No Such Thing as Heroes: Clint Eastwood, Metahistorian

This thesis makes an argument for Clint Eastwood as a historian director with a demonstrable appetite for the use of the medium to champion and expand cinema’s potential as a tool for the exploration, deconstruction and re-examination of traditional approaches to the past. A case is made that the eighteen dramatic historical films Eastwood has directed show a consistent emphasis on subverting the conventions of historical subgenres; reinterpreting historical events or individuals; rejecting certitude in favour of ambiguity; and inviting reflections on the insurmountable gap between the past and the histories we construct in order to recapture it.