Eastwood, Clint: Out of the Shadows (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	86:50
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Bruce Ricker
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Clint Eastwood William Goldman Morgan Freeman Forest Whitaker Janet Maslin Walter Mosley Meryl Streep Eli Wallach Ruth Wood Richard Schickel Rip Torn Martin Scorsese Bertrand Tavernier
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Lennie Niehaus

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Spanish Dutch Swedish Finnish Polish Greek Norwegian German Italian Turkish Czech English for the Hearing Impaired German for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes, cigars: the man with no name
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    IMDB lists his name against 82 items (some TV shows and documentaries are included - they're not all films) as actor, and 23 movies as director. Amazon has 45 entries for him on DVD. His work is clearly popular.

    It is interesting to look at this documentary after seeing the Kubrick documentary (see that review here). Kubrick did so much himself (writing, producing, directing), taking years to produce a single film. Eastwood completed multiple films in a year - consider 1971, when he was in The Beguiled, Play Misty for Me, and Dirty Harry. Sure, Eastwood wasn't directing all of these films, he only directed Play Misty for Me.

    Clint Eastwood has established more than one classic film character. He invented the nameless Western hero. He developed the loose cannon cop. And now he's perfecting the older man with regrets. Some of his archetypes have become part of Western culture. He is even quoted by American presidents.

    Morgan Freeman's narrative makes some excellent points. He points out that Eastwood uses minimal language, conveying his character more in posture and gesture. He describes Eastwood's ability to create mythic characters. He also discusses how Eastwood's image has changed over the years. Film critics tore his work apart in early years. Personally, I considered Eastwood movies a guilty pleasure in the 70s - I wouldn't attempt to justify them as high art. But, in 1993, he won both the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for Unforgiven. Now he's respectable, and we can look back at his earlier work, and see that there is a lot more to them than the superficial interpretation.

    We hear from a lot of people in this documentary. Most of them are actors, directors, film critics, and studio executives. The director of this documentary has cut together the talking heads and clips from Eastwood movies with great skill - sometimes the talking head's voice continues over the film clip. I really liked one quote from Don Siegel: "The hardest thing in the world is to do nothing, and he does it very well. He gives the impression that all the other actors are overacting."

    Clint Eastwood refuses to limit himself - I don't think there's a category of film that he hasn't tried, and succeeded at. I hate the orang-utan films, but apparently even they served a purpose, in defusing claims that he was getting big-headed. OK, I don't think I've seen Clint Eastwood do a martial arts movie, but it's always possible that he will do one yet...

    His career started as a Universal Studios actor, including Francis Joins the Navy (1955). It has extended through to Space Cowboys (2000), so far. May there be many more. 

Video

    This documentary is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The documentary image is sharp and clear. Shadow detail is excellent. There is no low level noise. Some of the film clips show a little wear and tear, but mostly they are in excellent shape.

    Colour is strong and well-saturated.

    There are no artefacts in the documentary footage, and few in the film clips. Some of the film clips seem cleaner even than the movies I've reviewed. 

    The subtitles are easy to read, in white with a black border, in a simple sans-serif font.

    The disc is single-sided and single-layered. There's no layer change, which is nice. With an 87 minute running time, a single layer is plenty.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    This documentary has a single soundtrack, in English Dolby Digital 2.0, surround-encoded. Can you guess what I listened to?

    The dialogue is easily understood. There are no audio sync problems.

    The score is credited to Lennie Niehaus. There are credits for numerous songs at the end of this documentary, with Clint Eastwood's name on five of them - I was unaware of Eastwood's prowess at the piano.

    The soundtrack is surround-encoded, but I didn't notice any surround sound. The subwoofer gets nothing to do.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extras on this disc. I suspect that this disc is itself intended to be an extra in a box set, even though it is not included in any box set that I've heard of.

Menu

    The menus are static, with sound over the main menu. It's plain, simple, and functional.

    This disc has not been previously released in R1; it is being released at the same time as the Dirty Harry box set, on 20th November 2001. The features sound like they will be the same.

    This documentary is interesting - I learnt a lot I hadn't known about Clint Eastwood. The DVD is excellent.

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is very good.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall