A Rule Named After Clint Eastwood Prevented Him From A Director's Credit On One Movie
by Joe Roberts · /FilmWe may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
From the very outset of his career, Clint Eastwood wanted to be his own man. That extended to both acting and directing, with the screen legend telling journalist Paul Nelson (via "Conversations with Clint"), "It's degrading to imitate somebody. Do your own thing." What's more, as Patrick McGilligan wrote in "Clint: The Life and Legend," "After Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, now after Phil Kaufman, [Eastwood] would never again surrender himself to any director who might dominate him." That reference to Kaufman is perhaps the most significant, as it was Eastwood's clash with the original "Outlaw Josey Wales" director that led the Directors Guild of America to institute the "Eastwood rule," which protected directors from having their projects usurped by their stars. In 1983, that rule prevented Eastwood from formally replacing Richard Tuggle as director of "Tightrope."
As you might imagine, such a bold, individualist approach to his craft often resulted in uncomfortable confrontations between Eastwood and his colleagues. This was the case from the very beginning, with Eastwood fighting to make the Man with No Name a mystery in his celebrated Spaghetti Western trilogy. In 1974 he starred in Michael Cimino's "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot," but he might as well have directed. After Paul Nelson told Eastwood that Cimino had dismissed the film by saying it "wasn't really mine," Eastwood replied, "He probably says it wasn't really his because it was done in conjunction with us and we rode herd on him a little." "Us," in this instance refers to The Malpaso Company, Eastwood's own production company originally founded to produce 1968's "Hang 'Em High." With his company calling the shots, Eastwood could exert his influence seemingly to the dismay of Cimino. But this was nothing compared to his clash with Kaufman.
Clint Eastwood's clash with Philip Kaufman changed Directors Guild rules
After "riding herd" on Michael Cimino, Clint Eastwood fired the director of his classic Western "The Outlaw Josey Wales" just two years later. This was the infamous Philip Kaufman clash, which became emblematic of the darker side of Eastwood's individualist, anti-imitation philosophy.
The film was based on Asa Earl Carter's 1972 novel "The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales" and saw its star play the titular Missouri farmer whose family are murdered by a pro-Union paramilitary during the Civil War. After Wales joins Confederate troops, he escapes being massacred by Union forces and goes on the run as a full-on outlaw. It was a major hit that helped secure Eastwood's reputation as a capable director, even though he wasn't supposed to direct in the first place.
Kaufman had initially rewritten an adaptation of Carter's novel and was set to direct. But soon after filming got underway, he and Eastwood collided. With Malpaso producing, Eastwood had the freedom to dispatch Kaufman, and did so almost immediately. In a conversation collected in "Clint Eastwood: Interviews." the actor told David Thomson, "I [...] didn't want it to be done the way [Kaufman] was going to interpret it. And he didn't want to do it the way I wanted to do it. There wasn't any animosity or disrespect for him in any way, shape, or form." It's no wonder "Josey Wales" is one of Eastwood's favorite Westerns, considering he took over the entire thing.
The Directors Guild fined Eastwood for not acquiescing in their demand to reinstate Kaufman, then established a new regulation that became known as the "Eastwood rule," essentially forbidding anybody working on a film from replacing a DGA member working on that same project.
Clint Eastwood both followed and skirted the Eastwood Rule
Luckily for everyone working in Hollywood, and unfortunately for Clint Eastwood, the "Eastwood rule" did actually work, though not as comprehensively as one might hope. In 1983, the actor was working on neo-noir thriller "Tightrope." The film was written and directed by newcomer Richard Tuggle, who according to "Clint Eastwood: Interviews" arrived on-set "uncertain of what he wanted and un-prepared for the technical demands of shooting the film." As such, it was decided that Eastwood would essentially take over while Tuggle would watch, listen, and contribute ideas. In the end, Tuggle got his director credit, and Eastwood was able to run the shoot as he saw fit.
In "Clint Eastwood: A Biography," author Richard Schickel claims that Tuggle "lasted no more than a day in full control of the location." One source is quoted as remembering him hesitating while deciding where to place a picture in the background of a shot while another recalled him choosing a camera placement that meant when a door was opened during the scene the actor's would be completely obscured. As Eastwood put it to Schnickel, "Tuggle didn't know how to function in a decision-making deal."
So, Tuggle was sidelined, while, Eastwood "literally called most of the shots," as Schickel put it — though Tuggle did claim to have made "substantial contributions" to the filming of his script. At least, thanks to the "Eastwood rule," Tuggle got his director's credit while "Tightrope" became arguably Eastwood's best film of the '80s, topping the box office and earning stellar reviews. On the other hand, it's slightly disconcerting to note how easily the actor was able to skirt the DGA rule, not to mention how Malpaso Productions allowed him to basically call the shots even when he wasn't supposed to.