Alex Carson
Clint Eastwood is best known as an actor, but he’s also directing films for over 50 years. Many of them have earned him a Best Director Academy Award, including one for Unforgiven and another for Million Dollar Baby.
Audiences, awards shows, and critics may love him, but not everyone in Hollywood feels the same way. Many of his fellow filmmakers have criticized his choices, and he’s defended himself in response.
Like and subscribe to Facts Verse for more on who he’s managed to offend and how. Keep watching to learn why these directors have nothing good to say about Clint Eastwood.
How Clint Eastwood Became a Director
Clint Eastwood was born on May 31, 1930, in San Francisco. He lived in Piedmont but moved with his family to Washington State when he was 19 and did odd jobs.
Clint moved back to California in 1951, working at the Fort Ord Military Reservation. He enrolled at Los Angeles City College and stayed for 2 semesters before dropping out to follow his dream of acting.
Clint’s first roles were in B-films such as Revenge of the Creature and Tarantula in 1955. His breakout role came in 1958 when he joined the cast of Rawhide for 7 seasons and won the lead when Eric Fleming left.
Clint’s list of credits after the show helped him break into Hollywood is massive. He moved to the big-screen with westerns such as A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in the 1960s. He became a massive film star and a bankable name. That allowed him to move on to other parts of the filmmaking process.
His directorial debut came with the 1971 film Play Misty for Me. That led to plenty of other work in front of and behind the camera.
By the 90s, he’d become an award-winning actor and director who’d managed to succeed at both of his passions. Unforgiven in 1992 won him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and an Oscar for Best Director.
Million Dollar Baby in 2004 won him 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. It even made him the oldest person to ever win the Best Director Oscar at the age of 74.
Clint’s Directing Style
Clint Eastwood tries his best to create a hospitable working environment every time he steps onto a set and climbs into the director’s chair. He says that he feels it’s the best way to help actors submerge themselves into their characters.
This is only one way that Clint has set himself apart from almost all other directors in Hollywood. He wants to the right shot quickly and often uses first takes. Clint avoids the 100 or more takes that directors such as David Fincher prefer. He also avoids supporting the Meisner style of acting that suggests that repeating lines makes them more natural.
Trying to oppose Clint Eastwood’s methods doesn’t work. Matt Damon once begged him for a second take, and Clint responded, “why, so you can waste everybody’s time?” Tim Robbins said that, while working on the 2003 film Mystic River, Clint would only allow for 1 take, or 2 if you were lucky. The filming always started no earlier than 9 am and ended after lunch.
Clint’s preference for a “business-like” pace began when he started working on the TV show Rawhide. Directors like Sergio Leone and Don Siegel had similar methods that he wanted to emulate. He also began to see money and time as precious and not to wasted.
Like and subscribe to Facts Verse for more information on the behind-the-scenes animosity that this major name created. Keep watching for more information that explains why these directors have nothing good to say about Clint Eastwood.
Directors Who Criticized Clint
Clint Eastwood’s directing style was certainly not for everyone. He’s pinched several directors’ last nerves, and they’ve come out to criticize him publicly.
Spike Lee developed a feud with Clint Eastwood in 2006. They worked on 2 war films together that year; Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers. Spike criticized the lack of diversity in the cast. He felt that it didn’t represent the wide range of races in the armed forces at the time.
Clint allegedly told him to “shut his face.” Spike responded by telling him to mind his own business, saying he was a great director but sounded like an angry old man. The two have reportedly made up, but they haven’t worked together since.
Michael Moore is an acclaimed documentary director. He posted comments on Facebook criticizing how Clint’s 2014 film American Sniper glorified the gunmen. It was a sore subject because he’d lost a family member to a sniper during WWII.
Clint allegedly said at a National Board of Reviews dinner that if Michael ever came to his home, he would shoot him. The audience laughed, but he repeated the statement.
Other Director Feuds
Clint Eastwood isn’t the only director who’s suffered Spike Lee’s wrath. He’s also criticized Quentin Tarantino for appropriating black culture and using the N-word in his films. He publicly tweeted that he wouldn’t be seeing Django Unchained because “American slavery was not in a Sergio Leone spaghetti western.” Quentin responded by calling him a son of a bitch.
Spike also criticized Tyler Perry’s popular Madea franchise. The director responded by saying he should shut the hell up and he could go to Hell.
James Cameron and Patty Jenkins argued over an unexpected topic; feminism. Patty’s Wonder Woman film started the debate. but it ended with James getting roasted on social media.
Kevin Smith and Tim Burton argued over stolen content. Kevin noticed the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes had a statue of Abraham Lincoln with the head of an ape that looked like it ripped directly from his comic book. He even announced publicly that he considered taking the issue to court.
Tim responded by saying he would never read a comic book, and Kevin said that explained his version of Batman. The feud escalated but didn’t do any permanent damage to either director’s career.
Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut were once close friends. They were important parts of the French New Wave movement and critics at the Cahiers du Cinema. They eventually began making different types of films. Jean-Luc focused on political statements and Francois took aim at commercialism.
Francois played himself in the 1973 film Day for Night. Jean-Luc sent him a letter claiming he misrepresented the filmmaking process. His former friend wrote a response claiming he’d been “acting like a shit” for years. They reconciled for a bit, but Jean-Luc admitted they’d been tearing each other apart for years after Francois’ death in 1984. Keep watching to learn why these directors have nothing good to say about Clint Eastwood.
Lars von Trier and Nicolas Winding Refn were 2 other foreign filmmakers who were friends before their feud began. They’d known each other since they were children, but unsavoury comments tore them apart.
Lars said at a 2011 Cannes press conference that he pleased to recently discover he was related to Nazis and even joked that his next film would be The Final Solution. Nicolas and the general public criticized him. The directors reconciled and stayed friends for years until it became public that Lars had tried to sleep with Nicolas’ wife.
Werner Herzog has spawned several feuds with his erratic behaviour. He’s collaborated with Klaus Kinski several times, but their relationship crumbled so hard that he tried to burn his house down.
Abel Ferrara also hated Werner. He couldn’t handle the announcement that he would be making the sequel to his 1992 film Bad Lieutenant and earning a larger paycheck for the job.
He said that his producers could die in hell. Werner claimed to have no idea who Abel was but said he could fight the windmills like Don Quixote. They never reconciled until meeting up at the 2013 Locarno Film Festival.
Rian Johnson, director of The Last Jedi, decided to intentionally start a feud in the name of publicity. He took aim at Jason Reitman, the director of Juno and Up in the Air.
He posted “Reitman? More like WRONG man,” and received a link to the Notorious BIG song Warning in response. It didn’t take long for the intentionally ridiculous feud to end, though. They went drinking in Mexico for a few days and everything was fine.
Other Directors Who Simply Have Nothing Good to Say About Anyone
Director feuds are one thing, but some members of Hollywood seem to be ready to criticize almost anyone. Certain directors have no qualms with swearing and spewing hurtful comments at other directors, even if they’ve never met or worked with them before.
Ingmar Burgman, the Swedish film director, is one of them. He said he’s never gotten anything out of Jean-Luc Godard’s films, calling them faux intellectual, dead, and boring. He even took aim at the celebrated Orson Wells, criticizing his acting and calling him infinitely overrated.
Vincent Gallo called Spike Jonze “the biggest fraud out there” and “the least interesting person” at any party. He said that he wouldn’t work with Martin Scorsese for $10 million, calling him an egomaniac and claiming he hadn’t made a good film in 25 years.
Clint also insinuated that Sofia Coppola would sleep around to get her way in Hollywood. He even called her father Francis Ford a parasite and a fat pig.
Jean-Luc Godard said that Quentin Tarantino should have given him money instead of naming his production company after one of his films. He also somewhat more respectfully said that he doesn’t know Steven Spielberg but doesn’t think his films are very good.
Plenty of directors have fired back at Jean-Luc Godard. Orson Wells said he was a talented director but not a great thinker. Warner Herzog said he was “counterfeit money compared to a good kung-fu film.”
Jacque Reviette has thrown insults at some of the most acclaimed directors of all time. He’s called Stanley Kubrick “a machine, a mutant, a martian.” He also called Steven Spielberg an asshole and claimed that James Cameron couldn’t “direct his way out of a paper bag.”
Do you have a favorite director? Let us know in the comments below. Like and subscribe to Facts Verse for more on the names that led your favorite films to success.
