In the realm of western cinema, few names hold as much iconic status as Clint Eastwood. His journey commenced with the television series Rawhide, propelling him into a parallel standing with the gunslinging outlaw archetype, much like John Wayne. Eastwood’s portrayal in Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy as ‘The Man With No Name’ solidified his place in the genre.
However, it was his position in Rawhide which gave Eastwood his first shot at the western genre. During that escapade he channelled the icons of golden age cinema. “Subconsciously, I think you take from everybody,” he explained in a 1992 interview. “Sometimes when I am doing a scene, I try to think how so-and-so did it in that 1936 film. Or you remember seeing some effect as a kid and try to get the same effect. As an American kid growing up, watching Howard Hawks or John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock or Billy Wilder, you watched their work and it was amazing how they created certain excitement in their films.”
He continued: “When I did Rawhide, we had a lot of old-time directors who had stopped doing movies—people like Stuart Heisler and Laszlo Benedek. I had also done three weeks on a movie with William Wellman, and watched everything he did—how he approached things, how people responded to him, how he liked the sets, the atmosphere. I found out what he liked actors to do and what he didn’t like.” However, John Wayne was never high on the list of inspirational figures for Eastwood.
Although Eastwood has explored various genres throughout his career, it’s the western genre that remains his defining association. When it comes to his six-decade-long career, one prevailing agreement is that Eastwood has managed to leave no one untouched, be it as an actor, director, or larger-than-life figure. His mere presence as an actor requires nothing more than a vacant gaze and sporadic expressions to establish his commanding aura.
As a director, he has consistently revisited and explored similar storylines, often displaying an awareness of his own legendary status. The spirit of the West flows through Eastwood’s veins, evident in his consistent admiration for western films. Over the decades, he has openly discussed his favourite movies within this genre. Naturally, among those he regards the highest, Howard Hawks’ Red River sits firmly.
Westerns have traditionally embraced a robust male-centric narrative, often clinging to an antiquated notion of masculinity and rugged bravado. Red River, however, takes a different path by delving into the generational divide between varying concepts of manliness, skilfully depicted through the dynamic between an ageing, rigid cattle driver and his youthful apprentice.
Hawks holds a special place in Eastwood’s admiration, with the director being one of the triumvirates that significantly influenced his artistic trajectory. Eastwood commends Hawks for his versatile range, seamlessly transitioning from works like Red River to His Girl Friday with contrasting rhythms and perspectives. At the forefront of Red River stands John Wayne, an undeniable titan of the genre, even though his viewpoints often differed from Eastwood’s.
As Eastwood burst onto the 1970s scene, Wayne’s star was gradually waning, transitioning out of his prime. Despite their shared conservative stance, their western interpretations diverged widely. Wayne epitomised American virtues as the honourable protagonist, while Eastwood portrayed morally complex antiheroes with a European flair. The two men operated in the same field but with two very different viewpoints on the world, which would cause the two men to enter a cold feud that rarely boiled over but seemingly simmered as they worked on the dusty planes of Hollywood.
“John Wayne once wrote me a letter saying he didn’t like High Plains Drifter,” Easwtood revealed, which he didn’t think was “really about the people who pioneered the West.” Having been such an integral part of the western’s enduring popularity, Wayne wasn’t thrilled with the direction in which it was heading as his own career began winding down, leaving Eastwood as just one of many emerging superstars he didn’t care for.
This ideological disparity ultimately prevented the realisation of their on-screen confrontation in The Hostiles. The script, penned by Larry Cohen, proposed a showdown between these two giants, but it was swiftly dismissed by Wayne himself. Beyond Red River, Eastwood also cites two other films he particularly enjoys, which he also directed. The first one, The Outlaw Josey Wales, hails from as far back as 1976. It features Eastwood in the lead role as a Missouri farmer whose family is brutally killed by Union soldiers during the American Civil War, driving him to seek vengeance.
Another is Unforgiven, released in 1992. In this film, Eastwood stars as William Munny, an ageing former outlaw who reluctantly accepts one last assignment years after retiring from his criminal past to lead a life as a farmer. He shares the screen with Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris.\