Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy | Episode 4: Reinventing the Western | Warner Classics

First as an actor, then as a director, Clint Eastwood has rewritten the history of the Western in his own image. From The Man With No Name striding across the windswept landscapes of Italy… to Josey Wales, the reluctant leader with greatness thrust upon him… to the ghostly preacher of Pale Rider, avenging evil and then dissolving into the smoky haze of the past… Eastwood’s Westerns have defined the genre for decades. In what may be his final Western, he tapped a career’s worth of wisdom in a performance of staggering power and humanity, playing a gunfighter tortured by the violent demons of his past in Unforgiven.
About Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy:
Tough guy. Western star. Oscar winner. Few artists in film history cast a longer shadow than Clint Eastwood. As he enters his eighth decade in the movies, Warner Bros. celebrates this cinematic icon - actor, producer, director, master filmmaker - with a nine-episode docuseries covering the entire breadth of Eastwood's career.
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#ClintEastwood #BehindTheScenes #Westerns

[@chetandabholkar7489]

Clint Eastwood..is Clint Eastwood..he is a legand..My best Hero..ever..God bless him...

[@randykarl4351]

Me too, 🥂🥂 cheers

[@sammywestenberger9303]

JOSEY: Yeah 👍

[@MIKELIN8]

The Outlaw Josey Wales is my favorite Eastwood movie, and my favorute Western movie.

[@brandonhughes8793]

That Clint Eastwood scowl, I'll never ever forget it.

[@chrispopsjunior8978]

The greatest actor/director of them all... Outside of the Dollars trilogy (greatest trilogy of all time!!), The Outlaw Josey Wales is my favourite out of all his classics

[@elskeletor3566]

I own all of Clint Eastwood Westerns along with Dirty Harry, The two Every Which You Can and Every Which Way but Loose. Clint Eastwood is one of my all time favorite actors.

[@dorian_aguayo]

If you haven't seen Heartbreak Ridge I highly recommend it 👌

[@elskeletor3566]

@dorian_aguayo I love Heartbreak Ridge it's one of my favorite Military Movies. Kelly's Heroes is another Great One

[@johneastwood3039]

I know DVD's are old fashioned now, but I have an urge to own a copy of every Eastwood movie.

[@elskeletor3566]

@johneastwood3039 I own physical media because I can watch those movies whenever I want to. DVD or Blu-ray buy used or new but own your own movie collection.

[@michaelmonthey5974]

Unforgiven is not only the best western Clint has ever done, it’s the best western ever made.

[@dougreed2257]

I consider 'the outlaw josey wales" his best western,and i doubt"unforgiven" is the best western ever😮

[@michaelmonthey5974]

@ I love The Outlaw Josey Wales and all the other westerns he did, but Unforgiven is his crown jewel. All the other westerns, especially the John Wayne ones, tend to romanticize the Old West and glorify violence, but Unforgiven tosses these tropes out the window and portrays the Old West as it actually was. An unforgiving place.

[@azohundred1353]

​@@michaelmonthey5974Unforgiven did nothing that previous deconstructions of the genre didn't already do. Such as The Wild Bunch, Once Upon A Time In The West, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and McCabe and Mrs. Miller, to name a few. Even Clint's own directed film, High Plains Drifter. What makes Unforgiven so well regarded is it being Clint's swan song in the western genre, the Oscar campaigning that he did for it, and the great acting, but the plot wasn't exactly original. The plot of Unforgiven is awfully similar to Shane. A gunman with a violent past is forced to return to his ways, kills the bad guys, and rides off. The same morals about violence were already spoken about in countless westerns already. Clint's character in Unforgiven is not the first anti-hero to be in a western, it's not even the first one that Clint played. And many people say that Shane is a "typical white hat black hat" but by the logic of fans that say Unforgiven is revisionist, then so is Shane. Also, people always say "John Wayne westerns" as if he was the one directing them from his ideas. His best westerns were directed by Howard Hawks and John Ford, not him. Wayne is almost 3 decades older than Clint and came up in a different age of Hollywood barred by the Hays code of censors and restrictions, not to mention a different era of a movie audience. But even with that, John Wayne still played gritty anti-heroes. Red River (1948) has him a tyrannical cattle rancher that kills his own disobedient workers, like a Captain Bligh of the Old West. The Searchers has him as an obsessive, hateful gunman out for revenge that shoots the eyes out of his enemies and scalps their heads. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has him as a gunman willing to shoot another in the back before they can get anybody else. Even The Gunfighter with Gregory Peck (1950) handled similar themes like Unforgiven, forty years before it. And by the way, David Webb Peoples, who wrote Unforgiven, said that film was one of the biggest influences on it, so it's not like the writer came up with these ideas by himself out of nowhere either. The Ox-Bow Incident with Henry Fonda had a strong gritty tone with the same anti west feeling, and that was the forties. Not to mention Fort Apache, where Henry Fonda played a borderline psychotic Colonel that leads the cavalry to their doom. None of these examples are exactly glamorous depictions of the Old West. And The Wild Bunch was one of the most brutal depictions of the Old West ever and did it 23 years before Unforgiven. All of these examples showed the Old West in quite a cynical tone and the message of "violence begets violence" and "not everyone is a hero" is in all of them. Don't take this as a bashing of Unforgiven, it is still a masterpiece, but fans of the film shouldn't rewrite cinematic history and act like no film of the Western genre ever subverted, deconstructed, or showed the cynicism and brutality of the Old West before. That is simply a false statement. So many video essays falsely claim every western before Unforgiven was all "white hat black hat" as if everything was only Roy Rogers' movies before, which is a ridiculous claim. It's fine if it's your favorite western, but you don't have to pretend that it's the only western of nuance ever made to say it's your favorite. Anyway, that's my take on it. I mean no disrespect and also think all 4 of the Westerns Clint Eastwood directed are masterpieces. High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider in particular are quite unique with the supernatural element that he brought to this characters in those ones. Clint Eastwood is an absolute legend and icon of cinema.

[@michaelmonthey5974]

@@azohundred1353You made an excellent point. I have actually seen all of these other westerns you mentioned, even the least discussed ones like The Ox Bow Incident and The Gunfighter. These are also terrific westerns that separated themselves from the conventions of the genre. Realizing this, Unforgiven may not have come up with these ideas first, but I think it still does something completely different. Unlike Shane, The Gunfighter, or even Clint’s previous westerns, where the protagonist may have had a violent history but only killed bad guys and we root for him from beginning to end, William Munny actually murdered innocent people, especially women and children. We were supposed to root for his redemption until he comes in and shoots people in the bar in cold blood. The first man he kills was unarmed, then he easily kills Little Bill’s deputies, which were least experienced in a gunfight. Then he literally blows the defenseless Little Bill’s head off at close range with Ned’s rifle. What happens after the fight is even more chilling. Unlike many westerns where the hero gets a satisfying ending and rides off into the sunset, Will threatens to kill everyone in town if they don’t bury Ned and rides off into the darkness on a stormy night, which shows that the supposed “hero” in this story has completely given in to his evil side. Also, while he is making his threats, you can see the American flag in the background. To me, that scene is symbolic of our country’s history of violence, particularly in that period. I don’t know any other westerns that end like that, which is partly why I still think Unforgiven is everything a great western movie should be.

[@johneastwood3039]

My two favourite westerns are Rio Bravo and Unforgiven. Ironically 2 very different westerns.

[@shaneday2255]

Tom Cruise is our last movie star. Clint is our last movie Icon.

[@kopec82]

You love Clint so much that you put his last movie in 20 theaters in the US? He is Icon and extremely talented director and story teller for over how many decades? And you b,idk his last two movies cause he won’t bend his knees to the woke ? You don’t deserved him! Shame on you Warner!

[@michaelmonthey5974]

If Clint decides he wants to do another movie, he should leave WB and approach A24 or Universal who would say yes to a wide theatrical release.

[@Rossatron]

The most important remaining figure linking modern Hollywood to the golden age. The best to ever do it. A true legend. A huge part of my new series, Action Rewind: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYSTqXarjK5rpLM

[@SaltySouthTexan]

The outlaw Josey Wales and Unforgiven….my personal Clint favorites

[@TheRambhupal]

My favorite artist❤

[@kentborges5114]

CLINT...THEE BEST !

[@JohannesYtterstrom]

I am looking forward to his new movie Juror #2!

[@michaelmonthey5974]

I am too. I would have seen it sooner if it got a nation wide theatrical release.

[@RTBcinematography]

High Plains Drifter is an excellent western

[@jrz.zrj1461]

Yes, Eastwood is a LEGEND. Fact. That said, how about letting Juror #2 play in more theaters?

[@krisrenner8952]

Clint Eastwood is just the best...A lcon on a different level.

[@BrianCarnevaleB26]

As an actor, he was also a student of film simultaneously. Many go down this path in many aspects. I was a laborer for A Brick Mason. Then I became a Mason by watching & learning a trade. Many work & earn but also learn. It is taking it to the next level that completes the circle. But without motivation, creativity, and a mindset to improve one's standing that separates one from another. He learned as he earned, like many of the regular working folk of yesterday. Hardly at all today. So glad I came up in yesterday's world, makes being old now so worth it

[@connormcleod9595]

Icon

[@michaelmonthey5974]

It’s kinda a shame that John Wayne never wanted to collaborate with Clint for some petty reason. It would have been cool to see the two of them together onscreen.

[@johneastwood3039]

They hung out together a few times. There's pictures of them together on set in 1969 when Clint was filming Paint your wagon and Wayne was filming True Grit. There's also a picture together when Clint visited Wayne while he was filming The Shootist.

[@michaelmonthey5974]

@ That’s kinda interesting considering Wayne’s disapproval of his westerns, particularly High Plains Drifter. Maybe Wayne was just being friendly to his face whenever he came across Clint.

[@johneastwood3039]

@@michaelmonthey5974 I was surprised to see those pictures too. There's photo's of them together in 69 and 76. So they hung out both before and after High Plains Drifter. I don't know if links work on here but if you type in on google images Clint eastwood Celebrating The Duke’s 40 years in film and that Paramount gathering, it should come up.

[@garywagner2466]

Wayne was an arrogant jerk to many people. It happens when Hollywood legends start to believe their own press.

[@johneastwood3039]

@@garywagner2466 Wayne was a much better role model than the woke mob we have today.

[@ElizeuMoraes-n8k]

Por um punhado de dolares meu filme favorito de clint Eastwood

[@michaelmonthey5974]

Rest In Peace, Albert S. Ruddy! He produced two movies with Clint, Cry Macho (his last film as producer) and Million Dollar Baby (which he won his 2nd and last Oscar). Clint gave him his first Oscar in 1973 for producing The Godfather. He also co-created Hogan’s Heroes and Walker, Texas Ranger.

[@LuxCyanoFilmes]

Mestre!

[@redcomet0079]

He’s the greatest western star who ever lived He towers over John Wayne, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, John Ford, Ben Johnson, Kevin Costner, and Sam Elliott

[@SaltySouthTexan]

No one, and I mean no one Towers over The Duke and the massive amount of movies and hits and longevity John Wayne had. Love Clint Eastwood, but their is no comparison in the Western genre, your statement borders on Blasphemy

[@redcomet0079]

@ Clint Eastwood > your bf “the duck” 👌 cry more kid 😭🤣

[@JupiterThunder]

"Do you, uh, imbibe, Reverend?" "Only after nine in the morning" Pale Rider

[@TheKingThewidowandRick777]

Fonda turned A Fistful of Dollars (1964) (yes pun intended) but it was more like the studio turned it down because they didn't think they could afford to cast a A list Hollywood star in a foreign film that was ultimately under budget the role of The Man With No Name was offered also to Richard Harrison and Rawhide's star Eric Fleming both of whom recommended Eastwood who of course got the role.

[@azohundred1353]

They always say "this Western was so different than typical ones" and then show examples of westerns that themselves subverted the genre already. The truth is, before Unforgiven, Sam Peckinpah subverted the western with The Wild Bunch, Sergio Leone subverted it with Once Upon A Time In The West, and John Ford subverted it before all of them with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. This documentary referring to The Searchers as "conventional storytelling" when Frank Darabont is speaking is misleading and shows a lack of knowledge of the genre. It is often referred to by film historians as an early revisionist western, including by Martin Scorsese himself, who's in this. Anthony Mann also made a series of westerns which featured Jimmy Stewart as an anti-hero in the 1950's even during hays code restrictions. Sergio Leone didn't invent the anti-hero. Even Kurosawa was doing them before. Also, showing Rio Bravo as a quintessential example of a white-hat black-hat western when anybody that studies film knows Howard Hawks was more interested in making a Hang-out comedy with it than he was a morally grey western, and he had already done that with Red River prior which did have an anti-hero as the protagonist. With this logic, what would make Unforgiven any different than Shane? The plots are almost identical. A gunman that wants to leave his violent past has to go back to his ways and take out bad guys. And they do, and then they ride away after, giving a overall lesson about violence. Exact same story, just because someone wants to insist to you that it's "not like anything before" doesn't mean that's correct. The problem is when people over analyze westerns, they constantly say "The one I like is better because it's different" without having a fundamental knoweledge of of the genre and not realizing it really isn't different. At the end of the day, they tend to be great Westerns because Clint himself brought so much to the genre in terms of charisma, performance and making in theme a different aesthetic era of cinema. People need to stop tearing an entire film genre down and over-analyzing their particular favorites because they want ot hear or tell others how it's the best. With all that said, Clint Eastwood made masterpieces of the genre. All 4 of them, High Plains Drifter, Josey Wales, Pale Rider, and Unforgiven. And I hope his new film, Juror #2, gets the praise and screening that it deserves.

[@ralphintheshadowrealm7002]

All these Clint uploads feels like WB doing damage control for shafting Clint’s LAST EVER film out of a wide release to shove to streaming ASAP

[@Annie-ez4ol]

John Wayne couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag.

[@davidhudson5452]

Hope he does another film

[@HussainFu]

U r 2 late

[@sammywestenberger9303]

JOESY: Yes 🙌 Sir!

[@michaelmonthey5974]

I hope so too, hopefully not for Warner Bros thing time.

[@illinoismotionpicturestudi5065]

7:28 What's sitting on his desk that's so important to censor? lmao

[@CthulhuInc]

good call having mel gibson lead off this video 🤣

[@randykarl4351]

We like Mel Gibson too

[@matthewmoreno00]

Come to think of it he never really made a western movie, how come?!

[@Wolfinger1935]

@@matthewmoreno00 Maverick?

[@subject20productions2]

H P Lovecraft much?😂

[@xXLordoftheRingsXx22]

Mel is the man. Like Clint is. Last of a dying breed

[@redcomet0079]

Gene Hackman whining about “violence” when he had starred in the French connection 20 yrs prior 🙄🙄

[@frederickJC]

Mel Gibson's takes were a little odd..

[@alaooooy7]

9:35

[@shaicohen2]

Mel Gibson? Not watching.

[@Chertoff88]

You're contradicting things Clint himself has said.

[@wajidleeky786]

Clint eastwood is overrated

[@motazgamesmovies3882]

I don’t agree , he deserve all that Clint is western legend