Cannes Film Festival--Most things you do successfully in life; you feel good afterwards. There are a few things you can do, fail, and still feel good afterwards.
Taking on Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood is neither of those.Spike Lee accepts this risk and is determined to make things happen, as he goes after Clint for the lack of an African American presence in his two war epics Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. His first move was creating the new movie Miracle at St Anna.
This is an epic story about members of the all-black 92nd Buffalo Division, which fought the Germans in Italy. His second move was to "call Eastwood out" for his lack of Black soldiers at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday.
“Here’s the paradox,” he said. “These African-American men wanted to fight against fascism in the name of democracy. At the same time, they were still second-class citizens.” Although Lee emphasised his respect for Eastwood as a film-maker, he claimed that the director had been told of the African-Americans who fought at Iwo Jima, and had chosen to ignore that “information”.
TIMES ON LINE has more of this story.