The Bishops' Pulpit

So what do you plan to do in retirement?

Clint Eastwood is celebrating his 76th year on the planet by viewing the release of his 26th and 27th movies as director, Flags of our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. In a recent article in Entertainment Weekly, actor Adam Beach (who plays Ira Hayes) said, "In your 70s, you're not supposed to be jumping boat to boat while the boats are moving, carrying a frigging camera and following actors.... He was jumping over these moving ships on the ocean. If he fell, he probably would have drowned. The guy is just amazing." While the film is apparently off to a sluggish start at the box office, I think it's pretty impressive that Eastwood is still making movies, never mind movies that the likes of Steven Spielberg tried their hand at and then passed on to him.

Eastwood got so into the story that he followed up his work on Flags with Letters, a picture of the Japanese perspective of Iwo Jima (while we lost 6,000 of the 70,000 troops we sent, all but 1,000 of the 22,000 Japanese troops on the island were killed or committed suicide during the 36 day battle).

Eastwood involved 91-year-old Henry Bumstead as his production designer for Flags. Eastwood said that Bumstead (who died in May), "was a great, a brilliant man. In a business that puts people out to pasture a lot of times at a very early age, I loved having a 91-year-old guy working. I'm proud of that." And just to rub it in, Eastwood--a jazz musician--composed the score for Flags! Now here's a guy who's using his 'retirement' productively!