HOLLYWOOD - Clint Eastwood has told Spike Lee to "shut his face" after the African-American filmmaker complained about the lack of black actors in Eastwood's films.
Eastwood has rejected the Malcolm X director's complaint that he had failed to include a single black soldier in his 2006 films Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, about the 1945 battle for the Japanese island.
Rationalizing his choice, the actor-turned-director explains the African-American troops who were at battle didn't take part in raising the flag.
He tells Britain's The Guardian newspaper, "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 go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate."
Referring to Lee, Eastwood adds, "A guy like him should shut his face."
Lee's comments came during a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival last month, where he was promoting his own war film, Miracle at St. Anna, a drama about the all-black 92nd Buffalo Division, which fought against the Germans in World War II.
http://www.hollywood.com/news/Clint_Eastwood_Tells_Spike_Lee_to_Shut_His_Face/5251909
