Clint Eastwood's America

Sam Girgus is professor of English at Vanderbilt University.

• Acknowledgments viiiAbbreviations xiiIntroduction: Eastwood’s America – From the Self to a World View 11 The First Twenty Years: Borderline States of Mind 242 Unforgiven: The Search for Redemption 703 Mo Cuishle: A New Religion in Million Dollar Baby 1164 Cries from Mystic River: God, Transcendence, and a Troubled Humanity 1725 Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima: History Lessons on Time and the Stranger 231Notes and References 284Index 301

''No other book on Clint Eastwood comes close to what Sam Girgus accomplishes here in assessing Eastwood’s remarkable - and wholly unexpected - maturation as a film-maker and narrative artist, and his increasingly complex and sophisticated treatment of social, ethical, interpersonal, and gender-related issues. Indeed, Girgus builds a case for Eastwood’s emergence since the early 1990s as America’s consummate auteur - a film-maker who has taken far greater risks and has made far more significant and memorable films over the past two decades than any other Hollywood director.''Thomas G. Schatz, The University of Texas at Austin''This book marks a long-awaited appreciation of the complexity of Eastwood’s directorial and moral vision. Starting with Unforgiven, Eastwood’s main characters have been engaged in a search for meaning, called upon by the voice of the other to perform a ritual sacrifice on behalf of that other that thereby delivers to the hero a sense of purpose. Invoking Levinas and Kristeva, Girgus demonstrates the evolution of the Eastwood hero from self-sufficient loner to a being entangled in relationships, who challenges the ethical and moral order of thinking and living in today’s uncertain world.''John Belton, Rutgers University''Girgus sharpens his ongoing scholarship on cinema and ethics with this thought-provoking analysis of the films of Clint Eastwood. Eastwood has evolved into arguably the most conflicted and divisive icon in American cinema, reflecting an oceanic career that rocks with waves of various social, political, and cultural influences and positions. In a historical moment when Hollywood and American society at large are in the throes of rupture and self-redefinition, Girgus offers us a timely and crucial survey of the ultimate symbol of what is best and worst about a national ideology and its film culture.''Hunter Vaughan, Oakland University