A Gen Z Defense Of Clint Eastwood

 For my money, there is no more nauseating trend in cinema than the A24 school of "generational trauma". An entire subsect of movies made for hipster teens who have strained (but not particularly bad!) relationships with their parents. It feels like half of the new directors on the block, and more than half when it comes to horror, are busy making films primarily about how they're depressed because they weren't close with their moms. Of course, the concept of generational trauma has been around forever. There is something specific that these movies are doing which bores me to tears; I think the issue is how vague the trauma in question is. It feels like "trauma" is a buzzword used to mean "mildly sad sometimes". But it's certainly possible that my issue is more how these films feel hyper-targeted towards teens and young adults who are actually doing just fine for themselves (wealthy, the parents are earnestly trying, etc). 

 As stated, generational trauma is not a new thing. Clint Eastwood made a masterpiece about generational trauma in 2003, "Mystic River". Now there's a film remarkable in its specificity. Three boys are friends. One is abducted and abused. He grows up to be a shell of a person, clearly traumatized and never able to get the help he needs. It helps that Tim Robbins gives one of the all time great acting jobs in the role. The boys not abused are also traumatized. Sean Penn's character is overprotective to the point of being a monster, and is so naïve about why he turned out this way that he speaks with pride about the abuse not being his problem. Kevin Bacon's trauma manifests in difficulty connecting in relationships. He at least carries a bit of self-awareness. Of all people, the cowboy boomer Clint Eastwood directed a basically perfect film about how child abuse can destroy an entire community. 

 Clint Eastwood seems very unpopular with the teens and twenty-somethings of film schools and film twitter. Part of this is pretty logical: even as a "Richard Jewell" enthusiast, the last decade of his work is dire ("American Sniper" is propaganda, "Sully" is painfully bland, "J. Edgar" is the most embarrassing thing he or DiCaprio have ever made, etc). Part of it is because of generational taste: Eastwood is a western actor but more importantly he's the revisionist western guy, and it's hard to fully appreciate "Unforgiven" without some background of the film movement that English Bob is a parody of. And realistically, a big part of it is that Clint Eastwood is openly a Republican, who does lame stuff like the Obama chair skit. To be sure, Eastwood's politics are indeed lame. But it's a shame that people let it interfere with his work. "Unforgiven" mocks the American tradition of mythmaking, "Million Dollar Baby" can very much be read as a progressive message movie about the right to euthanasia, and "Mystic River" is a cynical examination of stereotypically masculine traits (while also not being shy about the child abusers being the Boston clergy). Frankly, very few of Clint Eastwood's films feel like the creation of a conservative, and I think that number drops to literally zero in the 00s. One thing I can't imagine holding anyone back from enjoying Eastwood: his quick and dirty visual style. The rest of Hollywood seems eager to make films as desaturated and overedited as possible. Eastwood has never been one for stunning photography (the sweeping epics with lush art was always more up Kevin Costner's alley), but there's nothing artificial about his style. 

 It's hard to tell if Clint Eastwood is "retired" at this moment. He's 92 years old, and this current moment is the longest time he's taken off from filmmaking since 2012-2013. If he is retired, it sure looks like it happened against his will. The WB merger led to the movie studio being taken over by a not movie guy, who reportedly was rather upset with "Cry Macho" in 2021. Eastwood films are cheap to make and he makes them quickly, so anyone could get into the game in theory, but Eastwood has been with WB since he started taking roles behind the camera. It doesn't matter a ton to me whether he can make more films - they probably won't be great. But I think it does matter that the next generation up watches his best stuff, and realizes that there's plenty to learn from him.