DVD Review: Clint Eastwood: 35 Years 35 Films Box Set
There are already a number of Eastwood collections on the market - but by far the most comprehensive and must-have of the lot is the recently released Clint Eastwood: 35 Years 35 Films Collection, which hit shelves a couple of weeks ago, but still deserves a mention now.
Eastwood is the most astoundingly prolific director still working in Hollywood today, and it is testament to the quality and breadth of his body of work that it is possible to pick from his career a favourite genre-addition, as opposed to just a single film. So while fans may have one favourite from another auteur's canon- it is possible with Eastwood to pick a favourite of his comedies, of his Westerns, of his war films and of his political thrillers.
This is by far the best boxset collection dedicated to the A-List actor and director, and all things considered is one of the best boxsets I have ever seen, especially in terms of the sheer amount of quality films included. And let's face it, Eastwood doesn't exactly make bad films, so pound for pound you're looking at one of the greatest value for money purchases you're ever likely to come across. And while everyone else who has reviewed or announced this review has taken time out to bad-mouth Eastwood's Orangutan period pieces, I will not have another bad word said about Every Which You But Loose.
To celebrate the release, I've offered three reviews, after the jump: a film from the beginning, the middle and the modern day periods of Eastwood's canon of work...
Kelly's Heroes
In 1970 a young Clint Eastwood lead one of the greatest ensemble casts, helping to convince audiences and film-makers alike that a war movie could be more than a mere war movie. Though it wasn't the first war caper/adventure film of it's kind, Kelly's Heroes became one of the fundamental pillars of influence- along with The Dirty Dozen and The Guns of Navarone- for later war caper films (sadly including Three Kings, which attempted a more serious semi-homage, but was undone by inclusion of rapper and "actor" Ice Cube).
As with a lot of ensemble movies, one of the pleasures of Kelly's Heroes lies in the cast, and the team-building that occurs before the action begins to unfold. And thanks to some terrific acting, especially from Telly Savalas and the peerless Donald Sutherland, who even back then was proving he was an acting force to be reckoned with the casting can enjoy even more heady praise. The script too is excellent, blending the comically tinted capers of Kelly and his merry band with a far more subtle anti-war current that is as appropriate to the senseless atrocities of the Vietnam War as they are about the Second World War. Scratch the surface and there is definitely an element of cynicism bubbling along there- for every marching band building a bridge and swelling the ranks of the supposedly covert team of thieves, there is a "we are all just soldiers, on both sides" sorts of scenes.
Overall, Kelly's Heroes is the kind of film that doesn't impose too greatly on its audience but leaves them after a good two hours richly entertained thanks to its combination of excellent acting and a fine script.
Unforgiven
Unforgiven has to surely rank as one of the most affecting Westerns ever made, never mind just being vintage Clint Eastwood at his very best. It is dark and somber in its thematics and aesthetic and it urgently strips away the years of gloss that Hollywood film-makers had detrimentally applied to the Western genre. It is also one of Eastwood's most deeply personal works: he uses the film as a study in violence and its various destructive effects, in the rule of the strong over the weak, with strong themes of courage and cowardice throughout, and also to desconstruct his own violent screen image. Ultimately, Unforgiven is the first step to Eastwoods long on-screen apology for that violence that currently shapes every film he makes, which would culminate in movie number 34 on the list in this boxset, Gran Torino.
The fact that the film was made considerably after the creative peek for Western film-makers is of little consequence to its importance in that genre as a while: it may be revisionist, but it remains an incredibly compelling experience, hinged on a compelling retelling of traditional Western motifs and fantastic performances across the board by the likes of Eastwood himself, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and the late, great Richard Harris.
Unforgiven is also a far removed version of the Western compared with the sometimes frivolous, occasionally camp feel of some of its earlier generic sibling- in fact the film explores far more complex notions than traditionalist films included: ideas of ambiguous morality, remorseless violence. It is also imbibed with a far darker tone that is almost relentless at times, though it never compromises the audience's enjoyment of the film all round. I can unashamedly state that Unforgiven ranks highly in my all-time list of Westerns, as well as being far and away my favourite Eastwood film.
Invictus
The final film in the boxset, and formerly lauded as a potential winner Oscar contender is sadly one of the weaker films included, but then that is a comparative reaction: my filmic education has been based upon several fundamental truths, and one of them was that whatever Clint Eastwood puts his hand to will be a deeply affecting experience. Unforgiven was a water-shed moment in my life, Mystic River blew me away, the Dirty Harry Collection astounded and thrilled me in equal measure- but Invictus, like many of Eastwood's later films, is unspectacular and unsubtle without being bad in any traditionally held way. There isn't the intricacy of story-telling, or the challenging ideas of a film-maker at the top of his game, and the film encouraged this reaction in me when I watched it again on its Blu-Ray release:
Last year, I wrote an initial response to the news that Clint Eastwood was set to helm an adaptation of John Carlins Playing The Enemy suggesting that the film choice may well have been a subconscious attempt to address Spike Lees accusations that Eastwood was racist (thanks to the lack of black soldiers in Flags of Our Fathers), and that the first biopic dedicated to Nelson Mandela should be more substantial than a sports story, but I now admit I may have been a little rash. While the film is definitely not the grand, all-guns-blazing biopic looking into Mandelas early life, activism and subsequent imprisonment, it is a far more nuanced look at the great mans attempts to heal the gaping racist wound that had torn his country apart for so long, hinged on a predicatably strong performance by Morgan Freeman (it was surely only a matter of time) and a surprisingly accomplished turn by Matt Damon, but falters when it comes to any kind of artistic challenge. Eastwood isnt particularly on top form with Invictus- he is rather telling an important story with due dilligence, and giving it the kind of treatment it deserves thanks to the political importance of the story, but there is nothing here to actually stretch the director, and the effect is oddly flat in places.
But that isnt to say the film is a bad one- it looks lush, but then Eastwood has honed those visual skills over the years to an almost unthinkable degree, and the two key performances are excellent. I just wish there was a little more substance, a little more of a challenge in the film, and a bit less of the sugar that sweetens the admittedly uplifting final sections of the movie. Still, its well worth watching again- and on Blu-Ray particularly, thanks to some excellent high-def Special Features, particularly the format-exclusive Vision, Courage and Honour picture-in-picture track.
While the rugby sequences are better portrayed than in the majority of sports films (oddly, apart from most American Football films), like Rocky, thanks to the crew including technical advisors (among them hero Chester Williams), there is still a lot to be desired in those sequences, and I will forever bemoan the decision not to offer Jonah Lomu what would have been a hugely welcome cameo as himself, and the fact that Matt Damon is a million times too good-looking to play an ogre like Francois Pienaar.
Complete List of Films
The list reads incredibly well...
1. Where Eagles Dare (1968) 2. Kellys Heroes (1970) 3. Dirty Harry (1971) 4. Magnum Force (1973) 5. The Enforcer (1975) 6. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) 7. The Gauntlet (1977) 8. Every Which Way but Loose (1978) 9. Any Which Way You Can (1980) 10. Bronco Billy (1980) 11. Honkytonk Man (1982) 12. Firefox (1982) 13. Sudden Impact (1983) 14. Tightrope (1984) 15. City Heat (1984) 16. Pale Rider (1985) 17. Heartbreak Ridge (1986) 18. Bird (1988) 19. The Dead Pool (1988) 20. Pink Cadillac (1989) 21. The Rookie (1990) 22. White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) 23. Unforgiven (1992) 24. Perfect World (1993) 25. The Bridges of Madison County (1995) 26. Absolute Power (1997) 27. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) 28. True Crime (1999) 29. Space Cowboys (2000) 30. Blood Work (2002) 31. Mystic River (2003) 32. Flags of Our Fathers (2006) 33. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) 34. Gran Torino (2009) 35. Invictus (2010)
Overall, it is a phenomenal collection of films, even ignoring those which don't really seem to deserve the same credit as their sibling films, and you would be hard-pressed to find a better boxset to buy this year. And its a must for anyone keen to immerse themselves in Eastwood's filmography, examining thematic connections or discover more about Eastwood from a purely artistic stand-point. Ultimately, this is proper, good old fashioned Collector-baiting stuff, and Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years is an incredible compendium of the great man's filmic output- it's like The Idiots Guide to Eastwood, all handily packaged in one beautiful boxset.
The one gripe I have, which has come up before elsewhere, is that the collection is not available on the high-definition format, despite the fact that a considerable number of the releases are actually now available on Blu-Ray. I suspect that there will be an element of the collector community who will prefer to wait for a definitive high-definition collection to come out, so they don't have to re-purchase DVD versions of several films they already own in superior definition.
Extras
The collection also includes an additional documentary film from Richard Shickel called The Eastwood Factor, a 24 page extract from Schickel's upcoming book Clint: A Retrospective, and some reproduced photographs as well as some studio correspondences. Additionally, the massive, multi-disc set is packaged in the kind of beautiful book-style box that makes you loath to even touch it, let alone let anyone else get their grubby paws all over it. It is a shame that most of the discs (16 of 19) are double sided, as I prefer to have the film image on each disc, and always fret over double discs being more susceptible to scratching.
Clint Eastwood: 35 Years 35 Films is available now on DVD.