Gran Torino

We watched ‘Gran Torino’ last night. Perhaps it’s just me, but I found myself thinking about the movie this morning in the light of what I know of dominant men and submissive women.



At one point, Walt (Clint Eastwood) says that his wife, recently deceased, was the best wife a man could ever have. I would have liked to see some evidence of that; some way of demonstrating his loss other than his anger. The anger was there from the very first frame of the movie, at the funeral, and it confused me. Is that really the only emotion one would feel on that day, of all days?



No, I’m sure Walt was feeling a great many things on that day, but to the outside world, it was just expressed as anger. Certainly, we see at the time of his ‘confession’, late in the movie, that he has tried his best in life to live up to his own creed of honesty and doing the right thing. He certainly ‘dominates’ his landscape.



So, just how then, did Eastwood, who produced and directed this movie, translate to his audience that this man had compassion? We saw the compassion in spades, eventually, when he paid the ultimate price for his ‘neighbours’ with whom he came to feel closer than his own sons. But, why do we care about this grumpy old man before we begin to see him being won over with kindness?



Well, I think it is Daisy; his dog. Daisy is his girl. She’s a good girl. She stays close by him. She’s loyal and true, and in turn he is good to her. When there is no one else, there is Daisy. She rides with him in the truck, she sits by him when he sits on his chair on the porch, and she keeps a close eye on him, not leaving his side, even when he takes a bath.



I don’t remember the line exactly. But, when we see Walt lying in the bath, having a cigarette, we know it is out of character. Smoking in the bath? Eastwood gives us a second or two to absorb the inconsistency, and then he says something like,


“Don’t look at me that way, girl. Give me a break! It’s the first time a man has ever smoked in his own house.”


And, instantly we know two things.


1) We know that we have come to understand Walt. He’s let us into his world and he can’t fool us. We care about this man, whether he likes it or not.


2) Walt may be a dominant man, with a submissive girl, but she has some power over him, too. Just a look can change his mind set, have him justifying himself. He dominates her, cares for her and loves her. And, she, by simply being that good, loyal, submissive girl affects him, and everything that he does.


And, in that moment when he speaks to the dog, we come to understand what Walt would have been like as a husband, and the loss he has endured. We learn about that through Daisy.


He’s such an extraordinary actor; a producer and director of such remarkable talent. As the ‘Gran Torino’ drives away along the highway in the final shot of the movie, I wondered if we were seeing Eastwood drive away, too. It has to be his final project, doesn’t it?


If it is, he has left with great style. And, how appropriate that the ‘Gran Torino’ should be left to Thao! And, of course, that Daisy should be riding right up there beside him.