Gran Torino

Gentle now the tender breeze blows
whispers through my Gran Torino
whistling another tired song
engine hums and bitter dreams grow
heart locked in a Gran Torino
It beats a lonely rhythm all night long...
- Michael Stevens and Kyle Eastwood

"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
- Luke 10:36-37 (NIV)

A public figure caught in adultery can, if he plays his cards right, be on the road to rehabilitation in no time. But that same public figure, if caught on tape uttering a racial slur or telling a racist joke, is headed to the PR graveyard. I say that to illustrate how the sins society considers unforgiveable are ever shifting, not to say that one is worse than the other. They are both deserving of censure. Just one of the thoughts I've had in the wake of seeing Clint Eastwood's latest, Gran Torino. Eastwood has said this will be his swan song as an actor. I'm not convinced, but if it is, this is a fine way to go out. Clint last directed himself in Million Dollar Baby -- and his character here bears some resemblance to the regretful boxing trainer Frankie Dunn -- but more apt would be comparisons to a pair of legendary Eastwood screen personas: Harry Callahan and Will Munny of Unforgiven. Yes, on the surface Walt Kowalski is two parts Dirty Harry and one part Will, but surfaces can be deceiving.

Walt Kowalski -- Polish-American, Korean War vet, and retired autoworker -- is an angry bigot. That his recently deceased wife managed to live with him all those years should have qualified her for sainthood. Walt is one of the few white people left in his working-class Detroit neighborhood now being taken over by "the gooks." He's as stubborn as he is ornery. Move to the suburbs? Retirement community? "That'll be the day!" Oops, that was another macho-movie-man's line. Actually, as Walt later learns, his new neighbors are Hmong people from the hills of Southeast Asia, and they aren't in the frigid Upper Midwest by choice. You see, the Hmong fought on the side of the Americans in the Vietnam War, which made them targets for extermination once the GI's left. Ironically, it was Lutherans that first brought them to Walt's Polish Catholic neighborhood and other neighborhoods in places like St. Paul and Detroit. "The Lutherans get blamed for everything," Walt growls.

Many of the things Walt says I wouldn't repeat, even in writing. They make me cringe. We laugh at some of it, but wouldn't if it was our neighbor or father saying those things. Yet, Walt is not the only one in the neighborhood tossing off slurs like Fourth of July firecrackers. The Mexican punks hurl epithets at the Hmong punks (and vice-versa), and the black gangbangers on the corner have their own brand of dehumanizing jargon. It seems everyone is gripped by the need to tear down and label those not of their own tribe. There's also Martin the Italian barber and Kennedy the Irish construction foreman. When Walt gets together with Marty and Kennedy, they trade stereotypical insults in a way that's positively virtuosic. But with them it's more in the way of good-natured joshing. There isn't the hostile undercurrent that accompanies other encounters. They're "real" Americans, right? I suppose they are if that means they've been here for a couple of generations. These scenes recalled similar rants in Spike Lee's brilliant polemic on race Do the Right Thing. Eastwood and Lee had a well publicized feud a while back, and I couldn't help but wonder if this film was Eastwood's reply. It would be a fascinating exercise to launch a discussion on race in America by watching Gran Torino back to back with Lee's film.

I'm only introducing Walt. It would be misleading, and to miss the main point of the film I think, if you concluded that his obvious sins are the final word on the man. What is the measure of a man? Walt is crippled. He's crippled by regret. This emerges in the confrontations with the babyfaced priest (Christopher Carley) who's promised Walt's wife to make him go to confession, and in a surprising relationship with the Hmong boy (Bee Vang) and girl (Ahney Her) next door. Walt is astonished to realize he has more in common with these people than his own flesh and blood. The redeeming power of this film comes in the journey Walt takes toward making peace with that regret and trying to put things right. Nick Schenck's screenplay pushes the envelope, but succeeds in my opinion. As does the film, in spades, in some ways the most surprising thing Eastwood has ever done...and that's saying a lot for someone who told the story of Iwo Jima in two epic films, one from the American perspective and one from the Japanese.

And then there's that car. A 1972 Ford Gran Torino fastback, handpicked by Walt off the assembly line back in the day when the Big Three ruled and buying American was a given. A real beauty. Just looking at it gives Walt pleasure. It's the one thing everybody wants -- from the neighborhood gangsters who try to steal it to the estranged granddaughter who hopes to inherit it because it's "retro cool." That car stands for something. An idea of America perhaps? An idea of what she once was, or still could be? It hints at some bigger ideas at play, though I decided to focus in this piece on the story of the man, rather than the story of the country.

Clint Eastwood the man, and the director, has quietly made a string of films that qualify as genuine classics. There have been a few misfires, but the overall body of work is beyond impressive. Malpaso, the name of Clint's production company, might as well be a synonym for movie excellence. Gran Torino might be Eastwood the actor's crowning achievement, but thankfully it won't be for Eastwood the director. He's already at work on the next project. No doubt bringing each take to a close with his trademark "okay" instead of the usual "cut". There's no fuss on an Eastwood set.

I don't like to read other reviews before writing my own, but I happened to see where Manohla Dargis described Gran Torino as a requiem. I can't do any better than that at describing the emotional impact it had on me, and apparently on my fellow audience members -- I can't recall a more hushed exit from a theater. The finale of this requiem is begun by Eastwood himself, singing in a gravelly whisper. As the credits rolled I found myself thinking about my grandfather, Edward Ley (1908-1998). Don't get me wrong. He never said the hateful things this fictional character says, but he shared some of the characteristic faults and virtues of his generation. Like Walt, he had his share of regrets. He was a good man, and I miss him. He would have admired that car too. Grandpa was a Ford man.