The Whole Clint Eastwood - Spike Lee Flap

[Flashy]

Frankly, I think Spike is being a big whiner.

He used to be a talented director, but anyone think Spike engineered this whole flap just to get publicity for his new film about african american soldiers in WW2?

I mean think about it, he insults Eastwood's movies along a racial line. Clint responds that "he should shut his face", and points out that when he does moves about African Americans (like Bird, about Charlie PArker) he cast AA's and when he does movies about white people, he casts white people...

Predictably, instead of a rational response, Spike goes right to "he's not my father and we aren't on a plantation."

i mean seriously...anyone think this is a bit histrionic on Lee's part?

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here is the exchange in chronological order: first Spike Lee, talks about Clint with no provocation at the Cannes Film Festival where he was promoting his own WW2 film.

There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint for not having one [in the films]. That was his version: the negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version."..."Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen," Lee said. "If you reporters had any balls you'd ask him why. There's no way I know why he did that ... But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It's not like he didn't know."​

In an interview Eastwood answered back.

In typically outspoken language, Eastwood justified his choice of actors, saying that those black troops who did take part in the battle as part of a munitions company didn't raise the flag. The battle is known by the image of US marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi. "The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go: 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate." Referring to Lee, he added: "A guy like him should shut his face."..Defending the racial make-up in his films as historically accurate, Eastwood referred to another of his films, Changeling, which was set in Los Angeles before the city had a large group of African-Americans. "What are you going to do, you going to tell a fuckin' story about that?" he said. "Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I'm not in that game. I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is. When I do a movie and it's 90% black, like Bird, then I use 90% black people. "He was complaining when I did Bird (the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker). Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else."




(*note....there were black extras in Flags of our Fathers, shown on transports, since they were only allowed to participate as part of a munitions company due to the Armed Forces restrictions....this is a brief cutaway to show they were not, indeed totally ignored)


​

Eastwood told Focus when asked about Lee's criticism. "The U.S. military was segregated til the Korean War, and the blacks in World War Two were totally segregated. The only black battalion on Iwo Jima was a small munitions supply unit that came to the beach.-------------

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Clint finished by stating
Eastwood's next project, The Human Factor, will be about Nelson Mandela's attempts to foster national unity in post-apartheid South Africa. Asked if he would remain historically accurate with depictions of the former president, he said: "I'm not going to make Nelson Mandela a white guy."




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Spike Lee's response

"First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either," he told ABCNEWS.com. "He's a great director. He makes his films, I make my films. The thing about it though, I didn't personally attack him. And a comment like 'a guy like that should shut his face' -- come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there."
Lee has a proposal for Eastwood:
"If he wishes, I could assemble African-American men who fought at Iwo Jima and I'd like him to tell these guys that what they did was insignificant and they did not exist," he said. "I'm not making this up. I know history. I'm a student of history. And I know the history of Hollywood and its omission of the one million African-American men and women who contributed to World War II."


"Not everything was John Wayne, baby," Lee added.

"I never said he should show one of the other guys holding up the flag as black. I said that African-Americans played a significant part in Iwo Jima," he said. "For him to insinuate that I'm rewriting history and have one of the four guys with the flag be black … no one said that. It's just that there's not one black in either film. And because I know my history, that's why I made that observation."

"Even though he's trying to have a Dirty Harry flashback, I'm going to take the Obama high road and end it right here," he told ABCNEWS.com. "Peace and love."


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is it just me, or does Spike Lee want to just argue with everybody on the face of this earth?

I mean, nobody is denigrating the contributions of AA's to WW2...there are some great films about the Tuskegee Airmen and others who fought so bravely.

It's true that AA's and whites did not fight together in mixed units at the time

apparently, in the marines

AA's were not trained as the assault troops, but in nominally rear echelon functions, such as ammunition supply, orderlies and burial parties. The first waves of marines were attacked by the Japanese defenders after they had landed on the beaches.



In the chaos which followed, some of the black supply troops got mixed up with the fighting troops, and ended up fighting anyhow.



..........


Apparently 110,000 marines were sent to Iwo Jima, and official estimates of the AA contingent was around 900. In the supply companies like the Marine Depot Companies which had black Marines.

two black Marines were awared Bronze Stars for their actions as well.

so everyone knows they participated....but it Clint also didn't go into the heroic actions and those white troops who won awards that weren't involved in the flag raising either...


so what do you guys think?

is this fair criticism or just bitching and whining by Spike? After all, A native american was one of the flag raisers...is it such a big deal that Eastwood did not show some cutaways of AA's firing machine guns when he didn't show anyone else really fighting down on the beach as teh fight moved up Mt. Suribachi, and focused only on the company of guys who were in teh flag raising group?

Or is Spike just trying to stir up some publicity for himself?

Clint has always supported African americans in film, Forrest Whitaker, Morgan Freeman, has made movies about important

AA's like Bird about Charlie Parker....True Crime about a wrongly accused young africanamerican man, is making a film about Mandela...

Is this all bullshit?

 

[HazelGod]

Is this all bullshit?

It took you all that verbiage to arrive at this obvious conclusion? Dude, you need to shut your face. :biggrin1:

 

[Flashy]

I'll keep my face open, thanks :smile:

 

[Mem]

I heard something about this and it said that troops were segregated during that time, so it was not odd to show an all white platoon. The other movie was about the Japanese.

I liked that bank heist movie that Spike Lee did with Jodie Foster. In this case Spike is being a baby and trying to start trouble.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

It's all Spike Lee bullshit.

Eastwood has always been sensitive to the need to use genuine minority actors when a film of a given period required such.

It was not so long ago that nearly all of the Native American roles were played by white actors. Eastwood was one of the first to always put native actors in those roles.

Eastwood points out in what you've quoted above that the cast of Bird was dominated by African American actors ... because the people playing with Charlie Parker were African Americans.

Less than one percent of the Marines at Iwo Jima were black, and virtually none of them were on the fighting lines, where the movie focuses.

Eastwood cast Canadian native Adam Beach as Ira Hayes, and Beach speaks in only the most appreciative manner of Eastwood's humanity and kindness.

It's an insult to Eastwood, a slander, to say what Spike Lee says.

But Spike Lee has a very big mouth and a huge taste for press attention. I've enjoyed his movies but I don't like reading about him.

Some more about Eastwood: He raised much of the money that funded the Lester Young tribute movie, 'Round Midnight. He was executive producer on Straight No Chaser, a documentary on Thelonious Monk.

All kinds of jazz musicians, many of them black, came together for a Carnegie Hall concert in Eastwood's honor 12 years ago, a concert that, under the title of Eastwood After Hours, was consecrated to compact disc.

Eastwood is a huge man and deserves better than the guff that it seems Spike Lee has thrown his way.

 

[Flashy]

yes...^^^

in Outlaw Josey Wales he had Native AMerican actors long before it became "in vogue" around the time of Dances With Wolves about 17 years later

 

[Rendell]

why are we even discussing this here?
I don't see your point. They are both grown men let them work it out. sheesh

 

[b.c.]

I think I mentioned in this forum once before that I'm no fan of Spike Lee as a person (although I consider two of his movies Bamboozled and Malcom X sheer masterpieces).

His is a tendency to "shoot from the hip" too often. Controversy is more or less his middle name (and he seems to work hard at keeping it so).

 

[transformer_99]

Spike Lee has had some good movies, but he's a racist and uses that tool every chance he gets for his own gain. Guaranteed, race will always be an issue whenever he opens his mouth about his own movies and other's movies. Since the Knicks suck and nobody watches them, Reggie Miller retired too, the only way he can get air time is by playing the ("his") race card as usual. I don't empower him any more in that regard. If he makes a good movie I give him credit for it, but when he pulls this crap, it's kind of pathetic he's doing it. He's made his name and millions, I would avoid him if I were Clint Eastwood and not even give him any discussion back and forth. In 2008 (or even over the last 30 or so years), white caucasians especially can't win when the race card is brought up.

 

[mista geechee]

I heard something about this and it said that troops were segregated during that time, so it was not odd to show an all white platoon. The other movie was about the Japanese.

I liked that bank heist movie that Spike Lee did with Jodie Foster. In this case Spike is being a baby and trying to start trouble.

you mean inside man? tht was denzel. he was the only reason "x" (malcolm x) mad enay money and became as great as it is. a baby coulda directed it and it woulda been good simply cuz of denzel. but jungle fever was pretty good

 

[ZOS23xy]

Spike Lee lost much of his credibility when he tried to sue "Spike" TV for "using his name", despite that "Spike" was used by many others.

Spike in BUFFY. Spike in PEANUTS. Spike and Mike Cartoons. Spike as in railroad ties. SUGER AND SPIKE (DC Comics)---etc...

He's a publicity ho, and forgets that often other people know more than he does...

 

[Xcuze]

Spike Lee seems to think that black people are the only ones to have suffered throughout history. There's more slavery in the world today than ever before; eastern european women trafficked for prostitution in the west, African children trafficked for work & sex, Asian children used for the sex tourism industry etc etc But people like Spike still only want to use the word SLAVERY in the context of Whites enslaving Blacks. They've hijacked the word. What about the blacks in Africa trafficking their own children for cash? Go fight against that, Spike. But thats not a black/white issue so he's not interested. His chip on his shoulder proceeds him.