Clint Eastwood has reacted angrily to Spike Lee's claim that there were too few black actors in Eastwood's films.
Lee had criticised Eastwood's second world war movies Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima for failing to include African-American soldier in his portrayal of the pivotal battle.
But Eastwood has defended his pictures in the face of Lee's remarks, saying: "A guy like him should shut his face."
Speaking at the Cannes film festival, Lee attacked members of the press for failure to question Eastwood over the lack of black actors in either Iwo Jima film.
"There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint for not having one [in the films]," he said.
"That was his version: the Negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version."
Eastwood refused to respond to questions about Lee's remarks while in the south of France but has now defended his acclaimed World War II films.
In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, the Dirty Harry star explained that there had indeed been a small detachment of black troops at Iwo Jima, who had been part of a munitions company.
But he added: "The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that.
"If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people would go: 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate."
The Oscar-winner said he refuse to compromise his films for the sake of political correctness.
"I'm not in that game," he explained.
"I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is. When I do a movie and it's 90 per cent black, like Bird [about jazz trumpeter Charlie Parker], then I use 90 per cent black people."
He referred to his upcoming project The Human Factor about post-apartheid South Africa and said: "I'm not going to make Nelson Mandela a white guy."
06/06/2008 12:13:30
See Also
