We are wrapping up "Summer Under the Stars" Blogathon with, Clint Eastwood, film actor, director, producer and composer. He has received five Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, two Cannes Film Festival awards, and five People's Choice Awards, including one for Favorite All-Time Motion Picture Star.
Eastwood is best known for his anti-hero roles in action and western films. Following his television series Rawhide(1958–65), he performed as the "Man With No Name" in the Dollars Trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns in the 1960s, and as Inspector Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry films in the 1970s and 1980s. Eastwood is also known for his comedic performances, in Every Which Way but Loose (1978) and its sequel Any Which Way You Can (1980). In the films Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), Eastwood won Academy Awards for Best Director and for producer of the Best Picture, and received nominations for Best Actor. Some other well known Clint Eastwood films, Paint Your Wagon (1969), Play Misty for Me (1971), High Plains Drifter (1973), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Escape from Alcatraz (1979), Pale Rider (1985), In the Line of Fire (1993), and Gran Torino (2008), have all been successful. He has directed films, Mystic River (2003) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), for which he received Academy Award nominations.
TCM is featuring one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies today.
The Bridges of Madison County (1995). Romantic drama film based on the best-selling novel by Robert James Waller. The film was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood with Kathleen Kennedy as co-producer and the screenplay was adapted by Richard LaGravenese. The film stars Eastwood and Meryl Streep, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1996 for her performance in the film.
The film takes place during four summer days of 1965. While Francesca, a Italian housewife in Iowa, is home alone. Her husband and children are away at the Illinois State Fair, she meets and falls in love with a photographer who has come to Madison County, Iowa to take pictures for National Geographic on the covered bridges in the area. The four days they spend together are a turning point in her life and she writes of her experience in a diary which is later read by her children after her death and they are taken back by it.
I thought Clint Eastwood was amazing in this very emotional film. It seems he steps back and allows Meryl to become the heart of the film. The film is beautifully directed, beautifully photographed and beautifully scored. The music on the radio really helps create the romantic, mood of the film.
Hi Dawn, I feel a bit sad that your summer under the stars blogathon is almost over, even if I dont always comment I've read and enjoyed all your posts.
ReplyDeleteIts nice that your finishing with Clint whose always been one of my favourites, he's been in so many great films and like you say he's very selfless and often allows other actors to take centre stage.
After all the tough guy roles he'd played over the years it was great to see him in a touching romantic film like Bridges Of Madison County.
Thank you Paul, I do not know if I could keep up the pace. :)
ReplyDeleteI do have many fun things planned and a couple of surprises for September.
The scene with Clint standing in the rain, is not one I will ever forget. I hope you were able to catch the movie "Paint Your Wagon", another favorite of mine. Enjoy.. Clint Eastwood day, on TCM.