Clint Eastwood talks Changeling
Clint Eastwood is a living legend. On screen he is famed
for his role as the Man With No Name in the spaghetti westerns, A
Fistful Of Dollars, A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad And
The Ugly. He also made the Magnum one of the best known
weapons in the world when he created the iconic lawman in the hit
series of Dirty Harry movies.
Then he proved to be just as talented behind the screen as Eastwood
won the Oscar for his iconic western Unforgiven and boxing drama
Million Dollar Baby.
Eastwood's latest film Changeling - which stars Angelina Jolie - is
a thought-provoking true life drama. Set in 1928 it tells the
engrossing story of how a mother's search for her missing son
exposed corruption in Los Angeles, unearthed horrific crimes and
led to a change in the law.
Changeling has been described as one of your most ambitious
films. Do you agree?
Clint Eastwood: Well I think all of them are
ambitious in some way or another. But I guess you could describe it
as that.
Was it your intention to have the audience think they were
watching one kind of movie and then as the story develops, give
them something they possibly didn't expect?
Clint Eastwood: I think that is the nature of the
material. It does that, it makes you follow the woman's story and
her dilemma and then, all of a sudden, after they have humiliated
her as much as they can, then we bring in the whole mystery of what
has been going on.
Do you think in a way the film Changeling shows that
corruption is a constant factor in our lives?
Clint Eastwood: Yes, it is a constant, and
it's not an irony lost on me that Los Angeles has had corrupt
moments in its history. For some reason, I think that's the
inspiration for Film Noir films that were made in those times and
there were so many kind of bizarre incidents. But for some reason,
because Los Angeles was left out there by itself in those days on
the West Coast, it became a world of its own and I don't know why
this happens, and corruption is always there. I don't know how to
relate it to the current economic crisis, but there is definitely
corruption there, not only from Wall Street. Everybody's blaming it
on Wall Street, but there are people who think they can just take a
plastic card and charge the world on it and not really pay
attention to what they can afford, and live within their means.
We're all living in a kind of a dream world, including Wall Street,
and including the politicians who are afraid to institute an
economical restraint.
How do you decide that you've got the people that you
really have at the top of your list for characters?
Clint Eastwood:
It's just a matter of how you feel at the
time. When I was first given this script, I was told that Angelina
had read this and liked it, so I told Brian Grazer that I didn't
see any reason to look further. I liked her very much, I liked her
as an actress and she is a mother and a famous mother now, but I
figured that she would just know all the proper things about this
character. And the others were cast the same way. I do
a lot of casting by video tape of people coming in and reading
scenes and what have you, because I've been turned down for so many
parts over the years in my early career. I hated to be like one of
those guys sitting there smoking a cigar and blowing smoke in the
actors' faces as they came in to read and so I figure if they come
in and casting can give them a read, you just give them a look, how
they look, how they sound, how they feel, and then if you get close
to casting them, then you maybe meet with them and talk further, or
maybe not at all, sometimes just a reading, like Jason Harner who
plays Northcott. He just did a brilliant reading on tape, you just
could go, "Yeah! Too bad the regular camera wasn't running at
all." It just that he is the guy. So we didn't go any
further. And we've done that on other pictures. I remember
with Bird years ago with Diane Venora, we had a whole tape of about
five different actresses I was supposed to look at. She came on
first and she got about halfway through the scene and I said,
"That's the girl. Okay." And then everybody said, "No, don't
you want to look at the rest of them?" I said, "For the next
picture. For this picture, this is her."
Have you talked to your children about the danger of
strangers - since this is a movie about serial killers?
Clint Eastwood:
I grew up in a time that was similar to
this picture. But by the same token, kids went out and played.
There was no television, everybody played outdoors and your parents
always told you to beware of strangers. Not to be aware of
that old gimmick - which is used in the picture - of
somebody coming up and telling you, "Your mother's in the hospital,
you must jump in the car and come with us now." That is one
of the oldest ploys in the book, and was used by Northcott and
other people over the years. I think your parents have to instill
that in you and we have to instill in our children that not
everybody has their best interests at heart, and there are a lot of
motivations out there. It's hard for kids not to know that today,
with all the great information age we live, plus watching all the
mayhem on television all night, just by watching the news, not even
the fictional stories. So I think it's up to parents to do the
educating on that on that level and naturally, a person of higher
profile is probably a little more diligent about that than somebody
who is not a public figure. But by the same token, you want to give
the child a normal life, you don't want to scare the child and have
them going around thinking that there's somebody waiting around the
corner to hit them with a club or something. So it's a fine line
and you have to work that out in your family, and what your
philosophies are and I suppose the adults at least have to build up
a supposing situation.
One of the most chilling scenes in the film is the
execution. Why did you decide on showing such detail?
Clint Eastwood: I just felt that it
deserved to be told in detail Northcott was convicted and then
spent two years in solitary confinement and was then taken out to
be hanged.
How do you get the energy to direct so many movies at such
a pace?
Clint Eastwood: Well I don't know. I
guess that I am not in front of the camera as much as I used to be.
I suppose I feel like it is a good time to be doing it.
Did you do the music for Gran Torino, as you did for
Changeing?
Clint Eastwood:
Well I did some of the work on Gran
Torino and my son [Kyle Eastwood] also worked on it and we got
Jamie Cullum to do some lyrics.
Music appears to be a passion for you?
Clint Eastwood:
Music does have a very special place in
my heart. I enjoy it very much. I suppose it is my first love and I
do a lot of it. It seems to be when you are making a project it
inspires you sometimes to jot down something that you think fits
the situation.
It is also very evident that you do not follow fashions.
Instead you set trends as you did with Unforgiven when they said
westerns were finished?
Clint Eastwood:
I think it is more important to tell a
story rather than follow any trend; that is a less bold way to go.
If you do that [follow trends] you are just trying to ride on the
coat tails of someone else's success. I could certainly do another
western film if I found a script. But I have never found a script
that was as good as Unforgiven. In my mind Unforgiven was to be my
last western.
What about The Human Factor, your film about Nelson
Mandela? How far are you on the plans for that?
Clint Eastwood:
I am not planning anything right now.
Right now I am taking it easy. I am doing the Mandela film in
March. But I am taking a break between now and then. We are in slow
gear right now.
As you said you are not on screen as much as you once were.
Obviously you are in Gran Torino but do you miss not acting as
often?
Clint Eastwood:
I enjoyed acting in Million Dollar Baby
and in Gran Torino I play a character who is my age and it is a
character that I enjoyed playing. But I am not looking for it
[acting roles] I am more interested in staying behind the
camera.
Were you at one time asked if you would play James
Bond?
Clint Eastwood:
I was, yes at one time. This was after
Sean [Connery quit]. I had the same attorney as the Broccoli
family.
Any regrets about not having been 007?
Clint Eastwood:
I thought that James Bond should be
British. I am of British descent but by the same token I thought
that it [Bond] should be more of the culture there and also, it was
not my thing, it was somebody's else's thing.
How involved are you in the DVD of films like
Changeling?
Clint Eastwood:
You want the DVD to be as close as it can
be to the original film. Nowadays people have nice television
screens, High Definition and all that and it is nice for them to
have the same experience or something close to as you have in the
theatre.
