REPERCUSSIONS OF VIOLENCE IN THE FILMS OF CLINT EASTWOOD: THE CHANGING PARADIGM A Dissertation by CHARLES R. HAMILTON Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies Texas A&M University-Commerce in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2013 REPERCUSSIONS OF VIOLENCE IN THE FILMS OF CLINT EASTWOOD: THE CHANGING PARADIGM A Dissertation by CHARLES R. HAMILTON Approved by: Advisor: Gerald Duchovnay Committee: Gerald Duchovnay, Chair Eric Gruver M. Hunter Hayes Karen Roggenkamp Head of Department: Hunter Hayes Dean of the College: Salvatore Attardo Dean of Graduate Studies: Arlene Horne iii Copyright © 2013 Charles R. Hamilton iv ABSTRACT REPERCUSSIONS OF VIOLENCE IN THE FILMS OF CLINT EASTWOOD: THE CHANGING PARADIGM Charles R. Hamilton Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2013 Advisor: Gerald Duchovnay, PhD This dissertation shows how Clint Eastwood, as actor and director, uses cinematic techniques and violence to emphasize the repercussions of violence and its effects on all who come in contact with it. After examining aspects of violence in film history, I offer a brief sampling of the presentation of violence in Eastwood films prior to 1992, in particular his Spaghetti Westerns and Dirty Harry films. I then focus on how by the early 1990s Eastwood confronts how the violence in our culture is reflected in the lives of his characters in a way very different from his earlier films. With Unforgiven (1992), A Perfect World (1993), Mystic River (2003), and Gran Torino (2008), films within different time periods, environments, and socio- cultural groups, Clint Eastwood demonstrates how violence holds no prejudices and impacts everyone who comes in contact with it. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 1. A CHARACTER STUDY IN VIOLENCE ............................................................... 20 2. UNFORGIVEN ........................................................................................................... 42 3. A PERFECT WORLD ................................................................................................. 63 4. MYSTIC RIVER ......................................................................................................... 87 5. GRAN TORINO ........................................................................................................ 108 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 129 WORKS CITED ....................................................................................................................... 134 VITA ......................................................................................................................................... 142 1 INTRODUCTION As an actor, Clint Eastwood has had the attention of scholars and the media throughout his career. Following his critical acclaim as a director in Unforgiven (1992), some scholars (Michael Henry Wilson, William Beard, Laurence Knapp) and journalistic critics (James Berardinelli, Vincent Canby, Roger Ebert) began to look more closely at the film and Eastwood from new perspectives, and began to see what they perceived as an addition to the film's violence--a concentration on the consequences, or repercussions, suffered by all involved. In a 1992 interview with John Tibbetts, Eastwood explains the introduction of this emphasis as the central theme he wants to portray: "I think it's a time in my life and a time in history that maybe violence should not be such a humorous thing. Or that it should be portrayed without its consequences" (173). As his comments from the 1992 Tibbetts interview indicate, he is trying to convey a central theme beyond the simplicity of killing, or violence, to silence the "bad guy," moving past the redemption/regeneration aspect and on to the idea of repercussions for all involved. The repercussions spread far beyond the events depicted on screen, to affect entire communities within their reach. Eastwood's films since Unforgiven are now more reflexive and complicate the idea of violence and its repercussions. In addition to Unforgiven, this new attitude is seen in A Perfect World (1993), Mystic River (2003), and Gran Torino (2008), films that are the focus of this study. Eastwood's portrayal of repercussive violence begins to surface with White Hunter, Black Heart (1990), showcasing the violence of racism and brutality in colonial Belgian Congo. Although the story is about the events leading up to the filming of The African Queen (1951), the acts of violence Eastwood chooses to highlight within the film emphasize the repercussions of violence through close-ups of the smug, snobbish expressions of the white ruling class versus the 2 close-ups of anger and resentment on the faces of the natives forced to work for them. Scenes of whites attacking blacks in a soccer game, a white maître d beating and ridiculing a black waiter for spilling a tray of drinks, the fight between that maître d and Eastwood's character John Wilson (portraying director John Huston) prompted by the maître d's actions, culminate with the film's final scenes of Wilson's native friend and guide Kivo being trampled by an elephant while trying to protect the narcissistic Wilson. The repercussions of the violence in these final scenes is apparent in the stunned facial expression and robotic movements of Wilson as he trudges toward his director's chair, and in the stunned, blank expressions on the faces of the native villagers, who, after hearing Kivo has been killed protecting Wilson, begin the chant "white hunter, black heart." Even the other white members of the hunting party stare in solemn disgust and sadness at Wilson. Showing how violence affects everyone involved--not only the victims, but also the perpetrators--is something many critics, both scholarly and journalistic, have felt has been missing in Eastwood's films prior to 1990. In the 1970s his opinions on crime were fueled by the media's depiction of "America as a society besieged by violence," the increased level of fear in society, and the idea that crime is no longer someone else's problem. In "Violence and the Media: A Psychological Analysis," authors Javier, Herron, and Primavera write that because of this "preoccupation with violence" and the crime figures of the time period, the nation is left with the fear that anyone could be the next victim, and a foreboding tension that keeps all "wondering if our children will survive to adulthood" (Javier, Herron, Primavera). Russell Covey in "Criminal Madness: Cultural Iconography and Insanity" suggests that this is a constant theme in Eastwood's films: "Like the Dirty Harry films, the psycho-on-the-loose genre pointed an accusatory finger at the failure of social institutions to protect society" (1376). Eastwood 3 emphasized, in a 1984 interview with Michael Henry Wilson, what he saw as the frustrations of working class society during the 1960s and 1970s as their world became more complicated while the power of the bureaucracy grew: "There comes a time when you have to stop stalling. It's an extreme position, but that's where you get back to the irony: without it, the audience wouldn't go along. That's something I felt by instinct" (80). His "Dirty" Harry Callahan character stood for their rejection of that bureaucracy and a way to symbolically fight the system and bring order out of chaos. But, by the mid 1980s that character had begun to outlive his usefulness. Eastwood continued to make statements mentioning his desire for a change in his use of violence during a variety of interviews throughout the mid to late 1980s, but they remained comments that were not fully addressed until the 1990s. As to what could have created this desire for change, a look at timelines of violence and soaring crime figures in the United States, which was led by an under 20-year-old age group, beginning during the latter part of the 1980s and continuing into the early 1990s provide some plausible causes for Eastwood's reconsideration of violence in his films. At the same time the remnants of the Vietnam War were still a concern in the US. Wilson, this time in a 1986 interview, referred to these lingering concerns as a "trauma for the American people," who were frustrated by what Eastwood called an un-effective, un-trustworthy, government bureaucracy (Wilson 70). Born in 1930, Eastwood had grown up during the Great Depression and was too young for military service during World War II, but did serve his time in the army during the Korean War. His military training, and the work ethic he had learned from his father, are partially responsible for his need for order in society, and in his business life. That order was broken by a series of events during the 1960s, including the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, and the first US combat troops on ground in the Vietnam War in 4 1965. The confusion and turmoil surrounding Kennedy's death, the chaos of the race riots in Watts and Detroit, and demonstrations against the Vietnam War during the 1960s and 1970s, fueled his contempt for the bureaucracy within the US government, which he felt was responsible. His character of "Dirty" Harry Callahan was an example of that contempt that his working class audiences could identify with. During this phase of his career, and continuing into the 1980s, his clearly independent characters