OT : Clint Eastwood's 'Gran Torino' (2008)
Jul 29, 2018 0:41:20 GMT
spiderwort, Lebowskidoo 🦞, and 1 more like this
Post by petrolino on Jul 29, 2018 0:41:20 GMT
'Gran Torino' is a social drama with a crime angle that was released just 10 years ago so I'm not going to claim it's a classic film - this is intended as an off topic post. I've recently posted topics here on 'Bronco Billy' (1980) and 'Heartbreak Ridge' (1986) and would like to post about a more recent film directed by Clint Eastwood for comparison, hope this is okay with everyone.
'Gran Torino' tells the story of assembly line worker Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood), a decorated serviceman who fought in the Korean War. Walt is mourning the death of his wife when he strikes up an unlikely relationship with siblings Thao Vang Lor (Bee Vang) and Sue Lor (Ahney Her). The Lor family live next door to Walt who's depressed about "white flight" and it's through them that he begins to learn about the culture of the Hmong people of Asia. Walt also has to come to a difficult decision regarding his wife's dying wish, which is that he attend confession, something Father Janovich (Christopher Carley) is determined to have him do.
"The thing that haunts a man the most is what he isn't ordered to do."
Clint Eastwood
'Foxhole' - Television
To my mind, 2008 was an extraordinary year for Clint Eastwood who directed the intensely emotional crime drama 'Changeling' (2008) and this film 'Gran Torino'. Eastwood delivers one of his strongest performances of the 21st century as flag waving patriot Walt Kowalski, a lapsed Catholic who divides everybody he comes across into types based upon race. The Polish American community is seen as having largely moved on whereas the Hmong American community remains economically deprived by comparison and tied to poorer neighbourhoods.
Eastwood shoots on location in Michigan and captures the sporting culture, with great devotion shown for the Detroit Lions who've had some rough decades to contend with. In the 1950s, the Lions' fierce rivalry with the Cleveland Browns saw both teams compete in numerous Championship games led by Hall Of Fame quarterbacks Bobby Layne and Otto Graham respectively. In 2017, the Browns became only the second team in league history to finish a season 0–16, joining the 2008 Detroit Lions. Both cities have suffered from corruption at the highest levels and had to endure severe economic hardship. They retain many connections to this day. Both cities have also produced great wrestlers, with Detroit harvesting hardcore brawlers like George 'The Animal' Steele, Bruiser Brody, Kevin Nash, Rhyno, Eric Bischoff and Sienna.
'In 1978, the Cleveland, Ohio, city government defaulted on 15.5 million dollars in short-term loans from local banks. Cleveland became the first city since the Great Depression to default on its financial obligations. At that point in time, the city was more than thirty million dollars in debt. Cleveland remained in default until 1987.
There were numerous reasons why Cleveland defaulted on its debts. Chief among these reasons was a declining population and relocation of businesses outside of Cleveland during the 1960s and 1970s. As businesses and people relocated, property values declined, hindering the city's ability to collect ample property taxes to meet its needs. City residents or Cleveland city officials repeatedly rejected tax increases during this period, failing to replace the funds lost due to the dwindling tax base. Under Mayor Ralph J. Perk, who was Cleveland's mayor from 1971 until 1977, the city also increased expenditures by thirty percent, thrusting the city into further debt. Attempts to sell off various city services and landholdings failed to improve the city's finances. Mayor Dennis Kucinich (1977-1979) attempted to negotiate a settlement with the local banks, but his efforts failed, resulting in Cleveland's default on December 15, 1978.
In November 1979, George Voinovich became mayor. He partly won election due to voter frustration with the city's poor financial status. Voinovich succeeded in securing a refinancing of the city's debt from eight local banks on November 16, 1980. In theory, this new agreement should have made the city government financially stable within a three year period, but it actually took seven years before Cleveland officially emerged from default.'
There were numerous reasons why Cleveland defaulted on its debts. Chief among these reasons was a declining population and relocation of businesses outside of Cleveland during the 1960s and 1970s. As businesses and people relocated, property values declined, hindering the city's ability to collect ample property taxes to meet its needs. City residents or Cleveland city officials repeatedly rejected tax increases during this period, failing to replace the funds lost due to the dwindling tax base. Under Mayor Ralph J. Perk, who was Cleveland's mayor from 1971 until 1977, the city also increased expenditures by thirty percent, thrusting the city into further debt. Attempts to sell off various city services and landholdings failed to improve the city's finances. Mayor Dennis Kucinich (1977-1979) attempted to negotiate a settlement with the local banks, but his efforts failed, resulting in Cleveland's default on December 15, 1978.
In November 1979, George Voinovich became mayor. He partly won election due to voter frustration with the city's poor financial status. Voinovich succeeded in securing a refinancing of the city's debt from eight local banks on November 16, 1980. In theory, this new agreement should have made the city government financially stable within a three year period, but it actually took seven years before Cleveland officially emerged from default.'
- Ohio History Central
'Detroit, the once-thriving Midwest metropolis that gave birth to the nation's auto industry, is now the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy. Kevyn Orr, the city's appointed emergency manager, formally sought federal bankruptcy court protection on Thursday after Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, approved the filing, deeming the decision necessary "as a last resort to return this great city to financial and civic health for its residents and taxpayers."
"I know many will see this as a low point in the city's history," Snyder wrote in a letter authorizing the bankruptcy filing. "If so, I think it will also be the foundation of the city's future — a statement I cannot make in confidence absent giving the city a chance for a fresh start, without burdens of debt it cannot hope to fully pay."
In the letter, Snyder explained his decision by citing statistics that have hobbled the city's operations:
• The city's unemployment rate has nearly tripled since 2000 and is more than double the national average.
• The homicide rate is at historically high levels, and the city has been named among America's most dangerous for more than 20 years.
• Detroiters wait an average of 58 minutes for police to respond, compared with the national average of 11 minutes.
• An estimated 40% of the city's street lights didn't work in the first quarter of 2013.
• Roughly 78,000 city structures have been abandoned.
The combination of lost auto industry jobs and rising crime rates prompted many middle-class whites and African Americans to flee Detroit over the past few decades. That exodus left behind an overwhelmingly poor and nearly 83% African-American population, making Detroit the nation's largest black-majority city.
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing represents perhaps the biggest body blow yet to a faded city that's now home to barely 700,000 — down from a peak of 1.8 million during the auto industry boom years of the 1950s — and struggles to cope with the abandoned buildings and decaying municipal services.'
"I know many will see this as a low point in the city's history," Snyder wrote in a letter authorizing the bankruptcy filing. "If so, I think it will also be the foundation of the city's future — a statement I cannot make in confidence absent giving the city a chance for a fresh start, without burdens of debt it cannot hope to fully pay."
In the letter, Snyder explained his decision by citing statistics that have hobbled the city's operations:
• The city's unemployment rate has nearly tripled since 2000 and is more than double the national average.
• The homicide rate is at historically high levels, and the city has been named among America's most dangerous for more than 20 years.
• Detroiters wait an average of 58 minutes for police to respond, compared with the national average of 11 minutes.
• An estimated 40% of the city's street lights didn't work in the first quarter of 2013.
• Roughly 78,000 city structures have been abandoned.
The combination of lost auto industry jobs and rising crime rates prompted many middle-class whites and African Americans to flee Detroit over the past few decades. That exodus left behind an overwhelmingly poor and nearly 83% African-American population, making Detroit the nation's largest black-majority city.
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing represents perhaps the biggest body blow yet to a faded city that's now home to barely 700,000 — down from a peak of 1.8 million during the auto industry boom years of the 1950s — and struggles to cope with the abandoned buildings and decaying municipal services.'
- Detroit Free Press
The set-up in 'Gran Torino' shows a baby being born into the Hmong community as a proud Polish American woman is being laid to rest. Eastwood stirs up a strong sense of tradition within both communities but what's really striking is how these parallel sequences seem to signal very different levels of optimism. To put it crudely, Eastwood depicts the "one in, one out" fears many people have in working class areas where jobs are scarce and crime rates are high. Young Thao has chosen the book over the gun but he's constantly being baited into taking up a life of crime. Sue is bright, brainy, witty and resourceful which antagonises local male street hoods whose resentment threatens to engulf her. Walt hates the idea of inbreeding so much he only has eyes for his white dog Daisy.
"Gran Torino will allegedly be Clint Eastwood’s final acting role. If this is the case, then the 78 year old icon has chosen a perfectly pleasant offshoot as his acting swan song. That it is not a film worthy of multiple Oscars is not a slight against the picture. It is a fun, witty, and poignant last dance that ends up being a modern day take on the classic western archetype that Eastwood knows so well. Whether Eastwood deserves or receives an Oscar nomination for his lead performance is irrelevant. It is every bit as appropriate an acting finale as John Wayne’s The Shootist."
- Scott Mendelson, The Huffington Post
"I would like to grow up to be like Clint Eastwood. Eastwood the director, Eastwood the actor, Eastwood the invincible, Eastwood the old man. What other figure in the history of the cinema has been an actor for 53 years, a director for 37, won two Oscars for direction, two more for best picture, plus the Thalberg Award, and at 78 can direct himself in his own film and look meaner than hell? None, that's how many.
"Gran Torino" stars Eastwood as an American icon once again -- this time as a cantankerous, racist, beer-chugging retired Detroit autoworker who keeps his shotgun ready to lock and load. Dirty Harry on a pension, we're thinking, until we realize that only the autoworker retired; Dirty Harry is still on the job. Eastwood plays the character as a man bursting with energy, most of which he uses to hold himself in. Each word, each scowl, seems to have broken loose from a deep place."
"Gran Torino" stars Eastwood as an American icon once again -- this time as a cantankerous, racist, beer-chugging retired Detroit autoworker who keeps his shotgun ready to lock and load. Dirty Harry on a pension, we're thinking, until we realize that only the autoworker retired; Dirty Harry is still on the job. Eastwood plays the character as a man bursting with energy, most of which he uses to hold himself in. Each word, each scowl, seems to have broken loose from a deep place."
- Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times
Ahney Her & Clint Eastwood
'Kung Fu Girls' - Blondie
Walt eventually gets Thao to start renovating an empty house across the street and he schools him in construction. This section brings to mind how Poles rebuilt their nation brick-by-brick after the devastation of the 2nd World War, their building trade eventually becoming the envy of the world. Detroit has large rundown areas in disrepair with dilapidated structures. I could be wrong, but Eastwood seems to suggest it's in each community's hands to rebuild their crumbling industrial cities and put kids to work in the process; this way they're off the streets, picking up valuable skills, gaining confidence and restoring civic pride. Some left-wingers here in the U K have been proposing the adoption of similar schemes due to pubs and high street shops closing as people become healthier and shop online. Greedy landlords are known to be upping rent while rich elites tie up properties, yet there are so many homeless people who need to get back to work and have rooftops over their heads, many of whom served in our military before being allowed to fall through the cracks.
"The story came about in a weird way. I was literally sitting in a conference room with him, trying to convince him to do a TV commercial. I had been brought in by an ad agency to do a Super Bowl commercial, and we wanted Al Pacino to be the spokesperson. I came in to see how that would go. And the meeting didn’t go that well. But I saw this process of him taking the script from the commercial, standing up, giving it a shot, and getting frustrated with it. Like, “What if we did this? What if I kicked a field goal here? Or what if I did this?” Watching him work in that room, I started drifting from what I was there to do, and thinking, “No, no, this is a man that I need to get in the ring with.”
He said no, and we ended up getting Clint Eastwood to do it. Pacino said, “I don’t want to do it. Get Clint Eastwood to do it.” So we did, which is awesome. On the way out of that room, I said, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but I’m going to be back in a year and we’re going to make a movie together.” And he said, “I love it!”
He said no, and we ended up getting Clint Eastwood to do it. Pacino said, “I don’t want to do it. Get Clint Eastwood to do it.” So we did, which is awesome. On the way out of that room, I said, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but I’m going to be back in a year and we’re going to make a movie together.” And he said, “I love it!”
- David Gordon Green, IndieWire
"I liked the fact he [Walt Kowalski] was kind of crazy and an equal opportunity insulter, a unique character I thought I knew well. Growing up, I knew a lot of people like that. It seems in that era nobody was scared to say what they thought. This is a guy who is a Korean War veteran, whose wife just passed away at the beginning of the story. He’s estranged from his two adult sons who he thinks have counted him out. His family doesn’t care too much about him. They are grown up and don’t want to hang out with an old guy. The grandkids don’t want to hang out either, except if they might inherit something from him. Most of his friends have died. He has worked at the Ford Motor Company for 50 years and his neighborhood, which used to be all automobile people, has been taken over by immigrants. And he doesn’t like the changes that he sees.
The film also spoke a little bit about obsolescence. And it seems to resonate in what happens in the news with the American auto industry like it is today. It sort of tied in with kind of the landscape right now – the end of an era. Walt is an obsolete person. He’s a little bit like Frankie Dunn, from Million Dollar Baby, and Sergeant Highway, from Heartbreak Ridge… those kind of guys who are out of synch with society and the modern world. He doesn’t know how to relate to anybody. Nothing is the same and he’s kind of cynical about it too. But he ends up learning tolerance with someone belonging to a country he’s never even heard of."
The film also spoke a little bit about obsolescence. And it seems to resonate in what happens in the news with the American auto industry like it is today. It sort of tied in with kind of the landscape right now – the end of an era. Walt is an obsolete person. He’s a little bit like Frankie Dunn, from Million Dollar Baby, and Sergeant Highway, from Heartbreak Ridge… those kind of guys who are out of synch with society and the modern world. He doesn’t know how to relate to anybody. Nothing is the same and he’s kind of cynical about it too. But he ends up learning tolerance with someone belonging to a country he’s never even heard of."
- Clint Eastwood, Indie London
Clint Eastwood & Genevieve Vang
'Gloria' - Patti Smith Group
Walt's spiritual quest to attain inner-peace brings far greater rewards like tolerance, understanding and friendship. At the film's conclusion, it feels almost like a Christian allegory about sacrifice, recalling Stuart Rosenberg's seminal prison drama 'Cool Hand Luke' (1967). Jamie Cullum performs the title tune 'Gran Torino' and Eastwood does some singing on the soundtrack too. His son Scott Eastwood delivers the performance of his career as Irish street tough Trey.
The revenge angle comes fiercely into play in the final third of 'Gran Torino' which allows Eastwood to relive the glory days of films like 'The Exterminator' (1980), 'Class Of 1984' (1982), 'Vigilante' (1983), 'Young Warriors' (1983), 'Alley Cat' (1984), 'Savage Streets' (1984), 'The Annihilators' (1985) and 'Death Wish 3' (1985). American cinema's current revenge epicentre is probably Florida which is pumping out unforgiving variations like 'Girls Gone Dead' (2012), 'Die Die Delta Pi' (2013), 'Death-Scort Service' (2015) and 'The Executioners' (2018).
"Gran Torino" contains within its strangely tight wanderings the utter, dexterous precision of drama-comedy and tragedy given not to intellect and consideration, but to profound conviction and feeling."
- Daniel Kasman, Mubi
"Tampa Bay, both sides and into Pasco (County), is the hottest cult movie and horror movie scene in the country right now. There are so many people here (in Tampa Bay) who love these types of movies and happen to know how to make them."
- Andrew Allan, Tampa Bay Times
Bee Vang & Clint Eastwood
'Sancho' - Girl Problems Band
How 'Gran Torino' missed out entirely at the Oscars I'm really not sure as Eastwood's a firm Academy favourite. He directs this entertaining feature with the dignified manner and calm assurance of a master storyteller. The public voted with their feet, taking a modest film (for Eastwood) that cost around $33,000,000 to make to a massive box-office haul of $270,000,000. According to Wikipedia, this calculates as the second highest-grossing picture of Eastwood's storied career.
