The “terrible reputation” Clint Eastwood can only blame on himself: “Nobody really gives a damn”
Having achieved so much during his seven-decade career, it speaks volumes about the legacy that Clint Eastwood will leave behind that it’s hard to decide what it is he’ll be remembered for above all else.
Will it be as one of the most iconic stars in Hollywood history? Will it be as a four-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker? Will it be a combination of the two, since he’s almost certainly the greatest actor-turned-director of all time? Will history bring up the ‘Man with No Name’, Dirty Harry, or Unforgiven first?
It’s obviously a wonderful problem to have, with Eastwood having achieved so much over such an extended period of time that there’s no easy way to sum up his contributions to the industry in a single soundbite. If there’s one word he doesn’t want to be remembered as, though, it’s economical.
He’s often been left scratching his head at productions that spiral out of control, whether that’s ballooning budgets or falling behind schedule, mostly because he’s made it look easy. Eastwood has an inner circle who’ve worked with him on countless pictures, so most of the crew know what to expect.
As a result, he never spends a penny more than he’s given, and never shoots for a minute over the time he’s agreed upon, which he’s found to be more of a curse than a blessing. When asked about his famous aversion to the financial and timekeeping aspects of his work, he didn’t sound too thrilled.
“As far as bringing films in on budget and on time: it’s a terrible reputation to have, because nobody really gives a damn,” he suggested. “I’ve found that nobody really cares about all that. They care about the final result. If a picture costs three times what it was budgeted for and it’s a flop, nobody knows about it; it just dies out.”
That’s not really true, especially in the modern era, where any picture that carries an unnecessarily large budget and bombs on the big screen hardly goes unnoticed, and always has its carcass picked apart. That said, the inverse is also true: Steven Spielberg’s Jaws cost four times as much as it was supposed to, but when it became the highest-grossing movie ever made, all of those sins were instantly forgiven.
In typical fashion, Eastwood boiled it all down to a matter of respect. “I figure if somebody is dumb enough to finance my films, I’ll at least try to bring it in for what I said I would,” he offered. “That’s really no big feat; you should be able to do that.” Technically, you should, but enough directors have failed miserably that he’s made it look easier than most.
It’s a little oxymoronic that Eastwood thinks that aspect of his reputation is a terrible thing when he’s done nothing but repeatedly earn it over the course of his 40-feature directorial career, but he’s too much of a professional to overspend and twiddle his thumbs just to prove a point and try to get rid of it.
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