Clint : the man and the movies / Shawn Levy.

By:

Levy, Shawn [author.]

Material type: Text

TextPublisher: New York : Mariner Books, [2025]Edition: First editionDescription: xxi, 537 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cmContent type:

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9780063251021
0063251027

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Contents:

Introduction: A cool gaze -- Part I: Oakland to the open range -- Part II: The rise of the sidekick -- Part III: Defining a kingdom -- Part IV: Pulling all the strings -- Part V: A higher level yet -- Part IV: A pantheon of one -- Part VII: Unbowed -- Coda: Sunset ... in due time.

Summary: "C-L-I-N-T. That single short, sharp syllable has stood as an emblem of American manhood and morality and sheer bloody-minded will, on-screen and off-screen, for more than sixty years. Whether he's facing down bad guys on a Western street (Old West or new, no matter), staring through the lens of a camera, or accepting one of his movies' thirteen Oscars (including two for Best Picture), he is as blunt, curt, and solid as his name, a star of the old-school stripe and one of the most accomplished directors of his time, a man of rock and iron and brute force: Clint. To read the story of Clint Eastwood is to understand nearly a century of American culture. No Hollywood figure has so completely and complexly stood inside the changing climates of post-World War II America. At age ninety-five, he has lived a tumultuous century and embodied much of his time and many of its contradictions. We picture Clint squinting through cigarillo smoke in A Fistful of Dollars or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; imposing rough justice at the point of a .44 Magnum in Dirty Harry; sowing vengeance in The Outlaw Josey Wales or Pale Rider or Unforgiven; grudgingly training a woman boxer in Million Dollar Baby; and standing up for his neighbors despite his racism in Gran Torino. Or we feel him present, powerfully, behind the camera, creating complex tales of violence, morality, and humanity, such as Mystic River, Letters from Iwo Jima, and American Sniper. But his roles and his films, however well cast and convincing, are two-dimensional in comparison to his whole life. As Shawn Levy reveals in this masterful biography--the most complete portrait yet of Eastwood--the reality is richer, knottier, and more absorbing. Clint: The Man and the Movies is a saga of cunning, determination, and conquest, a story about a man ascending to the Hollywood pantheon while keeping one foot firmly planted outside its door"-- Provided by publisher.

List(s) this item appears in: New Adult Nonfiction

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Shelving location	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Adult Book	Phillipsburg Free Public Library	Adult Non-Fiction	New Books	791.43028092 LEV	Available		36748002623264

Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From the acclaimed film critic and New York Times bestselling biographer of Paul Newman, the definitive biography of Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood, the most prolific and versatile actor-director in the history of the medium, and an indelible fixture of American culture.

C-L-I-N-T. In that short, sharp syllable, there is an emblem of American manhood and morality and sheer bloody-minded will, for better and worse, on screen and off, for more than sixty years. Whether he's holding a pistol, an orangutan, or a boxing glove; whether he's facing down bad guys on a western street (Old West or new, no matter); staring through the lens of a camera; or accepting one of his thirteen Oscars (including two for Best Picture); he is as blunt, curt, and solid as his name, a star of the old school stripe and one of the most prolific and accomplished directors of his time, a man of rock and iron and brute force: Clint.

To tell the story of Clint Eastwood is to tell the story of nearly a century of American culture. No Hollywood figure so completely and complexly represents the cultural and political climates of contemporary America. At age ninety-four, he has lived a tumultuous century and embodied much of his time and many of its contradictions.

We picture him most immediately as he has appeared to us on screen: squinting through cigarillo smoke in A Fistful of Dollars or The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; imposing rough justice at the point of a .44 Magnum in Dirty Harry; sowing moral vengeance in The Outlaw Josey Wales or Pale Rider; abandoning farming for murder-for-hire in Unforgiven; grudgingly training a woman boxer in Million Dollar Baby; standing up for his neighbors despite his racism toward them in Gran Torino. But those are roles, however well-cast and convincing, and they are two-dimensional in comparison to the whole life. The reality of Clint Eastwood is far more rich, knotty, and absorbing--a saga of cunning, determination, and conquest, a great American story about a man ascending to the Hollywood pantheon while keeping a gimlet eye on its ways and habits and one foot firmly planted outside its door.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 497-513) and index.

"C-L-I-N-T. That single short, sharp syllable has stood as an emblem of American manhood and morality and sheer bloody-minded will, on-screen and off-screen, for more than sixty years. Whether he's facing down bad guys on a Western street (Old West or new, no matter), staring through the lens of a camera, or accepting one of his movies' thirteen Oscars (including two for Best Picture), he is as blunt, curt, and solid as his name, a star of the old-school stripe and one of the most accomplished directors of his time, a man of rock and iron and brute force: Clint. To read the story of Clint Eastwood is to understand nearly a century of American culture. No Hollywood figure has so completely and complexly stood inside the changing climates of post-World War II America. At age ninety-five, he has lived a tumultuous century and embodied much of his time and many of its contradictions. We picture Clint squinting through cigarillo smoke in A Fistful of Dollars or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; imposing rough justice at the point of a .44 Magnum in Dirty Harry; sowing vengeance in The Outlaw Josey Wales or Pale Rider or Unforgiven; grudgingly training a woman boxer in Million Dollar Baby; and standing up for his neighbors despite his racism in Gran Torino. Or we feel him present, powerfully, behind the camera, creating complex tales of violence, morality, and humanity, such as Mystic River, Letters from Iwo Jima, and American Sniper. But his roles and his films, however well cast and convincing, are two-dimensional in comparison to his whole life. As Shawn Levy reveals in this masterful biography--the most complete portrait yet of Eastwood--the reality is richer, knottier, and more absorbing. Clint: The Man and the Movies is a saga of cunning, determination, and conquest, a story about a man ascending to the Hollywood pantheon while keeping one foot firmly planted outside its door"-- Provided by publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Film critic Levy (King of Comedy) argues in this sharp biography that Clint Eastwood is "an inkblot in whom we see a variety of opposing ideas at once." Eastwood was born in San Francisco in 1930, and after performing in a school play as an eighth grader, he told his drama teacher that, despite her praise, "I don't want to do that again, ever in my life." That changed after his military service ended in 1953, thanks to fellow soldiers who urged him to take "a shot at Hollywood." Taking a wide angle, Levy covers Eastwood's rise to stardom starting with some lucky breaks; his forays into politics, including his bizarre speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention, where he addressed an empty chair as if Barack Obama were in it; his complex personal relationships; and how sexual assault functions as a "personal obsession" in his films. Levy has a knack for memorable phrasing, describing 1997's Absolute Power, for example, as "a B-movie story requiring significant momentum so as to keep the audience from falling into the holes in the plot." It makes for a solid account of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the life of one of Hollywood's biggest stars. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (July)

Kirkus Book Review

A film critic's biography of a cinema legend. Fans of Clint Eastwood have long had a surfeit of biographies about him to choose from. Levy, a film critic whose previous books include volumes on Robert De Niro and Paul Newman, adds to this trove with this admiring work. He's clearly a fan, praising Eastwood for his "dogged work ethic" and for being "an honest-to-Pete American icon," yet he also notes Eastwood's "let's call itcomplex history of wives, partners, and children" and the wide range in quality of the many films he has acted in and directed. Levy covers Eastwood's peripatetic upbringing in Northern California, where he was a mediocre student and cared only about "girls, hot rods, and the piano"; his early love of jazz and "meat-and-potatoes Hollywood films"; his acting success, from television'sRawhide to the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone to his iconic role as detective Dirty Harry; and his maturation as an accomplished director. The book is repetitive, with Levy describing the plot of every Eastwood picture, the critics' reactions, and his own assessment. Levy tends to gush: He says of the revisionist WesternUnforgiven, "If the devildoes get the best lines, this is a film filled with devils, made by angels, depicting Hell with heavenly gifts," noting that the dialogue is "just as fine and bejeweled as you like." Yet his glasses aren't so rose colored that he can't see the clunkers, writing, for example, that the comedyAny Which Way You Can "makes you feel as if you're stuck with a drunk who insists on telling the same joke over and over and telling it more loudly each time." And he doesn't skimp on details from Eastwood's colorful personal life, including multiple infidelities and "eight children some forty-two years apart by six different women…that he knew of." An evenhanded if overly effusive appreciation of Clint Eastwood's career. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.