Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Epic: n. Clint Eastwood's performance in Gran Torino

Martin Luther King once had a dream. He dreamt that everyone would one day be treated as equals. Essentially, I take this to mean that King wanted people to become indifferent of race. Clint Eastwood's performance in Gran Torino shows quite a different path of promoting this equality in treatment.
Throughout the movie Walt, Clint Eastwood's character, uses racial slurs at almost any opportunity possible. Even the people that seem to be his friends, he insults. People he doesn't know he insults. Those that possess firearms are still victims of Walt's insults. However, through all this name calling, Walt does not loose his heart; rather, he seems to grow more loving. He demonstrates to a white kid that being natural is being cool. He demonstrates to a group of black kids causing trouble on the corner that one better possess the courage to back up their talk. He grows to love his Hmong neighbors more than his own family. He teaches the young man that lives next store to him how to earn an honest living as a construction worker in American society. Essentially, Walt demonstrates in the most bad ass way possible that it does not matter who you've killed, what gang you're in or how many possessions you have; the only thing that truly matters is that one is willing to have compassion for their neighbors.

Related Sites:
http://www.thegrantorino.com/
http://firefox.org/news/articles/2850/1/DVD-Review-Gran-Torino-2008/Page1.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5i-AswLj9zT7bJFa6oKcO2SuFeY7w

http://wrapper.rottentomatoes.com/s?from=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rottentomatoes.com%2Fm%2Fgran_torino%2F&siteId=6760&size=entryinterstitial&cKey=1683911337-978399881245270284969&docTitle=Gran%20Torino%20Movie%20Reviews%2C%20Pictures%20-%20Rotten%20Tomatoes

No comments:

Post a Comment