Clint Eastwood: Actor & Director

**groucho070** · 10th December 2009, 07:16 AM

Talaivar-Oda magimai, A2A. His work reaches low-brow fans like me to to right up there with the pundits. Still haven't read the WHBH dissection, enna mathiri semi-literates-ukku konjam time veenum. :P

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**groucho070** · 10th December 2009, 08:28 AM

For fans of both Eastwood (the actor) and James Bond
http://www.indielondon.co.uk/DVD-Rev...wood-interview

Q: 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.

Q: Any regrets about not having been 007?
Clint Eastwood: I thought that James Bond should be British. I’m 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.

Ithu eppadi irukku

**kid-glove** · 10th December 2009, 08:59 AM

Nalla vela. Considering the shit-house production studios and shit-house directors then, the films wouldn't work on me. I'm not a fan of Bond as it existed then.

The moment I took Bond mythology in earnest was sometime after I read QT had revealed interest in adapting 'Casino Royale' with Pierce Brosnan. And when I got hold of the book (the one & only Ian fleming book I have read). I could understand why he would want to. Then I was running over select few actors in my mind, who would suit better than Brosnan. The young Clint Eastwood would have nailed it. He created his own mythological characters in Sergio Leone & Siegel films. And QT, IMHO, is on his way to near Sergio's level (well above Siegel). In my imaginary scenario, Clint should be cast as Bond in QT's version and not Brosnan. If it had happened, he would have furnished a new legacy for Bond series, which would easily out scale the impact of Nolan brothers & batman franchise. :P

**groucho070** · 10th December 2009, 09:11 AM

Well said about the 70s Bond. I like Moore for his humour, and Bond he is definitely not. The lest I talk about the films the better

News on QT's interest have been hovering around the Bond fandom for sometimes now, and frankly he would have given it a fresh breath of air, instead of the so-called reboot, which is actually same old 1995-2002 trash with better script and waaaaay better lead actor.

The Bond in Fleming's book is flesh and blood, dark brooding, but at the same time patriotic, warm and is a sucker for good frienship. Not sure how a young Eastwood, if at all he can pull of the Queen's English, would inject a bit more humanity into the character. Stoic presence and grunted lines worked well in Leone's landscape and later Siegel and his own films. Okay, there were some great performances along the way, but I don't want other hubbers to snicker and snort out their chaiya.

Closest he came to playing such character happened to be one of the least-liked film - The Eiger Sanction. It was supposed to be the Deighton/ Le-Carre type spy flick with mountain climbing background. Didn't work for me. He just looked bored, and when doing the climbing, looked tired (coz he did most of the actual climbing anyway).

Nein...he would not be the top ten actor in my list, if I was the filmaker and I was forced to hire an American (then). Now, Steve McQueen would have been a different story altogether :P

Edit. My 2nd fav Bond, Timothy Dalton, is a huge Eastwood fan and said that once he did a TV special equivalent of a fan letter to da Man...never got around to see it.

**kid-glove** · 10th December 2009, 09:27 AM

The Bond in Fleming's book is flesh and blood, dark brooding, but at the same time patriotic, warm and is a sucker for good frienship.

I think so too. But the quality of Casino royale is the Bond who ruffles few feathers on this mission, so to speak. The dialogues in QT mode wouldn't just be laconic in any case. But a bit more brooding with a ring to it. There would be less of acting, & humanity and that sort of thing. So the iconography of Bond is built by Casino royale. And when it was to be made after all the trash in 70's would be a rebirth of the genre/franhise. How apt it would be. But it wouldn't be achieved through the motives on lines of patriotism and fondness in QT's hands. The darker parts should have interested QT immensely. He was most definitely seeing it as assasin's creed and the narrative as a procession for Bond, of a learning curve.

**kid-glove** · 10th December 2009, 09:33 AM

And one other thing, the romantic angle would almost certainly fit Clint Eastwood in QT mode had imagined. "The bitch is dead" would bring the house down.

**groucho070** · 10th December 2009, 09:42 AM

Originally Posted by kid-glove

The darker parts should have interested QT immensely. He was most definitely seeing it as assasin's creed and the narrative as a procession for Bond, of a learning curve.

Definitely. QT would have picked them up and try to run his way to the bank, except it would have spelled death to the franchise. The first film, Dr. No, was very far removed from the books, he was a glorified policemen, as the villain himself put, and only in From Russia With Love did we see Fleming's Bond, and a smattering of the old boy in On Her Majesties Secret Service, and we had to wait for, like 18 years before Fleming's Bond resurfaced in The Living Daylight in an otherwise the franchise holders-sanctioned film (Dalton took advantage of the desperate producers to pick the character up back from the book, though hints of previous nonsense were abound here and there).

Arrr...remba digress pannitten.

Anyway, coming back to Eastwood. The best book would be You Only Live Twice. It starts dark, with Bond recently losing his wife, then a trip to Japan, where he lightens up, and then the confrontation with Blofeld who killed his wife earlier. The last few chapters of the book are perhaps the darkest of the entire series. QT would have loved the bleakness and the violence in it.

**kid-glove** · 10th December 2009, 09:52 AM

Oh, then I would have to get my hands on it.

I am beginning to appreciate what Qt is doing. Fully appreciate things I might not have the cognition to understand but read from some place else. Like this. Thanks to bala.