Clint: The Man and the Movies

Film critic Levy (King of Comedy) argues in this sharp biography that Clint Eastwood is “an inkblot in whom we see a variety of opposing ideas at once.” Eastwood was born in San Francisco in 1930, and after performing in a school play as an eighth grader, he told his drama teacher that, despite her praise, “I don’t want to do that again, ever in my life.” That changed after his military service ended in 1953, thanks to fellow soldiers who urged him to take “a shot at Hollywood.” Taking a wide angle, Levy covers Eastwood’s rise to stardom starting with some lucky breaks; his forays into politics, including his bizarre speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention, where he addressed an empty chair as if Barack Obama were in it; his complex personal relationships; and how sexual assault functions as a “personal obsession” in his films. Levy has a knack for memorable phrasing, describing 1997’s Absolute Power, for example, as “a B-movie story requiring significant momentum so as to keep the audience from falling into the holes in the plot.” It makes for a solid account of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the life of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (July)