Spike Lee Condemns Clint Eastwood's 'Iwo Jima' For Its Absence of Black Soldiers
An interesting subject...
An interesting argument was brought forward (and ignored) at the Cannes Film Festival by director Spike Lee as the Times Online brings us news that in a press conference Lee brought up the fact that black soldiers were conspicuous by their absence from Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.
Lee is quoted saying, "There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint for not having one [in the films]. That was his version: the negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version." He was in attendance to premiere an eight-minute trailer for his latest feature film, Miracle at St. Anna, a war drama with which he hopes to set the record straight.
"Here's the paradox," he said. "These African-American men wanted to fight against fascism in the name of democracy. At the same time, they were still second-class citizens." Although Lee emphasised his respect for Eastwood as a film-maker, he claimed that the director had been told of the African-Americans who fought at Iwo Jima, and had chosen to ignore that "information".
With Clint Eastwood in attendance at Cannes as he debuted The Exchange "The Times" asked him twice to respond to Lee's criticism
Eastwood stared out into the audience as the compere refused to accept a question that did not relate to L'Échange. Later, his spokeswoman also declined to comment.
What's also interesting outside of the Lee quotes is a comment on the article from a resident of Derby, England that goes like this:
now you know what it feels like to be English, every war film that has ever came out of hollywood has either ignore the British contribution or made us look like bit players. But talk about race is getting boring now
Race is getting boring? I highly doubt Lee is raising this issue merely for entertainment value or to cure your boredom level. Anyway, it seems like Lee did his best to steer this in the direction of a factual issue rather than simply one of race.
As the "Times" points out, Lee didn't use the word "racist" and I am not sure why Eastwood didn't include any African Americans at least as extras. A couple of commenters on the article think Lee is just trying to promote his new film, which I don't see a problem with, especially if it is partly in response to films that didn't include back soldiers, which seems to be part of his mission as he also said, "At the beginning of the war, black soldiers did not fight. They cooked, cleaned and drove trucks. That was all they were allowed to do. There was a theory that the black soldiers would run. That was proven false."
Lee's Miracle at St. Anna chronicles the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II and is set to hit theaters on October 10 from Touchstone Pictures.
For the complete article click here.
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what the fuck? is this the only way spike lee gets coverage anymore, by pointing out that there is no black soldiers in one of clint eastwoods best film. clint or lee, hmmm, i'll go with clint eastwood.
So are you saying it isn't a valid opinion? By saying it is the only way Lee gets coverage is not saying anything about the matter at hand.
Also, those two films are nowhere near Clint Eastwood's best films (in my opinion). Unforgiven is easily his best (that I have seen) and Letters and Flags are both pretty much on the awful side right along with Mystic River.
I don't even remember any American soldiers in Iwo Jima. You hardly saw them, give me a break. Out of 70,000 American oldiers who landed in Iwo Jima, 900 of them were black. (wikipedia bitches!) That's only a little more than 1% so no I dont think its much of a point since the odds of seeing a black person on the island was so low. If there was a more substantial number I would feel Spike a little on this but I just don't.
Oh, and Mystic River ruled
I'm with Andre here. I could maybe see it with Flags of Our Fathers. That was the American side of the story, after all, and with so many soldiers going this way and that in that one a Black extra here or there wouldn't have exatly been too much of a stretch to see. My gut tells me it was an oversight, especially because looking at Clint's directorial filmography he's not exactly been anything close to a racist.
In Letters from Iwo Jima, though, I just don't get the complaint. That was the Japanese side, after all, and there were maybe four or five American soldiers in the whole gosh darn movie. It seems like an odd thing to complain about and I think Eastwood is making the right choice just not answering the question.
Andre's also right about the other thing… Mystic River seriously ruled, definitely up there with the best things Clint has ever directed alongside Letters from Jima, White Hunter, Black Heart, Bird, The Outlaw Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter, The Bridges of Madison County and Play Misty for Me. (Unforgiven is his certified masterpiece. As much as I love those others that one is still head and shoulders above them all.)
If you guys read the quotes he is actually referring to both films. I only used the one for the headline. Also, Spike never said it was racist.
Oh, and I am sure you both return to Mystic River religiously for a quick pick-me-up.
I agree with Spike, my grandfather and his brothers served in World War II, but if you look at Hollywood , you would barely recognize that Blacks served in that war at all. In my opinion, it doesn't matter if it was less than 1%.
I tend to agree with you a little more than the others, primarily because it isn't as if Spike is speaking only about these two films. If you click over and read the entire article it is obviously a culmination of things. I didn't want to reprint the entire thing so I left out the part that says:
[QUOTE]Lee said that rewriting Second World War history was typical of Hollywood. The Dirty Dozen was among the few films that showed the contribution made by African-American soldiers, he said. White heroes played by John Wayne and other Hollywood stars had until now overshadowed the sacrifice of brave heroes of colour who laid down their lives for their country, he added.
It wasn't a direct quote from Lee so I left it out.
Oh I had already read about it on the internet.
But I think both of Clint's movies were based on books,so I don't think Clint can be blamed for that. I do see what Spike is saying as a whole though.
This is the thing with a lot of WWII movies, they rarely hit the mark completely but isn't that just a bit too difficult?
Allthough having a few black soldiers, even just as extra's, wouldn't have been to much of a problem.
With such a huge "event" as WWII it's hard to incorporate everything unless you have a movie that's more specific in its subject like Windtalkers.
However I do see the point tho because I have a similar problem:
Every movie that deals with the concentration camps is allways about the jewish victims. My father and uncle are Auschwitz survivors and their father died in Sachsenhausen. No movie will ever be about them or all the other non jewish victims.
Mentally handicapped, homosexuals, gypsies, slavic people and so many many others are simply forgotten by Hollywood. People nowdays don't even know about them because they're educated thru movies and TV that leaves them out.
It's insulting to just ignore them and it deminnishes the lessons that can be learned. That anyone can be a victim and that so many PEOPLE fought for the freedom of others as well as theirs.
They all should be honored and remembered.