<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Spike, perhaps you chose the wrong highly acclaimed, multiple-Oscar-winning film icon to tick off. Clint Eastwood lapsed into full Dirty Harry mode in response to Spike Lee's complaints that Eastwood didn't include black soldiers in his film about the Iwo Jima flag-raising. He made multiple points about why Spike was full of baloney, but the response was deftly summed up - you can almost hear the snarl through clenched teeth - in one line: "A guy like him should shut his face." Lee was quick with a response of his own, which did nothing to defuse the budding feud. "First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either. He's a great director. He makes his films, I make my films. The thing about it though, I didn't personally attack him. And a comment like "A guy like that should shut his face" - come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there." Very astute, Spike - that's exactly what he is! He closed with, "In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that. I have a different version." Clint, back to you: "As for 'Flags of Our Fathers,' yes, there was a small detachment of black troops on Iwo Jima as a part of a munitions company, but they didn't raise the flag. The story is "Flags of Our Fathers," the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate." Eastwood said Lee "was complaining when I did "Bird" [the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker]. Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why." Coincidentally, Eastwood's next project, "The Human Factor," is about Nelson Mandela and how he used the country's victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup as a means of fostering national unity. Starring, say, Tom Hanks as Mandela? "Yeah, I'm not going to make Nelson Mandela a white guy."</div> Source: SJ Mercury News
I wouldn't call it ownage, I read about Spike going off on the movie a couple of weeks back. Instead of telling him to "shut his face", some intelligent dialogue would've been better.....Eastwood missed the entire point of African Americans not being portrayed at all in War movies when in reality there were plenty of African Americans who have fought in plenty of American wars. Spike didn't say that he should've put black men in the scene where they're raising the flag he just said that black men did indeed fight in that battle, and in the words of spike "Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen".....This happens far too often in hollywood, in our school textbooks, libraries, etc.....
I think Spike might have a valid point in that there should have been some kind of African-American actor, but that doesn't mean Clint is racist if he doesn't include one;and some of Spike's movies have had questionable content imo. I loved Malcolm X, I'm not exactly referring to that though. :]
Yeah I don't think spike was even trying to call him a racist, he was just stating his opinion...................Clint decided to go Dirty Harry on him, lmao...........
I'm a big Spike Lee fan, but he's clearly out of line here. It's not his movie, for starters. Eastwood is no dummy, and he's right that black americans, in a segregated armed forces, rarely had significant roles. Zero african-americans were awarded the Medal of Honor during WW II, though 10 were awarded the medal in 1996 after the army ordered a study to see if some were overlooked. From what I've read, blacks volunteered in big numbers for WW II, but ended up being 2% or less of the armed forces and almost exclusively served in all-black regiments.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>I'm a big Spike Lee fan, but he's clearly out of line here. It's not his movie, for starters. Eastwood is no dummy, and he's right that black americans, in a segregated armed forces, rarely had significant roles. Zero african-americans were awarded the Medal of Honor during WW II, though 10 were awarded the medal in 1996 after the army ordered a study to see if some were overlooked. From what I've read, blacks volunteered in big numbers for WW II, but ended up being 2% or less of the armed forces and almost exclusively served in all-black regiments.</div> I think you're missing the point. The point is that African Americans did fight in a lot of these wars, and rarely are they portrayed as doing so on the big screen. Sometimes it was a small percentage and other times it was a big percentage, but either way a lot of the times we are left out of the picture....and that is a problem.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Dream @ Jun 8 2008, 05:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>I'm a big Spike Lee fan, but he's clearly out of line here. It's not his movie, for starters. Eastwood is no dummy, and he's right that black americans, in a segregated armed forces, rarely had significant roles. Zero african-americans were awarded the Medal of Honor during WW II, though 10 were awarded the medal in 1996 after the army ordered a study to see if some were overlooked. From what I've read, blacks volunteered in big numbers for WW II, but ended up being 2% or less of the armed forces and almost exclusively served in all-black regiments.</div> I think you're missing the point. The point is that African Americans did fight in a lot of these wars, and rarely are they portrayed as doing so on the big screen. Sometimes it was a small percentage and other times it was a big percentage, but either way a lot of the times we are left out of the picture....and that is a problem. </div> It's only a problem when some black man gets pissed off about something that happened in 1945. A lot of black people need to get over what happened in the past, history is history. Move forward. If Spike is so pissed, make your own damn movie about blacks in WWII.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Black Mamba @ Jun 8 2008, 06:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>It's only a problem when some black man gets pissed off about something that happened in 1945. A lot of black people need to get over what happened in the past, history is history. Move forward. If Spike is so pissed, make your own damn movie about blacks in WWII.</div> <span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%">OH NO HE DIDN'T!!!!!!</span>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 8 2008, 06:43 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Black Mamba @ Jun 8 2008, 06:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>It's only a problem when some black man gets pissed off about something that happened in 1945. A lot of black people need to get over what happened in the past, history is history. Move forward. If Spike is so pissed, make your own damn movie about blacks in WWII.</div> <span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%">OH NO HE DIDN'T!!!!!!</span> </div> LMFAO. Wasn't expecting that... Dude..I don't have a problem with black people...so don't (not you Brian, people in general) try to paint me as a racist. I've got a problem when black people dwell on the past. Clint made a movie, about a battle, that involved a majority of white people.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (The Dream @ Jun 8 2008, 03:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>I'm a big Spike Lee fan, but he's clearly out of line here. It's not his movie, for starters. Eastwood is no dummy, and he's right that black americans, in a segregated armed forces, rarely had significant roles. Zero african-americans were awarded the Medal of Honor during WW II, though 10 were awarded the medal in 1996 after the army ordered a study to see if some were overlooked. From what I've read, blacks volunteered in big numbers for WW II, but ended up being 2% or less of the armed forces and almost exclusively served in all-black regiments.</div> I think you're missing the point. The point is that African Americans did fight in a lot of these wars, and rarely are they portrayed as doing so on the big screen. Sometimes it was a small percentage and other times it was a big percentage, but either way a lot of the times we are left out of the picture....and that is a problem. </div> There's been several movies that portrayed the situation of black people during the wars. Buffalo Soldiers Tuskegee Airmen Glory To name three off the top of my head. Where's Spike's film? He can portray anything he wants in his own films... http://www.beyondhollywood.com/spike-lee-e...black-soldiers/ Spike Lee Eyes World War II Movie About Black Soldiers June 6, 2007 (12:51 pm) The always controversial Spike Lee has another movie planned, this one about black soldiers during World War II. What exactly attracted Lee to the project? Um, because it’s about black soldiers fighting in a war overseas while they were still being segregated by Whitey back home? I mean, come on, that’s drama, baby! Lee says his film will be primarily based on James McBride’s novel “Miracle at St. Anna”, which is about a group of soldiers from the 92nd, all-black Buffalo Division fighting against Nazi occupation in Tuscany, Italy, and the friendship between one of them and a six-year-old Italian orphan. Lee has never shied away from taking America to task for its racist past, and why should he? It’s really a damn shame what America did to blacks back then, even going so far as to segregate the military into black and white troops. But of course, then Lee has to go American bashing in this interview and call World War II “the last just war”, meaning, of course, that he doesn’t think all the other wars since has been “just”. A lot of people in South Korea would disagree with you there, Spike.
Spike Lee has made some pretty damn good films, and his influence on cinema is undisputed, but geez he's got a history of making stupid statements.
lol, I don't watch much war/army movies, I think the only ones I've seen are Forest Gump, All Quiet on the Western Front, Major Payne, and Saving Private Ryan.
