The mythology of the Western genre would be left unrealized if not for Clint Eastwood
The legendary actor-director, who remains active in the field into his 90s, serves as a one-two punch with John Wayne as the figure who shaped the iconography of the American frontier, with Eastwood more willing to expose a darker underbelly of the genre. He deconstructed the genre and the traditional cowboy protagonist with Westerns that spanned decades, from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, to ones which he also directed, including High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and Unforgiven.
For as groundbreaking as he was in this genre, Eastwood was at his most refined, meditative, and creative when he stepped outside the Wild West. After making Westerns for decades across television and film, he utilized the layered and timeless themes of the genre in diverse settings. The combination of Western ideas in non-Western settings elevated him to his most interesting.
Eastwood as the Outlaw in ‘Dirty Harry’
Eastwood has employed this character archetype in various non-Westerns as an actor, director, or both. The character who best fits this mold is a contemporary one: Harry Callahan of Dirty Harry. Despite being, on paper, the truest example of steadfast law enforcement and justice, “Dirty” Harry is more of an outlaw than The Man With No Name or Josey Wales. Beyond his embedded character traits, such as his combative relationship with his superior officers and boundary-pushing vigilantism, Callahan is an active comment on America in the 1970s.
While the original 1971 Don Siegel film was criticized at the time for its fascist undertones, its anti-hero protagonist is emblematic of the kind of model law enforcer Americans desired, one that would shoot first and ask questions later amid a time when pure justice seemingly evaporated. The film’s transgressive nature is rooted in ’70s cinema sensibilities, where a police officer can carry the weight of an outlaw.
Eastwood as the Outlaw in ‘Gran Torino’
In a similarly provocative bid, Eastwood starred in and directed Gran Torino in 2008, a film that confronts his critiques of fascism and bigotry that he faced throughout his career. While the film can be viewed as overtly self-serving with Eastwood’s apologetic treatment of his own screen persona, his performance and direction lend enough pathos to set aside any glaring flaws of his characterization.
In this film about a widowed Korean War veteran consumed by rage and bigotry, Walt Kowalski, Eastwood inverts the framework of a Western. Walt does not saddle up to a new town, but rather, the old neighborhood he’s lived in all his life has completely changed over. The film constructs the outlaw figure with entitled traditionalism. Walt, who was once fond of the white, working-class families that used to reside in the neighborhood, is bitter about the company of Hmong immigrants that have taken over the street.
In the vain of John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards character in the John Ford classic, The Searchers, Walt is eventually determined to rescue a naive and ignorant local Hmong teen from the influence of the neighborhood gang. Despite showing signs of growth, Walt is no hero with his guidance over the teen. If anything, his self-created guardian angel complex is meant to fuel his repressed rage over the immigrants in the neighborhood.