Calif. -- FIVE times in a dozen years,
> Clint Eastwood, director,
> has given Warner Brothers, a studio otherwise short
> on Oscar winners, a
> ticket to the Academy Awards.
>
> He directed a best picture, "Unforgiven," in 1993
> and two years ago
> delivered a best picture nominee, "Mystic River."
>
> Meryl Streep received an acting nomination for his
> "Bridges of Madison
> County," a 1995 Warner film.
>
> Even "Space Cowboys," the old-guy space romp he made
> for the studio in 2000,
> picked up a nomination for its sound effects.
>
> But the green light still doesn't come easy for a
> 74-year-old pro who has
> called the Warner lot his professional home since
> 1975, and has now
> produced, directed and/or starred in some 30
> pictures for the company since
> "Dirty Harry" in 1971.
>
> When Mr. Eastwood proposed his "Million Dollar
> Baby," the studio balked,
> citing audience aversion to boxing pictures, just as
> it had first turned
> down "Mystic River," a crime-and-friendship story
> that was first deemed too
> dark. Warner executives only budged when an outside
> financier, Lakeshore
> Entertainment, agreed to share the cost.
>
> In the shadow of a large sign boasting of the
> picture's seven Academy Award
> nominations, including best picture and best
> director, the studio president,
> Alan F. Horn, is more than happy to eat some crow.
>
> "If I were sitting here talking about how I let
> 'Million Dollar Baby' go to
> another studio, I would be more than chagrined," he
> said. "In retrospect,
> his instincts were right, stunningly right. At the
> end of the day, and
> sometimes these are very long days, we did the
> pictures."
>
> Never simple, often tested, sometimes downright
> tense, the marriage between
> Mr. Eastwood and his home studio has ultimately
> proved to be an
> astonishingly productive relationship in an industry
> that defines a
> three-year contract as a long-term deal.
>
> To Warner, the aging Mr. Eastwood - who started in
> Sergio Leone's spaghetti
> westerns and became embedded in American
> consciousness as Dirty Harry - has
> brought unexpected cachet, along with hundreds of
> millions of dollars in
> revenue over the years.
>
> The actor-turned-filmmaker and Warner have not
> always been on the same page
> of the script. But with the kind of bumps and
> pushback one comes to expect
> from a lifelong mate, the partnership has somehow
> wrung the best from a
> blue-collar auteur who, well into his 70's, makes
> good to great movies with
> the constancy of a factory worker.
>
> Asked about Warner's reluctance over "Million Dollar
> Baby," Mr. Eastwood
> sounded crusty but not bitter.
>
> "I explained to them that it wasn't a boxing movie,
> it was a love story," he
> said, "but I must say, other studios had the same
> opinion, although many of
> them had expressed interest in working with me. I
> told them, 'Hey, I'm not
> the kind that looks good in tights or can play a
> superhero,' and if they
> don't want to do this, and they don't want to do
> dramas, why are they even
> in the movie business?"
>
> By and large, the Warner-Eastwood relationship
> operates on a handshake. Mr.
> Eastwood has no overriding contractual commitment to
> the studio, but works
> picture by picture, and will do his next, "Flags of
> Our Fathers," for
> DreamWorks SKG, with some Warner backing.
> (DreamWorks owns the rights to the
> story.)
>
> But the comfort of Mr. Eastwood's connection to
> Warner's sprawling Burbank
> lot was apparent in a recent visit to Mr. Eastwood's
> office on the lot, the
> bungalow once used by Harry Warner and now home to
> the filmmaker's Malpaso
> Productions, even amid the slight buzz of Oscar
> electricity.
>
> His wife, Dina Ruiz Eastwood, stopped in and quietly
> giggled with the staff
> about what clothing and jewelry she would wear to
> the Oscars while Mr.
> Eastwood took press calls in his office. She turned
> down the $10,000 loaner
> watch in favor of her own $60 watch that keeps time
> just fine:
> understatement is one of the cornerstones of the
> Eastwood franchise.
>
> After a few minutes, Mr. Eastwood emerged from his
> office in the back of the
> bungalow and his wife asked him if she should pick
> up anything at the
> market. "Let me see - Viagra, Levitra and, yeah,
> some Cialis," he deadpanned
> to shrieks of laughter from the staff and Ms.
> Eastwood.
>
> He can make that kind of joke, not just because he
> has seven children,
> including an 8-year-old daughter, but also because
> he is not given to
> anxiety over his image. He has no press agent. "At a
> certain point, you are
> who you are," he said, smiling. As an actor and a
> director, he has conjured
> up many men who seem imprisoned by regret, but he
> seemingly has none.
>
> Mr. Eastwood sank into a couch sideways and
> immediately stretched his feet
> to reach a table, appearing to have all the time in
> the world. And 34 years
> after directing his first film, "Play Misty for Me"
> - for which Universal
> Pictures paid him nothing, but gave him a percentage
> - he talked
> straightforwardly about the process, his Warner
> relationship included.
>
> "On the one hand, it's nice that people think enough
> of the movie to
> nominate it, but on the other, we never started out
> with that thought in
> mind," he said of "Million Dollar Baby," fishing out
> a pocketknife and
> extracting a pick for his teeth.
>
> With a Directors Guild award for his work on the
> film and momentum going
> into the Academy Awards, Mr. Eastwood is in the
> midst of some sweet revenge
> on his home studio. It put him through the wringer
> before signing off on
> "Mystic River" several years ago, although he is far
> too courtly to say as
> much.
>
> "In the end, they said we will give you so much
> money and pay you a
> percentage," he recalled. "I had to laugh. I told my
> agent I was right back
>
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