Gran Torino Clint Eastwood

Gran Torino was written by Nick Schenk and directed by Clint Eastwood.[7] It was produced by Village Roadshow Pictures, Media Magik Entertainment and Malpaso Productions for film distributor Warner Bros. Eastwood co-produced with his Malpaso partners Robert Lorenz and Bill Gerber.[10] Eastwood has stated he enjoyed the idea "that it dealt with prejudice, that it was about never being too old to learn".[11]

Shooting began in July 2008.[12] Hmong crew, production assistants, consultants, and extras were used.[7][13] The film was shot over five weeks. Editors Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach cut the film so it was under two hours long.[14] The crew spent over $10 million while shooting the film in Detroit.[8]

In the early 1990s, Schenk had become acquainted with the history and culture of the Hmong while working in a factory in Minnesota.[15] He had learned how they had sided with the South Vietnamese forces and its US allies during the Vietnam War, only to wind up in refugee camps, at the mercy of North Vietnamese Communist forces, when US troops pulled out and the government forces were defeated.[15] Years later, he was deciding how to develop a story involving a widowed Korean War veteran trying to handle the changes in his neighborhood when he decided to place a Hmong family next door and create a culture clash.[15] He and Dave Johannson, Schenk's brother's roommate, created an outline for the story.[15] According to Schenk, each night he used a pen and paper to write the script while in Grumpy's, a bar in Northeast Minneapolis, while not working at his day jobs. He recalled writing twenty-five pages within a single night in the bar. He recalled asking the bartender, who was his friend, questions about the story's progress.[16] Some industry insiders told Schenk that a film starring an elderly main character could not be produced, as the story could not be sold,[15] especially with an elderly main character who used language suggesting that he held racist views.[16] Through a friend, Schenk sent the screenplay to Warner Bros. producer Bill Gerber.[15] Eastwood was able to direct and star on the project as filming for Invictus was delayed to early 2009, leaving sufficient time for filming Gran Torino during the previous summer.[15] Eastwood said that he had a "fun and challenging role, and it's an oddball story."[15]

According to Schenk, aside from changing Minneapolis references to Detroit references, the production headed by Eastwood "didn't change a single syllable" in the script.[17] Schenk added that the concept of the producers not making any substantial revisions to a submitted script "never happens."[18] Eastwood said that he stopped making significant revisions after attempting to change the script of Unforgiven and later deciding to return to the original revision, believing that his changes were "emasculating" the product.[18]

Selection of Detroit for production and setting

The original script was inspired by the Northeast community of Minneapolis, Minnesota, but filmmakers chose to shoot in Michigan, becoming one of the first productions to take advantage of the state's new law that provided lucrative incentive packages to film productions.[19] Bill Huizenga, from Zeeland, Michigan, who once served in the Michigan House of Representatives, helped write and coordinate the State of Michigan's incentive package to the film creators.[20] The film ultimately received a 42-percent tax credit. Bruce Headlam of The New York Times wrote: "That helped make it easy for Warner Bros. to sign off on bankrolling the movie, something that hasn't always been a given in the studio's relationship with the director."[18]

Producer Robert Lorenz said that while the script was originally set in Minnesota, he chose Michigan as the actual setting because Kowalski is a retired car plant worker.[21] Metro Detroit was the point of origin of the Ford Motor Company.[18] Schenk said that sometimes the lines in the movie feel out of place with the Detroit setting; for instance a line about one of Walt's sons asks if Walt still knows a person who has season tickets for Minnesota Vikings games was changed to being about a person with Detroit Lions tickets. Schenk said: "They don't sell out in Detroit. And so that bothered me. It seemed really untrue to me."[17]

Shooting locations

Locations, all within Metro Detroit, included Highland Park, Center Line,[22] Warren, Royal Oak, and Grosse Pointe Park.[23] The house depicting Walt Kowalski's house is on Rhode Island Street in Highland Park. The Hmong gang house is located on Pilgrim Street in Highland Park. The house depicting the residence of one of Walt's sons is on Ballantyne Road in Grosse Pointe Shores. The church used in the film, Saint Ambrose Roman Catholic Church, is in Grosse Pointe Park. The hardware store, Pointe Hardware, is also in Grosse Pointe Park. VFW Post 6756, used as the location where Walt meets friends to drink alcohol, is in Center Line.[8]

The barber shop, Widgren's Barber Shop, is along 11 Mile Road,[8] near Center Street, in Royal Oak. The shop, founded in 1938, in a space now occupied by another business, moved to its current location, west of its original location, in 1970. The film producers selected that shop out of sixty candidates in Metro Detroit. According to Frank Mills, the son-in-law of owner Ted Widgren, the producers selected it because they liked "the antique look inside."[24] Eastwood asked Widgren to act as an extra in the barber shop scene. In the area around the barbershop, vehicle traffic had to be stopped for three to five minutes at a time, so traffic in the area slowed down.[24]

Shooting and acting

Of the entire cast, only a few were established actors; the Hmong actors had relatively little experience,[25] and some were not proficient in English.[18] Jeff Baenen said that Eastwood used a "low-key approach to directing."[25] Eastwood said that "I'd give them little pointers along the way, Acting 101. And I move along at a rate that doesn't give them too much of a chance to think."[18] Bee Vang said that he originally felt frightened but was able to ease into the acting.[25] Baenen said that Eastwood was a "patient teacher" of the first-time actors.[25] According to Vang, Eastwood did not say "action" whenever filming a particular shoot began.[25]

Vang said that he had studied the script as if it were a textbook. According to Vang, after the first film cut ended, Vang did not hear a response from Eastwood. When Vang asked if something was wrong, other people told Vang that if Eastwood did not make a comment, then his performance was satisfactory.[26] Vang added that Eastwood encouraged ad libbing with the Hmong actors.[25] Ahney Her said that she liked the improvisation work, even when she was required to translate between the English and Hmong languages.[27] When asked if the in-character racial slurs offended the actors in real life, Ahney said that she did not feel offense. Vang said, "I was called so many names that I can't say here because of how vulgar they were. It disturbed me quite a lot, but at the end of the day it was just a script."[26]

Vang said in a 2011 program that Eastwood did not allow the Hmong actors to change their lines, despite what he said in the earlier interviews.[28]

Hmong people and culture during the production

Nick Schenk said that he became friends with many Hmong coworkers while employed at a VHS factory in Bloomington, Minnesota. In regard to Schenk's stories of his interactions with the Hmong people, Laura Yuen of Minnesota Public Radio said: "That sense of humor and curiosity permeate the script, even though the Gran Torino trailers make the movie look like, by all measures, a drama."[17]

Eastwood wanted Hmong as cast members, so casting director Ellen Chenoweth enlisted Hmong organizations and set up calls in Detroit, Fresno, and Saint Paul; Fresno and Saint Paul have the two largest Hmong communities in the United States, while Detroit also has an appreciable population of Hmong.[21] Chenoweth recruited Bee Vang in St. Paul and Ahney Her in Detroit.[15]

The screenplay was written entirely in English. Therefore, the actors of Gran Torino improvised the Hmong used in the film. Louisa Schein, author of Hmong Actors Making History Part 2: Meet the Gran Torino Family, said before the end of production that "some of the lines actors ad-libbed in Hmong on camera will be tricky to translate back for subtitles."[27] Schenk had input from Hmong people when writing the script.[29] Dyane Hang Garvey served as a cultural consultant, giving advice on names, traditions, and translations.[4]

Vang later argued that the use of the Hmong people did not seem relevant to the overall plot. He said "there is no real reason for us to be Hmong in the script" and that even though Walt Kowalski had fought in Korea, he had still confused the Hmong with Koreans and other Asian ethnic groups.[30] In a 2011 program Vang said that Hmong actors were treated unfairly on the set, and that Eastwood did not give tips on how to build the characters.[28] Vang also claimed other white cast members made Hmong actors feel excluded by assuming the Hmong speakers did not understand English.[28] Vang said that some important lines that the Hmong characters said in the Hmong language were not subtitled, so audiences developed a skewed perception of the Hmong people.[28][26]

Cultural accuracies and inaccuracies

Bee Vang, as paraphrased by Jeff Baenen of the Associated Press, said in 2009 that the film's portrayal of the Hmong is "generally accurate."[25] Regarding the result, Vang said "[t]his film is not a documentary. We can't expect 101 percent correctness."[25]

During the filming, Hmong cast members addressed what they believed to be cultural inaccuracies that were being introduced. Cedric Lee,[26] a half-Hmong[31] who worked as a production assistant and a cultural consultant, said that "Some things were over-exaggerated for dramatic purposes. Whether it was our job or not, I still felt some responsibility to speak our mind and say something, but at the same time, the script was what it was. We didn't make the final decision."[26]

In 2011, Vang said while many Hmong had objected to some elements, the producers selected the viewpoints of the Hmong cultural consultants which "had the most amenable take on the matter and would lend credence to whatever Hollywood stereotypes the film wanted to convey."[32] Vang further said that "this was a white production, that our presence as actors did not amount to control of our images."[32]

Louisa Schein and Va-Megn Thoj, authors of "Gran Torino's Boys and Men with Guns: Hmong Perspectives", said "Perhaps the most commonly voiced Hmong objections to the film concern its myriad cultural inaccuracies, exaggerations and distortion."[33] Schein also said that "[t]he [Hmong] actors struggle, too, with their culture being made into spectacle."[7] Even though a real Hmong shaman acts as a Hmong shaman in the film, Schein said that "his expertise was overridden by the screenplay and the filming, which distorted the ceremonial scenes by making them inaccurately exotic."[7] Vang said that the tea ceremonies depicted in the film were not correctly performed.[28] Even though, in the film, Hmong characters feel offense when Walt touches a girl on the head, Schein said that in real life in Hmong culture it is okay to touch a person on the head.[26] In other segments of the film, the Hmong shaman touches a baby's head without any negative criticism. Schein adds that Spider touches Thao Vang Lor's head "without consequence."[33] Christine Wilson Owens, author of "Hmong Cultural Profile", said: "Most traditional Hmong elders, especially men, do not want strangers to touch their heads, or those of their children, due to their religious beliefs and personal values."[34]

Thao and Sue Lor wear Hmong clothing to Walt Kowalski's funeral. Hmong do not ordinarily wear traditional Hmong clothing to funerals.[26] Grandma Lor spits a betel nut she had been chewing to show contempt for Walt Kowalski, even though the Hmong do not chew betel nuts.[35] The Hmong shaman reads Walt's personal character, when in real life he would communicate with the spirit world. In the film the shaman himself does a sacrifice of a chicken in a manner that Schein and Thoj say is "in dramatic ceremonial fashion," when in real life an assistant would do this "perfunctorily."[33] The authors said that the hu plis ceremony done in honor of the baby has an incorrect spatial layout, that the clothing and grooming of the Hmong gangs is not correct, and "the obsequious making of offerings on doorstep" are not accurate.[33] While Thao himself cleans dishes, Schein and Thoj add that he would not do this alone because he is in a house with other female family members.[33] Schein and Thoj also add that there is "inconsistent use of the two Hmong dialects within one family."[33] They also argue that members of a Hmong clan would not show aggression towards a member of a fellow clan and that they would not rape a member of their own clan, like the gang in the film rapes Sue.[33] Sharon Her, a Hmong writer from New York, argued that the film had "confusion of Asian customs" and that "Hmong people do not use favors as a method of atonement nor do they endlessly shower individuals with gifts out of gratitude."[36] Her added, "An early draft of the script even had names misspelled and referenced Chinese surnames, a sloppy mistake that was easily corrected."[36]