The
Milwaukee-based cultural journalist and author Patrick McGilligan has published
biographies on semifinal figures of film, from Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang
to James Cagney and Jack Nicholson. None of his books caused the professional
and personal uproar of his contentious and highly critical “Clint,” a searing
meditation on the art, meaning and personal life of actor and filmmaker Clint
Eastwood.
Subtitled
“The Life and Legend,” the deeply unflattering book cast Eastwood as a
compulsive womanizer and sexual predator who fathered multiple children out of
wedlock, a thin-skinned backstabber who terminated friendships and professional
relationships against anybody who stood up to his authority and a litigious
control freak.
McGilligan
interviewed Eastwood once, in 1972. He spent more than four years researching,
reporting and writing the book. The original 1997 publication date was delayed
more than five years after the first two houses cancelled the publishing
contract. McGilligan persevered, publishing the work originally in 1999 in the
UK with an imprint of HarperCollins. In the spring of 2002, St. Martin’s Press
published the work. That Christmas Eastwood sued McGilligan and the publisher,
effectively removing the book from the marketplace.
This month,
the boutique New York house Or Books is issuing a revised and updated version
of the book that examines Eastwood’s life and art since the original
publication.. McGilligan, who teaches film at Marquette University, has subsequently
published books on Hitchcock, the pioneering black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux and
Nicholas Ray. His new book, “Young Orson,” about Orson Welles before he made
“Citizen Kane,” is coming out this November. In an interview, McGilligan talked
about Clint Eastwood, Orson Welles, sex, politics and the art of the film
biography.
1.
After
everything you went through, the cancelled contracts, the delays, the lawsuit,
what compelled you to come back to this material for this revised edition of
your Eastwood book?
2.
It’s a
great book, a foundational book about Clint. It was reporting things at the
time that now are taken for granted. I
don’t mean to sound boastful about it, though a lot of what came after my book,
critics and scholars [started] to adjust their thinking. Since the book came
out, Clint’s made a lot of major films, some are departures and some are very
consistent with everything he’s ever done. He’s made major political
statements, his appearance at the Republican National Convention, the upheaval
in his private life, and also the political controversy over “American Sniper.”
I was always very proud of the book. I wrote the book with great enthusiasm. It
is still the best single-volume introduction to his life and career. The
material just fascinates you. One of the reasons [Clint] sued me obviously was
an attempt to find out my sources. Because of the suit, the [original] American
release never got wide distribution because the publisher held out and it only
had a limited printing. We did very well in the lawsuit, and we sold several
editions, down to the last copy in the UK. We sold it in France, and it did
very well there and received some very prominent reviews.
3.
How was the lawsuit resolved?
4.
The suit was settled without any
public disclosure, which if you read my book is one of the ways in which Clint
conducts his legal affairs—keeping the results out of the public eye. I
am not allowed to say we won or lost, but we admitted no wrongdoing, and there
was no penalty. I agreed to take out or
rewrite about a dozen points of contention in any future editions. The edition
that was sued was allowed to be sold until it was sold out. The new edition has
those sections deleted or revised according to agreement. I retained the U.S.
rights after the suit was settled. I’m a big supporter of my books. I saw what
was happening with Clint. I went to various publishers, and I said there was
great commercial value there. John Oakes, the editor of Or Books, in New York,
told me they didn’t do this sort of thing. This was before “American Sniper”
came out. Once “American Sniper” came out and there was all of this
controversy, [Oakes] contacted me back and said he was annoyed by Eastwood’s
bullying, he said he wanted to bring the book out. [Oakes] said, “This is a
left-wing house,” and I said, “This is a left-wing book.” Clint is a right-wing
subject. Some have argued he’s iconoclastic, or he is a
libertarian, but for me, you can’t approach him factually unless you [concede
that] about him politically. He supported Reagan, Nixon, all of the Bushes, and
for people to argue he’s not right-wing, I just wonder, what planet are you on.
This is an auteurist book, and his politics—his sexual politics,
everything—have always been reflected in his work. I write auteurist
books, about directors and actors, and [examine] their personalities and values
and see how it transfers into the films.
5.
Eastwood
has made some very interesting—and also very problematic—films since the
original version was published. It must have been interesting to reconsider
your critical appraisal, which is quite harsh in some respects.
6.
I had
already updated the book for the editions in Spain and France. When I’m
updating a book, I look at what everybody else has written, but nothing really
changes or alters my point of view. The journalism is pretty controlled on a
movie like “Mystic River.” Dennis Lehane is not going to disparage the film for
your behalf. Clint is incapable of making a film that is outside of himself.
For me, he’s at his most interesting when it is as far a departure as possible,
like “Letters from Iwo Jima,” or “White Hunter, Black Heart.” I think he’s at
his best when he’s not in the movie. He’s best as a moviemaker when he goes
outside and tries to do something different and audacious as far as commercial
Hollywood terms. Most of this I thought through. I didn’t want to go back and
trod over the same ground.
7.
At the
time of the original American hardcover release, you called the book as a
critique of a certain kind of male critical adoration of Eastwood. That seems
even more relevant today.
8.
Some of
the favorable reviews said that and [read the biography] as a critical look at
Hollywood and America and a certain image. The fascinating part with Clint is
he represents both the actor as auteur, with this vast body of work, and Clint
the director as auteur. They complement and overlap and at times they are very
separate. It represents a very rich source of investigation and discussion.
There is a great number of people who idolize him to the point they are blind. [Eastwood] fosters values that I don’t really endorse. You
see the culmination of this with “American Sniper.” [New York Times’ columnist]
Gail Collins talks above all, a man’s gotta have his gun regardless of how many
innocents are killed. I like “Dirty Harry,” but politically and what it’s meant
culturally, it is much more unsettling, because it’s about a willingness to do
whatever is necessary to get what we want, whether it’s the heroic American
saving us from the horrors of Iraq or sneering at the black bank robber about
how many bullets I’ve shot. Pauline Kael called me up after she read the Clint
book.. I knew friends of hers, like Michael Sragow and I have [quoted] her work
in my other books, like my Altman book. She said, “I don’t like what you said
about me in some of your other books, but I love what you said about Clint. I recognize that kind of person from California. He is tall, strong, and
handsome and always reaches for his gun.” On a fundamental level, it is fraudulent and not very believable. All of
this gun violence that has followed in Hollywood films and it has formed our
culture. Police can shoot black men in the back and we debate how did this
happen. That Pandora’s box was opened a long time ago. Clint’s a towering figure
in our culture, for his accomplishments, for being both a successful and
popular figure, but he is also very emblematic of what’s wrong with Hollywood.
I don’t really like macho, heroic image in anyone. In his films, it is played
for cheap advantage and the deck is always is stacked. He is somebody who
always accelerates the violence, but is still portrayed at the end as the hero
of the story.
9.
How do
you decide on your subjects? It is interesting to see how you balance iconic
figures like Cagney, Jack Nicholson and Hitchcock with somebody like the great
pioneering black director Oscar Micheaux.
10.
I am
very open minded and I have a lot of different interests. I have names on a
list. It also details various mediation and discussions with my editors, and
they have ideas. For me, it has always been the job, and I have to have
interest in the job, because it is usually three or four years of your life.
Hitchcock made 53 films, so you’re stuck with a really good, long book. I don’t
even write long proposals. For the Welles’ book, I just wrote, “Orson Welles
before ‘Citizen Kane,’ and it ends the first time he says cut.” He’s a magic
name. Imagine proposing a book about Orson Welles before “Citizen Kane.” You
have to be convinced of an instinct, a hunch or even delusion, that there’s
something there that is going to make it worthwhile. The books are forever and
they keep paying you back.
11.
Was the
timing of the Welles book done to coincide with the centenary of his birth?
12.
We tried
to have the book ready by May, but it’s a big book, the first edition is around
600 pages. The publisher’s idea was that it didn’t really matter. There are a
lot of conferences and symposiums [about Welles] right now, and I pay my
respects to the scholars and the experts. The other [Welles] books are very
worthwhile. Reporters are doing their job, and film people are writing about
films they love. The book is not written in a scholarly way. It’s meant to be a
life story, and I try to find something surprising and different from what you
try to expect. I’m in a position I can’t really talk about it, but as it turns
out, [Welles’ life] is very interesting.
13.
One
thing that is very interesting about all of your books is that, as a
biographer, you are a kind of forensic anthropologist in how you piece together
these lives.
14.
I have
gotten tired of going to Hollywood and begging for interviews. You can find
somebody who knew Clint when he was a kid. In Orson’s case, anybody who knew
him in 1940 would be more than 110 or older, and I don’t really enjoy
interviewing people that old. With the Welles book, I did go to Spain, I did go
to Ireland. The Welles’ book is a very Midwestern book, because he was a
Midwestern guy, in spite of everything. I ended up spending a lot of time
reading microfilm of the daily newspaper in Kenosha, also in Madison and
Milwaukee. There were interesting
documents in courthouses, archives and libraries throughout southern Wisconsin
and northern Illinois. His mysterious older brother even popped up in prep
school records at St. John's military academy, a part of which used to be in
Lake Geneva. You end up looking at archives wide and far afield: birth,
marriage, death, divorce, taxes, estate and military records.
15.
Another
aspect that links your work is your interest in the Hollywood blacklist and the
cultural left, especially in your oral history, “Tender Comrades,” the Nicholas
Ray and now Welles book.
16.
I have
an interest in left-wing culture and talking about the politics of culture.
There’s a chance I might do a book next on a right-wing director, and his role
in the culture and the blacklist. One of the things that fascinated me about
Welles is that he has great politics. Welles was the leader of the political
culture in the 1940s, in civil rights and other progressive causes. He gave
money and he appeared at events and he wrote great [newspaper] columns. Jack
[Nicholson] has had pretty good politics, and that draws me to a character.
Oscar [Micheaux] had very curious politics, as did Fritz Lang, who nearly
became a Nazi and by the end of his life he is almost a communist. One of the
reasons I was drawn to writing about George Cukor is that I met people in the
blacklist who knew him, and they said he was very shy in his politics. When
you’re writing a biography, you’re almost writing a novel and it’s a life
story, and the characters have motifs you are trying to draw out, of sex and
politics. You hope that they have interesting sex lives. Eastwood, for
instance, has a fascinating sex life.
17.
You grew
up in Madison and you were at the University of Wisconsin with a lot of other
writers and critics, Joseph McBride, Michael Wilmington, Danny and Geary Peary
and Peter Brunette, who became prominent in their field. Madison was also
central to the anti-Vietnam war student protest movement.
18.
Most of
the left wing students came from the East coast and they were were very
sophisticated about film. They brought a film culture to Madison. Some of them,
like Russell Campbell, Joe [McBride], were already getting their first books
published. Nancy Schwartz was also part of that group. Tony Chase wrote several
legal books about film. When you were around, you didn’t speak. You could listen
to them and learn a lot. They were learned, and they were pretty political and
they watched everything. They took the maxim of the Caribbean Marxist C.L.R
James: “Our duty is to see the film in the afternoon, picket it in the
evening.” It was not much difference from the French New Wave directors and
what they were doing. We were just 20 years behind them.
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