Clint Eastwood Sits Down With Bill O'Reilly

Take a deep breath, please. I know tempers are frayed on this, but I'd just like to politely suggest that there is the possibility of common ground - just a tiny patch, but enough to stand on - with Clint Eastwood regarding Million Dollar Baby. This is an excerpt from the transcript of an interview (full transcript linked above) with Mr. Eastwood by Bill O'Reilly, from shortly before the Oscars. (Bold added for emphasis.)

O'REILLY: So it was a surrogate father attached to a young woman who is striving. So to you, it was a more relationship film. That was a primary focus of the film.

EASTWOOD: Exactly.

O'REILLY: And then it gets blown up into an issue film, the euthanasia. Did that surprise you?

EASTWOOD: Well, I don't - it could be blown up, but I didn't see what the blow-up is. It's - it wasn't that - it isn't a message for anything. But nowadays - in the old days, it was everybody was talking about the knee- jerk liberals. Now we have sort of the knee-jerk conservative group that has - tries to politicize everything. But it wasn't a political film. It's merely a relationship film, adventure. It doesn't make a statement for or against anything. It just happens to be the way the story comes out.

O'REILLY: Well, you also did it fair and balanced. I mean, you had the priest in a key part of the film, advising against this in a very, very articulate way. That's what - I said, look, he presented both sides of it. And that's all you can do for the audience. You weren't trying to brainwash anybody in my estimation.

EASTWOOD: No, actually, the priest is right. When he says it, he says to him, he says, you do this thing, you'll be lost somewhere deep within, inside you forever. And he's absolutely right.

Now, I don't want to make more of this than it deserves. And, remember, this is a tiny bit of a larger interview, in a friendly forum, where the host is clearly throwing a lifeline to the guest. (And gee, thanks Bill, for letting him dismiss euthanasia objectors as knee-jerk political types. When did wanting to help depressed people pull out of their funk become political?)

My take on this is that there's no reason to make a big deal about it one way or another, especially since people generally remember movies and not the intentions of their producers.

Now, do I think anybody who believes in assisted suicide is likely to walk out of this movie saying to himself, 'Gee, assisted suicide damages the survivors. For that reason alone I'd better change my position'? Well, I'd be really surprised. It would be nice. But I'd really be surprised.

But as to the point about collateral damage - the fact that you can't assist a suicide without losing something inside yourself? That, at least, is an intelligent point that thoughtful people ought to be able to build upon, yes?