Clint Eastwood: Better Actor or Director?

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I've been enjoying something of a Clint Eastwood movie marathon lately.  Not just the films he acted in, but also a good selection of movies where Clint stepped behind the camera to direct.  

As a longtime fan of Mr. Eastwood, I'm trying to decide whether I prefer him as actor or director.

Clint as an Actor?

First up - Clint's acting.  He started work way back in the '50s as a jobbing actor (mostly supplementing his income by digging swimming pools) and never attended film school.  Even after signing his first contract, way back in 1954, his acting was criticised by director/producer Arthur Lubin, who thought he squinted too much, hissed his lines, and his manner was too stiff.  Ironically, these would be the very traits which made his acting style so distinctive over the next few decades.  But is that such a good thing?

Don't get me wrong, I love almost any film in which Clint stars.  And that includes Every Which Way But Loose, one of my guilty pleasure movies.  I enjoy his style, but the very fact that he has a recognisable style counts against his reputation as an actor, since it brings into question whether or not he is actually acting.  In other words, is Clint just playing a version of himself.

Compare him to any of the following actors: Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman, Philip Seymour Hoffman.  These are just three example of some of my favourite character actors.  Pick any two of their films, and you'll find two utterly different characters.  As actors, they disappear completely into the role, and become their character.

When I'm watching a Clint Eastwood movie though, I'm thoroughly entertained, but I know that I'm watching Clint.  The character he is playing becomes almost incidental, as it is subservient to his own superstar status.

He is arguably one of the best at what he does.  An interesting side story is that an armourer who spent decades working on films, claims that he only ever encountered two actors in the entire industry who never blinked when firing their weapons.  One of these was Clint Eastwood (the other being Yul Brynner).  Truly, he is a badass, on-screen or off-screen. But is there really any distinction between his on-screen persona from one movie to the next.

It reminds me a little of the British sitcom, Blackadder.  In each series, the lead character Edmund Blackadder turns up at a different point in history, as a reincarnation of the same person.  He starts in the Middle Ages, progresses in the second series to the Elizabethan period, before moving on to the English Regency of the early 19th century, and finally finishes up during the fourth and final series in the trenches of World War I.

The same could be said for many of Clint's films.  Give Harry Callahan a poncho and place him in the Old West, he is still the same basic person.  Jump him forward to 1990s L.A. and make him a Secret Service agent and he still hasn't changed much.

Clint as a Director?

It's a whole different story though when it comes to his skills as a director.

Here, he is almost exponentially more versatile.  There is a much greater diversity in the stories being told, and in the characters being featured.

Contrast Bird, his 1988 biography of jazz legend Charlie Parker, with WWII drama, Flags of our Fathers.  Or compare Million Dollar Baby with The Bridges of Madison County, or Pale Rider with J. Edgar.

Without checking the credits, you might not even realise that the same director was responsible for all of these films.  There's really very little weakness in his career as director.  Every film I can think of is good in it's own right, distinct from all others.  He has developed an impressive resume of quality character dramas, especially in the past decade, where the focus is on the people whose story he is telling, rather than reliance on the stardom of the actors involved.

As much as I will always hold a special place in my heart for classics such as the Dollars Trilogy or the Dirty Harry series (and surely these are what he will be most remembered for), I don't see there being much of an argument for not concluding that his superior talent lies as director.