Spike and Clint go to war

Two of Hollywood’s most famous and acclaimed directors have recently come out, guns blazing, in a bitter war of words. Although the subject matter is very serious – Sike Lee’s criticism of the non-existence of black faces in Clint Eastwood’s war films – surely these two men are far too old to be having playground scraps.

The feud began with Lee’s comments that Eastwood ignored the numerous black soldiers who fought for America in his war films Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. Prompted in a recent interview found here, Eastwood – the much celebrated five time Oscar winning actor and director – responded to Lee’s criticisms by suggesting that the black director, “should shut his face.”

Naturally, this didn’t go down too well with Lee and his retort dragged the argument into the wider stratosphere of racism and America’s murky past of slavery by suggesting, “…the man (Eastwood) is not my father and we’re not on a plantation.”

Lee, director of Do The Right Thing, two time Academy Award nominee and holder of two history degrees, stated that he felt “denied, insulted and mistreated” by the lack of any black faces in Eastwood’s war films. He further added that America still maintains a strong, underlying force of racism.

Perhaps not taking Lee’s accusations all that seriously, Eastwood – aged 78 – mocked the director by commenting that his next project is set in post-independence South Africa. Entitled The Human Factor, Eastwood joked that he was not about to “make Nelson Mandela a white guy.”

With no concrete signs of it ending soon, this rather public spat could be long running. Yes, it's about a delicate topic and yes, neither director is likely to admit they are in the wrong, but wouldn’t it be great to see the argument peak on the red carpet?