Clint Eastwood's America - Book due 22/11/2013

[JSE]

Another book which is due for publication on 22nd November 2013. This summary taken from Amazon's description:

The steady rise of Clint Eastwood’s career parallels a pressing desire in American society over the past five decades for a figure and story of purpose, meaning, and redemption. Eastwood has not only told and filmed that story, he has come to embody it for many in his public image and film persona. Eastwood responds to a national yearning for a vision of individual action and initiative, personal responsibility, and potential for renewal. An iconic director and star for his westerns, urban thrillers, and adventure stories, Eastwood has taken film art to new horizons of meaning in a series of masterpieces that engage the ethical and moral consciousness of our times, including  Unforgiven ,  Million Dollar Baby , and  Mystic River . He revolutionized the war film with the unprecedented achievement of filming the opposing sides of the same historic battle in  Flags of Our Fathers  and  Letters from Iwo Jima , using this saga to present a sharply critical representation of the new America that emerged out of the war, a society of images and spectacles. This timely examination of Clint Eastwood’s oeuvre against the backdrop of contemporary America will be fascinating reading for students of film and popular culture, as well as readers with interests in Eastwood’s work, American film and culture.

Appearing on Amazon UK only at the moment and in paperback only. It did show as Hardback yesterday too at an eye-watering £50 or so but it has gone now.





Link to Amazon UK

[Lin Sunderland]

That looks interesting JSE. Thanks for posting it. 

[TWOMULES]

Thanks for the link, JSE.

[Americanbeauty]

Had to pre-order it
I do hope that the book will dwell a little bit on the early stuff as well, not just the post-Unforgiven era.

Chances are I'll have completely forgotten about the pre-order come December

[higashimori]

 Listen: Eastwood embodies America’s moral quest, says Vanderbilt professor

 By Ann Marie Deer Owens

 http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/03/eastwood/

 

 

Clint Eastwood’s more recent films reflect not only an extraordinary new level of artistic achievement, but also keen insight into and understanding of the nature of American society and its search for meaning and purpose, according to Vanderbilt University Professor of English Sam B. Girgus.

Girgus, whose research-based interests include film and American literature and culture, is the author of Clint Eastwood’s America (Polity, 2014). The book traces the iconic film director’s career, beginning with the first 20 years of what Girgus calls Eastwood’s “Western state of mind” through a chapter on Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, which present a sharply critical representation of the new America that emerged from World War II.

Girgus will sign and discuss copies of Clint Eastwood’s America Tuesday, March 25, from 7 to 8 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at Vanderbilt, located at 2525 West End Ave.

 

While Girgus views Eastwood’s early films as “successful and important as popular entertainment and as mass media,” he believes that Unforgiven, the American Western that won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1992, marked a significant turning point in Eastwood’s career.

Eastwood was always serious about his craft, experimenting and learning what makes a film work and what makes it effective.“Unforgiven was an amazing breakthrough film that showed a poise, a timing, a depth, an intensity of character and theme that was exceptional to the point of becoming a masterpiece that transformed the Western genre and remade the meaning of the name of Clint Eastwood as a creative presence and cultural figure,” Girgus said. “Eastwood was always serious about his craft, experimenting and learning what makes a film work and what makes it effective. What I think happened with Unforgiven is that all of that effort and commitment finally paid off.”

 

If Girgus had to make the difficult choice of selecting his favorite Eastwood film, it would probably be Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby, but he also has high praise for Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.

“Especially with Eastwood’s background in conservative politics, his unprecedented achievement of filming the opposing sides of the same historic World War II battle and conveying the dimension of the human tragedy was extraordinary,” Girgus said.

 http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/615329/?sc=rsln