Spike Lee Criticizes CE for Failing to Portray Black Troops in Iwo Jima Films

[higashimori]

    " CLINT EASTWOOD - EASTWOOD TELLS LEE TO 'SHUT HIS FACE' "

                 http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/eastwood%20tells%20lee%20to%20shut%20his%20face_1070706

[KC]

Thanks, Higashimori. For once, Contactmusic.com gives the source of its story: England's The Guardian. Here is the link to the original interview by Jeff Dawson, published today, June 6.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,2283921,00.html

It's about the 10,000th Eastwood interview to bear the title "Dirty Harry Comes Clean."

[Glenny]

- Eastwood Tells Lee To 'Shut His Face'

 We still have a classic Clint

[GBU]

Haha. This is fantastic. Glad someone finally decided to put Lee in his place. Glad is was our man who did it.

[WeAllHaveItCominKid]

- Eastwood Tells Lee To 'Shut His Face'

 We still have a classic Clint

I love it! I'm happy Clint's not backing down to Lee. These comments are ridiculous by Spike Lee.

[Glenny]

I think Lee is just jealous because his movies suck.
BTW: GBU, that is the best avatar I've ever seen.

[Perry]

You think Lee is mad now??? Wait till he finds out Eastwood is doing the Mandela movie with Freeman. LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[higashimori]

    Once again !

       " Spike Strikes Back: Clint's 'an Angry Old Man' "
                 Lee Lashes Out at Eastwood: 'The Man Is Not My Father and We're Not on a Plantation'

                       http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=5015524&page=1

[KC]

Just how many black soldiers did Spike Lee expect Clint to show in Letters from Iwo Jima, which was narrated entirely from the Japanese point of view?

As for Flags of Our Fathers ... I don't know how it could be made any plainer to Spike. Flags of Our Fathers was not the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima. It was the story of the three surviving soldiers who raised the flag in the famous photograph. Two of them were white, and one was a Native American. Because the U.S. Armed Forces were still segregated, there were no black soldiers in their units, fighting alongside them. It would falsify history to suggest there had been.

[KC]

"He did two films about Iwo Jima back to back and there was not one black soldier in both of those films," Lee told reporters at Cannes.

Spike needs to take another look at Flags of Our Fathers. It's a good movie, Spike, it won't hurt a bit ... I promise.




(Same frame, cropped to show the faces better):

[Richard Earl]

Clint put Spike in his place. I love it.

[Hammerhead]

From that Guardian interview, lol.

But there's one film project on the cards that might interest Spike Lee. Eastwood's next project, The Human Factor, is about Nelson Mandela and how he used the country's victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup as a means of fostering national unity. Will he be sticking with the historical record on that one? He laughs. "Yeah, I'm not going to make Nelson Mandela a white guy."

[/quot

[Lucky Punk]

This is sad stuff.

Two important American directors in a public spat, admittedly of Spike's making.

Spike does have a worrying tendency to see a racial slight in places where none is intended. He does become wearisome at times with this attitude, having said that he obviously cares deeply that African Americans are better served in media.

I would think it is obvious from Clint's work over the years that he sees race as less important than how a person acts as an individual. His movies have many black performers in very prominent roles and very little stereotyping ( apart from Albert Popwell's pimp in Magnum Force ).

However I'm surprised at Clint's "shut his face" retort. I would have hoped for more diplomacy from the big man regardless of the provocation.

[KC]

Is anyone else having trouble seeing the two frame caps I posted on the previous page? They finally loaded for me, but very slowly.

[The Schofield Kid]

Is anyone else having trouble seeing the two frame caps I posted on the previous page? They finally loaded for me, but very slowly.

No trouble here. Not slow at all.

[Perry]

Wow...I never even noticed that in the movie. Very Good work. Look, nothing for nothing, Lee is basically just stirring up hype just to try to sell his next project. From a personal objective I think this might be the first time I heard Eastwood reply back to a source from another Actor or Director. I'm sure he had his chances over the years, but I guess he had to this time.

Lee's a loser anyway. I guess being a Knick fan does that to you.

[BlueSheltie]

Kudos to Clint Eastwood.  I am not racist but I am so sick of those who use the mere existence of one race or another to make history "politically correct."  History is what it is - leave it alone.  You may not like the way things happened and you may have issues with the way decisions were made, but the heroism of those men belongs to them and them alone.  Do not insert persons into the picture just to succumb to pressure from one race or another.  I am 40 years old and I LOVE Clint - have for years and enjoy seeing people in the news who stand for what they believe and what is right.  Thanks for all of the wonderful memories Clint (past and future).

[The Cleaner]

I don't believe the supposed remarks of Mr. Eastwood really came from him. Sounds more like a made up article, from some newsperson looking to stir up trouble. Sounds like the comments might come from a character Clint would portray but not the real Mr. Eastwood. Unless he were just in a bad mood and having a lousy day when an interviewer asked his opinion.
They are both brilliant directors in their own right.
And I don't think either would stoop to this type of behaviour if it were not hard times all over. A good time for rat like reporters to creep out from under rocks and hound popular figures at less than becoming moments for their insights and opinions. People can be so petty and stupid.
Like Clint said recently, I may never be able to fathom how cruel humanity may be.
I am grateful for many works by either director. Clint is my favorite.
But I'll not participate in making him out to be a monkey like Clyde.

[James Jeffrey Paul]

Spike Lee has fired the latest salvo in this war.

Quote:

Drawing on his two degrees from universities in Atlanta and New York, he added: "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 the second world war. Not everything was John Wayne, baby."

Lee accused Eastwood of ignoring other critics who picked up on the absence of black soldiers when Flags of Our Fathers premiered.

Thomas McPhatter, a US marines sergeant who crawled up the landing beach under a hail of Japanese fire, was one of hundreds of black servicemen involved in the attack.

He said: "Of all the movies that have been made of Iwo Jima, you never see a black face. This is the last straw. I feel like I've been denied, I've been insulted, I've been mistreated. But what can you do? We still have a strong underlying force in my country of rabid racism."

Lee pounced on Eastwood's derision of the idea that a token black American should have been included in the famous scene, where the Stars and Stripes, on a makeshift pole, is hoisted aloft on the island.

He said: "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.

"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."

This leaves plenty of further ammunition if the row deepens, as McPhatter, who became a US navy lieutenant commander and served in the Vietnam war, does claim a black American took part in Iwo Jima flag-raising. Not in the actual dramatic moment, immortalised by the Marines Corps memorial at Arlington national cemetery, but by providing a flagpole. "The man who put the first flag up on Iwo Jima got a piece of pipe from me to put the flag up on," he said.

American academic Melton McLaurin has also used interviews in his history of the 35-day battle which suggested that newsreel photographers in the front line "deliberately turned their cameras away when black folks came by".

Lee however promised to draw a line under the bitter war of words, alluding to the tone of the bid for the White House of Barack Obama, who went to see Lee's Do The Right Thing on his first date with his wife Michelle. Lee said of Eastwood: "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. Peace and love."

(end snip)

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2284542,00.html

[Perry]

Lee's a brilliant Director?..lmaooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!