I'm Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln...
and this is Frame By Frame. And I want to speak for a few moments about Clint Eastwood.
Clint Eastwood as a director has made an amazing number of films...
starting with his first film as a director, "Play Misty For Me"...
"Million Dollar Baby," "Unforgiven." He's been a star and a director for many years.
One of his most iconic films was "Unforgiven," which won him the Academy Award for Best Director...
and Best Picture... is one of the best westerns ever made.
CLINT EASTWOOD: "Just cause we're going on this killing,
that don't mean I'm going to go back....to being the way I was."
The other great thing about Clint Eastwood is that he has aged quite honestly on the screen...
Rather than trying to pretend that he's still in his 40s or in his 50s, and that presence still radiates on the screen.
And in one of his most recent films, "Gran Torino," which he says may be last film as an actor...
he effective used that.
GANG MEMBER: "Go back in the house!"
CLINT EASTWOOD: "Yeah. I blow a hole in your face and then I go in the house. And I sleep like a baby...
You can count on that."
And Clint Eastwood, along with Woody Allen, is one of our two most American original directors.
Both of them still make films entirely the way they want to.
They make them quickly and economically so they're pretty much left alone (by the studios).
Their films make money, and they're also very well-accepted by the critics...
And I think that Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen... although they have nothing else in common...
are both two of the greatest American directors working right now...
and making the most individual and interesting projects in the cinema today.
I'm Wheeler Winston Dixon, and this is Frame By Frame.
