At the heart of “Gran Torino” is the portrayal of a good man. Too often good characters are simpering or squeaky clean; if not flawless their flaws are superficial traits plastered on top by a mediocre filmmaker. But Clint Eastwood’s Walt Kowalski comes across as authentic because of all the faults our society recognizes in the old white man.
Clint Eastwood made his name with a squint, a glare, a snarl, and a few well-chosen one-liners. His vigilante loner has served him well in films from the spaghetti Westerns, the Dirty Harry franchise, Unforgiven, Pale Rider, and more.
All these roles are summed up in Walt Kowalski—the main character in the 2008 film Gran Torino —a film Mr. Eastwood directed and a character he suggested would be his last acting role.
Kowalski is a cantankerous, retired Polish American car factory worker and Korean War veteran. Recently widowed, he’s seen his once-proud, working-class neighborhood of Detroit first abandoned and then taken over my poor Asian immigrants. Meanwhile, Walt’s children and grandchildren have moved out to the affluent suburbs to pursue a mindless consumerism.
Determined to stay in his old house, Walt spurns his son and daughter-in-law’s suggestion of moving to an ersatz retirement home. The Asian gangs in the neighborhood bully the boy next door, encouraging him to steal Walt’s vintage Gran Torino car in an initiation trial. When Walt catches the boy, a grudging friendship between the two develops, and the lonely old man is eventually befriended by the Asian family. As the film rises to a climax, Walt and the gang members come to a typical violent stand-off with a sly twist.
Mr. Eastwood’s gun-toting characters echo through the film. Surveying the scene with his silent squint, Walt reminds us of Mr. Eastwood’s early tough days as rawhide cowboys. In his relationship with the Asian family next door we see the concerned but vengeful preacher of Pale Rider. When he confronts the gang members we can almost hear Harry Callahan snarl, “Do you feel lucky punk?” In Walt’s introspection, guilt ,and regret for his violence in the Korean War, we remember the guilt of retired gunslinger William Munny in Unforgiven.
Mr. Eastwood has often been criticized not only for the violence in his films, but for playing white male vigilantes driven by conservative values. In Gran Torino he takes the trope and expands it from the inside. Walt Kowalski, it turns out, is a lapsed Catholic. Impatient with the youthful parish priest, and grieving for his dead wife, he is also grieving for a lost way of life, and if the subtext be told, is also lamenting a Catholic faith that was lost in the ruins.
As such, the themes can be seen as socio-political. Walt could be the typical Trump voter. Grieving over a lost way of life, he’s angry, resentful, and alienated. His world has been invaded, and he knows that everything he’s held dear is gone and everything he fought for was in vain. The film is now ten years old, so if this political angle is accurate it was prescient rather than planned. The human values and themes of the film are more important.
They play out as Kowalski warms up to the Asian families and overcomes his bigotry. While his bigotry isn’t excused, it is explained: He’s still carrying wounded memories from his time in combat in Korea, and even though the Asian neighbors are not Korean, he reacts with revulsion towards people who typify the old enemy. As the film gears up through the second act we also learn that Walt is suffering from emphysema and doesn’t have long to live. This prompts a heart-to-heart with the young priest and a visit to the confessional, which shows, beneath the surface, the curmudgeon is a genuinely humble person.
At the heart of Gran Torino is the portrayal of a good man. It’s a well-known problem that it is easier to create an interesting villain than an interesting hero. Too often good characters are simpering or squeaky clean; if not flawless their flaws are superficial traits plastered on top by a mediocre filmmaker. Clint Eastwood’s Walt Kowalski comes across as authentic because of all the faults our society recognizes in the old white man. Kowalski is racist. He’s grumpy. He’s been an inadequate father. He’s angry. He’s outnumbered, alienated, and alone. These are not superficial flaws, but ingrained character traits that seem to dominate Walt’s character.
When I was studying screenplay construction the teacher said, “Let your character grow from his wound.” Mr. Eastwood and the scriptwriter Nick Schenk do just that. They use Walt’s flaws not only to add verisimilitude, but also to provide the film’s turning point. We’re interested in the tension and conflict provided by the threat of the gang members, but we’re more interested in Walt’s loss, his grief, and loneliness. We want the gang members to be defeated, but we really want Walt’s bigotry and loneliness to be defeated.
Gran Torino works because, in the end, we not only sympathize with Walt, but we see that he is a genuinely good man. This is the film’s great strength and moment of enlightenment: If we were judging Walt for his bigotry and only looking on the outward appearance, we suddenly realize that we were also guilty. We were only looking on Walt’s outward appearance. We were Walt.
Gran Torino is a little film. The budget was small, the action was local, and Mr. Eastwood is the only star. The hero doesn’t save the world. Walt just learns to help his neighbor and find a way to find his faith and save his own soul, and in this troubled and confused age, that may be exactly the salvation we need.
This essay was first published here in December 2018.
The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.
The featured image is courtesy of IMDb.
“typical Trump voter. Grieving over a lost way of life, he’s angry, resentful, and alienated.”!?!?
I respectfully protest, Father!
Ah… even we deep conservative fall for the “put-them-in-a-box so we can caricature them, separate them and marginalize them” propaganda of the election-stealing left, via a deep tech state oligarchy.
Sure there are the “Trumpers”, but the mass of voters who voted for him do so for what is being torn from our children and our future. Is there some anger. If there is, then it is justified, just as it was for our Lord at the money changers in the temple. I pray that our Father is just as outraged at the gender mutilating, child/human trafficking, war mongering enemies of conservative.
But even beneath the superficial anger of the most ardent Trump supporters, there is a hope for a return to the values and an end to he demonic influences that drive the destruction of the good, the true, and the beautiful. It that soul-crushing anger of the possessed left that is veiled by the calm outer demeanor – as they are portrayed in the media.
Where are the angry, destructive mobs at the Trump rallies? Where are those angry Trump mobs burning down the cities? Where are those Trump supporters taking over state legislatures threatening overt, premeditated violence and destruction?
Nay, it’s the deep seated anger of the leftists who seek to control, cancel, and destroy. Most of those “angry typical Trump voters” would be fine, tolerating the leftists to eat itself rather that than taking our children and all that is good down with them.
Youu inferred in you excellent essay, Eastwood’s character was a caricature whose superficial anger masked the good man inside. But the caricature of the “typical Trump voter” is largely a myth based on a small subset of people who, despite their anger, are peaceful and respectful. If that anger, as portrayed by the propagandists, were to bubble up in 70M “typical” voters, I can’t fathom the outcome. Thankfully, typical Trump voters are peace-loving, respectful and hopeful wanting a return to sanity.
Thank you CT.
I’m in an opposite position of the above as, perhaps oddly for here, I am not a Trump supporter. I feel Walt is not an analogy to a Trump voter because
1) Trump was not a presence at the time it was made. This is the most important part. America when Gran Torino was made was a good deal different than the America of Trump’s time. Some of the people I love most voted for Trump, but I think some of their issues related to things from the Obama years not just generalized grievances that could describe any period after 1970.
2) Walt’s journey is ultimately about accepting working-class immigrants, well the non-criminal ones, which to me is kind of against Trump’s whole thing on the issue.
And I’d hesitantly say that in some respects Walt is more like McCain (or if that upsets you “McCain/Palin ticket”) than Trump. He is a war veteran who sometimes says derogatory things about Asians, but is ultimately sympathetic to immigrants. With maybe Palin 2008’s love of guns and straight talk.
That said I do think Gran Torino is kind of “The Great Conservative Movie” of the 21st century. It values respecting elders, the Church, masculinity, and not “canceling” old people. And part of what makes it “great” is it does all this without, IMO, trying to troll the Left to excess. I’ve seen people on the Left who not only like it but think it “can’t be conservative” because Walt goes through great effort to help non-white people in the end. (Showing how confused they are on what a conservative can be. Many Hmong and Vietnamese are themselves conservative and on balance Republicans tended to be more sympathetic to them than Democrats.) And in this day an age I think that’s valuable as even if you love Trump you kind of have to be on the Right to even listen to him. Many people, in 2008 at least, were willing to listen to Eastwood’s films and reflect on them even if they were Obama voters.
One last thing. I kind of felt like Walt was maybe not all that Catholic and was largely in it for his wife. I mean maybe he did believe, but I think if so I think it might have been to share something with his wife. I am partly going on that his attitude mostly did not strike me like that of “disillusioned” Catholics I know. He does not accuse the Church of things or even claim the young priest is a hypocrite. He pretty much says he thinks the priest is a well-meaning virgin, but his implication is that that makes him less manly and naive. In fact I am not entirely sure he ever became particularly devout, but I think he does ultimately take Jesus’s life and death to heart.
I am a veteran and a school teacher in Fort Worth, Texas. I was just fired from my teaching job for being too teacher centric. I have always tried to see the teaching of literature as our Lord did as he went to the people – he taught in parables in order to get the message of character and spirituality to the people. This has been destroyed in public schools as well as Western culture and philosophy. I have watched the Marxists take over education and destroy it. When I was in high school we read six Shakespeare plays. We were expected to read and study at home, and come to class prepared for lecture notes and essays. The school I was fired from does not read Shakespeare at all – too hard and complicated for today’s sophisticated students. I am a white man, veteran, and go to church every week. I am angry. Also, at sixty, I am trying to decide what to do to pay the bills. As white people, we are indeed strangers in a strange land. How should I approach being Christ-like and honorable with a destruction of my race and culture? What future do my grand kids have? I wrestle with this daily as I do my daily hikes and runs. I appreciate your essay and what you are saying. I am not sure, in light of Antiva, BLM, etc. what a bigot and a racist is. I pray for strength to carry on – even if it means working as a cashier at Quick Trip.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts, sir. May God bless you.
Sir, you sound much better placed as a manager at Buc-cees than a cashier at Quik-Trip. You can even use me as a reference when you submit your application! (Heck, I saw what they are paying in Tennessee and it’s worth leaving my white-collar entrepreneurship.)
But in all seriousness and sincerity, I’ll keep you in my prayers that you land in the good place God will lead you.
I love Gran Torino when I first saw it ten years ago. Eastword’s character is real you can see the trama he was working through. Not a rosy ending but real life.
It’s a wonderful film and this review is spot on.