Original subtitles

okay do one more and try to lift your head a little bit okay I don't deserve

this to die like this I was building a house deserves got nothing to do with

it Clint is a very learned Storyteller and roll it he always makes an interesting movie

always makes an interesting movie Always now push it towards him push it there you go CL wood films

have very happy companies and he comes in under schedule and he comes in under budget every single

time and the greatest influence he's had over me is that's something that I strive to do but

I I've never been able to do it as well as he has if you have a good screenplay you're 50% there and

if you cast it well you're at 40% on top of that and there's 10% of which you can screw it

up go ahead make my day for most actors being the biggest movie star in the world would be

enough but for Clen Eastwood a Restless desire to move behind the the camera started early when

I was a young contract player back in early 50s I used to go down to the sound stages at

Universal all the time and I was always curious about the directors and curious about how they

were putting it together and I uh I watch various shows you start uh finding out what

you like and what you don't like about various uh characteristics that directors have and uh

finally one day I started thinking I to try this myself as a fledgling director Eastwood

Drew inspiration from filmmakers he admired first and foremost his dirty hairy director Don seagull

Don was definitely the greatest influence for me Don was a guy who could get a lot of film

a lot on film with very little very little in the way of budgets and U I tried to grab that

now I don't shoot quite as lean as Don did but his influence on me was be decisive and

what you want to do and what your program is for the film he was he was terrific that way

he was a little different than Sergio who was another influence of mine as a well-established

television star Eastwood had tried without much success to break into feature films it

took a young director from Italy to see his big screen potential the director was Sergio Leone

he didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any Italian when we first met so there's a lot

of hand language going on back and forth which he was much better at cuz he's Italian than I'm

[Music] not I think Leone's uh influence was that

he had a very good visual sense as well as a sense of

humor he really liked Panorama and knew how to do Panorama and he was

bold he was extremely bold he's never afraid to try anything new

it was a great adventure when it happened and when it kind of clicked it was naturally a great

adventure for me because it led on to other things Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns made

Eastwood an international Superstar Hollywood was now anxious to be in the Clint Eastwood business

as he quickly discovered when pitching his debut film as director to the head of Universal Studios

in uh 1970 I found this script Play Misty For Me and I was just fascinated by it so I went to l

and uh said you got a project here that I'd love to do and uh I'd like to direct it and he said uh

yeah that's fine and I was completely surprised in fact I didn't know what to say because I was

expecting him to ask a lot of questions and he said sure that'd be fine and so I walked out of

the office and I walked down and and my agent Lenny heran was there with me and he came to

me and says yeah there's just one additional thing that they forgot to mention they don't want to pay

you anything I said they shouldn't pay me anything I'll pay them I should have to prove myself before

you worry about getting paid I I went ahead and did the picture and that became my first

film this is Dave Garver with a little verse little talk and

5 hours of music to be very very close to each

other I knew Clint as a humongous movie star just this International icon and

what changed me completely and I think changed most of the rest of Hollywood

was when all of us saw play Misti for me for the first time and realized that

there was a Storyteller not just an actor whose job it was to tell someone else's

stories it was very hitchcockian it was also modern it's one of those pictures where the

plot doesn't really matter after a while you like watching the film because you like the character

we like the development of how it escalates the story careful I might

put your eye out he kept the spirit I think of a classical Cinema of American

classical Cinema and translated it for his time have to get you all nice for

David for David and like he began to realize you know I could do this [Music]

with Don seagull's efficiency and decisiveness in one hand and Sergio Leone's boldness and dry wit

in the other Eastwood began a directing career firmly rooted in classic American Cinema Clint

goes back to the the studio days you know he is a kind of a throwback to the old days of of

uh of movie making the same appreciation we have for William Mara's films and certainly John Ford

and Howard Hawks is what I find in Eastwood I think maybe Clint is the last vestages of the

golden age of uh the the Hollywood studio film there's no doubt that he is the link from the

cinema that I grew up with and love to the modern day first of all the invisible editing there's a

Simplicity to the style I went off I bashed his head on the parking lot there blood everywhere

I might have killed him killed him his personality as a filmmaker is not forced on you and that for

me is in the tradition of a Wilder o Ford you the thing about Clint Eastwood is his films are put

together in a much more old-fashioned Hollywood style that style is gone it's not there the last

link I think is is uh with Eastwood like the filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age

for Eastwood movie making is storytelling the screenplay is Paramount he won't start a project

with half of a script or 2/3 of a script or 3/4 of a script just a whole script is done that's

what he's going to shoot he's not going to change a word in it he knows precisely what the story is

and he knows when he has it on film what Clint does is he takes a piece of material and and he

understands it in a very personal way if I like the material and I'm set to do the project what

I'll do is I'll go I'll read it uh I've read it a few times I'll sit and think about it a

while and then I'll wait maybe a couple weeks and then read it again my experience has been

I've watched his movies coming to life on location and that's why he doesn't like to have a lot of

script meetings he doesn't just want to talk it to death I tried to do some rewrites uh on U on

Unforgiven with David peoples and I and he said go ahead any anything you want to do with it and so

I started writing and writing and fooling with things and changing things and all of a sudden

I realized I was wrecking it so I called him up and I said forget what I said about that I said

I'm just going to shoot it the way it is the more I tamper with it I'm killing it with improvements

so you have to know when to get out of the way I really think that Clint only sees and hears the

movies when he gets onto location with the cast Clint Ewood sets are unlike those of any other

director reflecting the personality of the man at the top he himself generates the atmosphere he's a

very quiet man uh he's a very meticulous man he's a Charming Man and that goes right through the

entire company anybody who is going to work with Clint searches out the people who have to find out

if any of the stories are true it turns out they all are all of the stories are true he does not

say action he does not say cut hey stop get stop they don't even say rolling his crew is trained

to settle it down so if you're approaching the set when they're about to start doing a scene you see

all these people that go like this and that means we're rolling he has a very tight-knit crew of

people that he's been working with for years movie veterans so to speak wonderful thing working with

Clint is it's almost like the old Studio days you know I've been at it for 63 Years everybody

has worked with Clint and we all know each other so it's kind of like old home wake it's a great

team and then that's why I use them over and over again because I know they're reliable the terrific

respect that there is for all the workers all the technicians and the actor in front of the camera

well good afternoon gentlemen I'll have that 32 Bob I've done pictures before when I thought I

was absolutely brilliant all right cut next set up please okay move over here get that thing move

boom and you totally forgotten now little Bill you will leave me at the mercy of my enemies there's

no claim for what you have done but here it's the opposite to hear you do something well they

all say great the whole crew go great that's great great you know they they're willing you to succeed

you they care about what you're doing boss that little house we talked about a boss well smart

girl in his 50 years of Warner Brothers Eastwood has earned the right to take risks on subject

matter most directors would be afraid to touch Clint has been very fortunate in that he has an

arrangement with Warner Brothers and over the years because of his star power he's used that

power to do the kinds of movies that he wants to do Million Dollar Baby it's just you know

that's not the kind of movie that a studio would make I was thinking straight I'd go

back home find a used trailer buy a deep fryer and some Oreos the problem is this is the only

thing I ever felt good doing if I'm too old for this then I got nothing that enough truth

to suit you he knows what he wants he knows how to get it and he knows when he got it he didn't

sit around doing the four or five times and so that kind of energy uh it's almost I hate to use

this ter cuz Clint get pissed off of me it's not that's unpolished it's real well what about you

scrap what did your manager do you were a hell of a fighter a lot better than Willie he get

you a title fight or did he just bust you out banging your head against other people's fist

until you lost your eye I had my shot I went out swinging and no man can say I didn't yeah well

I remember and excuse me if I didn't want my fighter spending the second half of his life

cleaning up other people's spit yeah right right you're the smart one you're the one learning Greek

it's gelic well you just protected yourself out of a championship fight how do you say that in

gelic I remember something he said at that time which has always stayed with me he said

you always aim for the bullseye but you don't always hit it so it's a it's a nice thing when

it works out I think on the inside he's gripped with a passion to tell these stories he doesn't

exude the passion publicly but the passion only comes out in the developer that develops the

dailies all right I'm coming out any some [ __ ] takes a shot at me not only going

to kill him I'm going to kill his wife all his friends burn his damn house [Music] down

Eastwood Wood's passion for film making has never been more apparent than in his

greatest Western a film that turns the legend of the Mythic Gunslinger inside

out I was unfamiliar with the Clint Eastwood Cannon I think I had seen Play Misty For Me and

thought that was a great movie but I don't like the spaghetti westerns with all apologies it's

just not a genre that speaks to me but un given was really the film that that made me think my God

this is a great artist you'd be will your money out of Missouri Killer Women and Children that's

right I've killed women and children killed just about everything that walks or crawled

at one time or another and I'm here to kill you little Bill Unforgiven is a sort of a culmination

I think because he's not afraid there to take on a a really horrible character and say yes

that's me that's who I am you're the man who killed those women and children that's right

I thought Unforgiven talked about the regret of violence what's it like for anybody all

of a sudden look back on it one day and you say what the hell have I done I'm I'm

dying you want

oh don't tell nobody don't tell my kids none of the things I done you hear me all right

bill I would put Unforgiven in the category of classic for me uh you know with like you

know with Shane and with the Searchers and Red River because I felt it leaned on its literacy

although not technically a western cry much gave Eastwood the opportunity to revisit some

familiar terrain both geographical and emotional the thing that everybody loves to see is Clinton

a cowboy hat and on a horse he hasn't been on a horse since Unforgiven let's see if we're the

right leg like the first day that we filmed the scene of him up on the horse the crew on

they were just like all so excited it was a special moment he's back in the shadow again

good put your heels down your dad's going to be a happy man see that there's also Sparks for a

relationship with a woman in his life again okay I'm catching on to this stuff see it is

a love story yeah it's got that in it it's got a lot of different other aspects to it and audence

just has to kind of go along with the journey it's very touching and uh it gives you all of

those great iconic moments that you've seen in all other Eastwood films you want him to go and ride

horse off into the sunset yeah I hear you loud and [Music] clear the most amazing thing about Clint

Eastwood is among all of us you know Clint is the most eclectic his stories change his approach to

visual storytelling changes he's a chameleon and that he adapts to the book or to the screenplay

and the script dictates his style and so he changes up because Clint like my old Heroes of you

know people like the Michael czes and the Victor Flemings of the world Clint to me fell into that

genre where a filmmaker could change his style and surprise us and never come out of the same

hole brace for impact [Applause]