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Clint Eastwood once said fellow director Spike Lee should "shut his face" during a dispute about race representation in war films.
In the new biography, "Clint: The Man and The Movies," author Shawn Levy details "an ugly spat" between Eastwood and Lee that unfolded in 2008, per PEOPLE. Lee called out Eastwood for the lack of representation in his 2006 companion films about World War II, Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers.
"He did two films about Iwo Jima back to back, and there was not one Black soldier in both of those films," Lee said during a 2008 Cannes Film Festival press conference. "Many veterans, African-Americans, who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood. In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that." Later that year, Lee released his war film Miracle at St. Anna, which highlighted an all-Black U.S. division fighting in Italy.
Eastwood responded to Lee's comment while promoting his 2008 drama Changeling, saying, “A guy like him should shut his face.”
"Has he ever studied the history?" Eastwood asked a reporter, noting that his depictions of history in film were authentic.
The feud between the two escalated with Lee telling ABC News at the time, “The man is not my father and we’re not on a plantation either.” Lee also acknowledged that Eastwood was a "great director," but “he sounds like an angry old man right there.”
According to Levy's biography, fellow directing legend Steven Spielberg later intervened in the feud “and convinced them to bury the hatchet.”
“That thing with Clint was overblown, and that stuff was squashed. We’re cool,” Lee told Access Hollywood in 2008. “We never talked, but I talked to Spielberg, and Spielberg talked to [Eastwood]."
"Clint: The Man and The Movies" was released on Tuesday (July 1) and is on bookshelves now.
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