Clint Eastwood - The director

2. Clint Eastwood - The director • http://www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/great_directors_clint_eastwood/ • His most recent films have been very different from the westerns and Dirty Harry films for which he became famous... ‘Go ahead, make my day’ - a famous line challenging the ‘punk’ he was holding a gun on, is no longer his focus. His recent films, as mentioned on rottentomatoes.com question what it means to be human, and in a number, what it means to be a parent (Changeling, Gran Torino, Million Dollar Baby). He is now focused, not on the challenges of brute force and masculinity, but the challenges of morality and redemption.

3. Redemption:The action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil • Being that this theme runs through a large majority of Eastwood’s films, including the westerns, leaves the audience wondering what the man himself is trying to seek redemption from in his own life. • Both Gran Torino and Million Dollar Baby (staring and directed by Clint Eastwood) focus on a grumpy old man, resistant to a young character who he ends up taking under his wing and teaching important lessons to, all the while in some form of conflict with himself and his own children.

4. Eastwood has a murky past, especially when it comes to his own family and relationships. (He once broke up with his wife by changing all the locks on their house while she was out of town and packing up all her stuff and leaving it outside). He has been married twice but has children to five different women. (The latest one making a penny with “Mrs Eastwood and Company”) • That being said, he is a family man and often works with the same actors multiple times and keeps a tight crew (including his son) working behind the scenes on a large majority of his films. • Eastwood’s films focus heavily on relationships, little dialogue which reveals a lot and realistic characters, with flaws. Stylistically, Eastwood uses dialogue, dark lighting, music, two shots and close ups to communicate to the audience about his characters, their relationships and the themes of his films.

5. Million Dollar Baby is a love story. Not romantic love, but the love between a (albeit pseudo) father and daughter. His central character, Frankie, lives with regret (about his own daughter and a previous fighter) which he finds redemption from through Maggie Fitzgerald. • Maggie’s father, whom she was close to, has passed away and her mother lives in a trailer with her sister and weighs over 300 pounds, and as she says “trouble in my family comes by the pound”. Frankie writes to his daughter, Katie, every week, but each letter comes back marked ‘return to sender’. He goes to Mass almost every day to ask Father Horvak inane questions about God and religion. Father Horvak is patient with him, answering his questions, but doesn’t understand why Frankie comes to church every day when it seems his only purpose is to annoy Father Horvak. Frankie is lonely, he needs company and advice but is too proud or perhaps stubborn to ask for it. (It’s not until the very end when Maggie asks Frankie to end her life does Frankie actually ask the priest for real advice)

6. We are never told what happened between Frankie and his daughter to cause the rift but Eddie Dupris, the narrator and former fighter, explains as the movie goes on in a letter to Frankie’s daughter that he wanted her to know what kind of man her father really was. • Eddie lost the sight in one eye in a fight Frankie shouldn’t have let him be in. Eddie was determined but realized later “Every fighter has a number” and he fought one too many. Frankie lives with the guilt of Eddie’s blindness, “Spends his life wishing he could take back that 109th fight” and looks after Eddie. “If I give you some more money, will you buy some new socks, please?” • At first Frankie rejects Maggie, “I don’t train girls”, but her persistence and Eddie’s encouragement of her, wears him down. He shows his gruff demeanor when he agrees to take her own “Don’t argue with me, don’t question me, don’t come crying to me when you get hurt”. Which might go to explain why he and his daughter aren’t close.

7. Before Maggie’s first fight Frankie passes her to a new manager. She is hurt and even more frustrated when she is losing the fight and he doesn’t offer her any help. Frankie, watching the fight, hates to see her lose and steps in. The ref tells him to back off unless she’s his fighter, which he did not want. He says the to ref “Yeah, this is my fighter”.... His one rule to teach Maggie is “Protect yourself at all times”... in the changing room after the fight she says to him “You gave me away. How’s that protecting me?”“It’s not”“You going to leave me again?”“Never”. • A small exchange of dialogue but emotionally powerful. You feel his sincerity and love for her when he says “never”.

8. When she fights in Europe he gives her a silky green robe to wear out to the ring with Mo Chuisle (spelled incorrectly in the film as "mocuishle"): Irish for "my darling, and my blood" (literally, "my pulse"). He tells her this right before granting her wish of euthanasia. A single tear runs down her cheek. He is her family... Which is especially powerful after the disgusting treatment we have witnessed of her own blood relatives. • Frankie reads a gaelic book throughout the film and when he gives her the robe she asks what it means. He tells her he will tell her if she wins... Symbolic as he was never able to say I love you in English and did it finally in a foreign language. Right before she dies he tells her it means “My darling, my blood”.

9. Finding Redemption… • When Maggie first asks Frankie to end her life he asks her not to ask him for this and that he can’t do it. • He goes to Father Horvak. • “It’s committing a sin by doing it. By keeping her alive I’m killing her” • “Frankie I’ve seen you at Mass almost every day for 23 years. The only person who comes to church that much is the kind who can’t forgive himself for something. Whatever sins you carry, they’re nothing compared to this… if you do this thing you’ll be lost, somewhere so deep, you’ll never find yourself again.” • Frankie returns to the hospital where they have sedated Maggie so she won’t try to hurt herself again. A close up on her face with her eyes rolling around and back at Frankie’s face reacting to this shows how far she has sunk. • He returns to the gym to get his equipment…

10. He apologises to Eddie for saying it was his -fault (something he felt guilty about – lashing out at Eddie in the hospital when he firsts hears her condition) • Frankie is sitting the dark with his gym bag with syringes and adrenaline which he uses on fighters during a match - “You got a fight I don’t know about?” – In fact he does, a moral one. • “I killed her” “Don’t say that… because of you Maggie got her shot. If Maggie died today, do you know what her last thought would be? I think I did alright. I know I could rest with that.” – Frankie replies “Yeah” and in a way Eddie has given him permission to do this deed he has been dreading… He doesn’t want Maggie living her life with the consequences of what he sees as his mistakes (Like Eddie has).

11. Before the scene cuts to Frankie eating lemon pie in the roadside diner it shows Eddie at Frankie’s desk writing a letter - the letter to Frankie’s daughter which is the narration to the film • “Frankie didn’t leave a note and no body knew where he went. I’d hoped he’d gone to find you and ask you one more time to forgive him. But maybe he didn’t have anything left in his heart. I just hope he found a place where he could find a little peace…somewhere between no where and goodbye. But that’s probably wishful thinking. No matter where he is I thought you should know what kind of man your father really was.” • And that’s the end of the film. We never find out why Frankie needs forgiveness from his daughter but Eddie obviously wanted to try and help him find it. Frankie has resigned to never having it but eats lemon pie with the knowledge he did right by his other daughter…. Maggie.