Eastwood says his WWII films expose futility of war
Hollywood star Clint Eastwood said his acclaimed picture "Letters from Iwo Jima" aimed to show the futility of war, after its European premiere at the 57th Berlin Film Festival.
The groundbreaking film, which is almost entirely in Japanese, depicts the pivotal wartime battle through the eyes of Japanese soldiers fighting American GIs. Another, earlier film, "Flags of our Fathers," tells the American side of the story.
It has been showered with praise and Oscar nominations in the United States and well-received in Japan.
Eastwood told a news conference after a press screening that although the US-led war in Iraq had not directly inspired him to make the picture, it was a reflection of the horrors such battles always carry with them.
"Whenever you do a war movie, it is very difficult to not find comparisons to what is going on now and what had gone on in past years," he said.
"I think every war has a certain parallel in the futility of it and that's one of the reasons for telling these stories -- they are not pro-war stories.
"The emotions of the mothers who lose their sons and the emotions of the women who lose their husbands in war, it's the same regardless of any nationality. And that's what I was just trying to show," the 76-year-old said.
He said "Letters" and "Flags of our Fathers" were a response to the war movies of his youth.
"I grew up in the war pictures in the 1940s where everything was propagandized. (In) all the movies, we were the good guys and everybody else were bad guys," he said.
"I just wanted to tell two different stories where there were good guys and bad guys everywhere and just tell something about the human condition."
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The groundbreaking film, which is almost entirely in Japanese, depicts the pivotal wartime battle through the eyes of Japanese soldiers fighting American GIs. Another, earlier film, "Flags of our Fathers," tells the American side of the story.
It has been showered with praise and Oscar nominations in the United States and well-received in Japan.
Eastwood told a news conference after a press screening that although the US-led war in Iraq had not directly inspired him to make the picture, it was a reflection of the horrors such battles always carry with them.
"Whenever you do a war movie, it is very difficult to not find comparisons to what is going on now and what had gone on in past years," he said.
"I think every war has a certain parallel in the futility of it and that's one of the reasons for telling these stories -- they are not pro-war stories.
"The emotions of the mothers who lose their sons and the emotions of the women who lose their husbands in war, it's the same regardless of any nationality. And that's what I was just trying to show," the 76-year-old said.
He said "Letters" and "Flags of our Fathers" were a response to the war movies of his youth.
"I grew up in the war pictures in the 1940s where everything was propagandized. (In) all the movies, we were the good guys and everybody else were bad guys," he said.
"I just wanted to tell two different stories where there were good guys and bad guys everywhere and just tell something about the human condition."