John WayneandClint Eastwoodare arguably the two biggest western movie star , but they made very unlike westerns and had very unassailable opinions about each other ’s picture show . Throughout Hollywood ’s storied account with the western , plenty of iconic actor have put their pestle on the genre – Henry Fonda , Gary Cooper , James Stewart , Lee Van Cleef , Glenn Ford , Charles Bronson , Lee Marvin , the leaning goes on – but Wayne and Eastwood are the two actors that defined the musical genre . And not only that , they each defined completely unlike eras of the genre .

Like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel , Wayne and Eastwood had one of the most famous famous person feuds in Hollywood history . ButWayne and Eastwood ’s feudwasn’t establish on any personal differences ; it was base on their ideological difference and their vastly dissimilar approaches to the westerly genre . Wayne andEastwood both play gunslinging cowboys in classic Westerns , but their movies could n’t have been more different in their tone , panache , and above all , morality .

John Wayne’s Westerns Had More Traditional American Heroes & Clearer Morals

Wayne’s View Of Good Versus Evil Was Very Black-And-White

Wayne ’s westerly movieshave straightforward , clear - cut morals and traditional American hero . They have a very fatal - and - white survey of good versus evilness ; there are heroes who always do the right thing and never falter , and villain who do nothing but wrong and need to be shoot down for the bang-up good . Wayne ’s characters never dip into a moral gray-haired area ; they unwaveringly protect the law and their action are always just . In John Ford’sStagecoach , the Native Americans snipe the coach are controversially describe as cold - blooded savages , while Wayne ’s “ Ringo Kid ” is depicted as the noble hero who saves the day .

John Wayne ’s classic horse opera The Searchers is one of the most influential movies ever made , having inspired everything from Star Wars to Taxi Driver .

Having been disgusted by the cowardice shown by Gary Cooper inHigh Noon , which he considered to be un - American , Wayne made a whole movie in reaction . In Howard Hawks’Rio Bravo , Wayne wreak a pocket-sized - township sheriff who stop a local crook , who informs him that his gang is on their mode to break him out . Unlike Cooper inHigh Noon , Wayne does n’t pass the rest ofRio Bravo ’s runtime running frightened , desperately asking the townsfolk for service ; he spends the movie boot back , getting to make love his Modern deputy , and awaiting the bunch ’s arrival .

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Wayne ’s characters never dip into a moral white-haired area ; they steadfastly protect the law and their actions are always just .

Wayne occasionally experimented with some darker stories and more ethically ambiguous character reference . InThe Searchers , Wayne plays a state of war veteran who struggles to adjust to civilian living post - war and relentlessly pursue his kidnapped niece , who he find does n’t even need to be rescued . InTrue Grit , he plays an alcoholic U.S. Marshal who reluctantly team up up with a untested charwoman to find her father ’s killer . But in these darker movies , Wayne is still portrayed as the hero who ’s in the moral right . Wayne ’s movies defined the traditional good - versus - evil Westerns of Classical Hollywood .

Clint Eastwood’s Westerns Took Them In A More Complex, Darker Direction

Eastwood Played Morally Ambiguous Antiheroes In Darker, Grittier Movies

Eastwood ’s Westerns , on the other manus , took the genre in a more morally complex direction . Eastwood ’s Westerns were a draw morose and grittier than Wayne ’s , and he often meet antihero with deeply unlikable qualities . In Eastwood ’s westerly movies , the lines between good and sorry and proper and haywire were a small more blurred than in Wayne ’s . InSergio Leone’sDollarstrilogy , Eastwood play “ The Man with No Name , ” whose ethics is just as undecipherable as his name . He pit two war gangs against each other to liberate a town , but he ’s also a frigid - hearted bountifulness hunting watch who kills for money .

From gunslinger one - liner to wild cop counter , Clint Eastwood ’s fictitious character have plenty of memorable line that are still being quoted decennary subsequently .

In a traditional retaliation Western , the hero gets his revenge and mount off into the sunset . In the Wayne - starringThe Dawn Rider , Wayne avenges his Padre , it as if by magic make him find skilful , and he marries the love of his lifetime . But revenge is a stack messier than that , and Eastwood ’s grimmer retaliation westerns think over that . InThe Outlaw Josey Wales , as Eastwood seeks payback for the destruction of his family , it bit by bit turns him into a murderous monstrosity , feared across the land . Eastwood ’s Westerns were a lot more complex than Wayne ’s , and reflected a more complex worldin their sentence .

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John Wayne & Clint Eastwood Defined Different Eras Of The Western Genre

Wayne Defined The Traditional Western, But Eastwood Defined Spaghetti & Revisionist Westerns

Wayne and Eastwood each epitomise a different era of the Western . The genre has a very long history that precede them – going back to the 1899 British shortKidnapping by Indians – and there ’s some overlap between Wayne ’s Western life history and Eastwood ’s . But Wayne ’s era and Eastwood ’s era can be seen as discrete chapter in the account of the Western genre , and their moving picture dead be what Westerns were doing at that clip . FromThe Man Who Shot Liberty ValancetoHow the West Was Won , Wayne ’s Westerns body forth the sprawling epos and clear - cut ethics of the Golden Age of Hollywood .

On the other bridge player , Eastwood ’s western embodied the equivocal ethical motive and experimental approach of the American New Wave . He scored his first starring role in the seminal Italian spaghetti westernA Fistful of Dollars , which introduced a darker , more phantasmagorical vision of the Old West . Eastwood brought that approach back to Hollywood with grisly anti - Westerns likeHang ‘ Em High , High Plains Drifter , andarguably his masterpiece , Unforgiven . Eastwood upend the tropes that Wayne pioneer to spearhead the revisionist Western .

What John Wayne Has Said About Clint Eastwood’s Westerns

Wayne Was Not A Fan Of Eastwood’s Movies

Wayne was not a fan of Eastwood ’s Western . In 1973 , Eastwood directed and starred inHigh Plains Drifter , a very violent westerly that border on supernatural horror when a demonic spirit roll out into townsfolk . Wayne despisedHigh Plains Drifterso muchthat he wrote Eastwood a varsity letter about it . Wayne mat that westerly movies should be about the pioneer experience and settling in the West , and he foundHigh Plains Drifter ’s extrasensory storyline to be an insult to that . Wayne experience the film glorified violence ; Eastwood felt that Wayne simply did n’t empathise itbecause he came from a different contemporaries .

What Clint Eastwood Has Said About John Wayne’s Westerns

Eastwood Was Much Kinder To Wayne’s Westerns

Despite the fact that Wayne hated Eastwood ’s movies , Eastwood was an booster of Wayne’s . Eastwood conceive that Wayne gave his secure performance in two classical Westerns : 1948’sRed Riverand 1956’sThe Searchers . According to Eastwood , Wayne ’s carrying out inThe Searchers“proved he was n’t just a moving-picture show wiz , but a really good player . ” It ’s no surprisal that Eastwood admiresThe Searchersso much ; it ’s the closest Wayne occur to making one of Eastwood ’s dark , gritty revisionist Westerns . John Waynemight have hatedClint Eastwood ’s horse opera , but Eastwood was a big fan of Wayne ’s .

Chris Pratt as Joshua Faraday in The Magnificent Seven with the remake behind it.

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Clint Eastwood as The Stranger talks to another man while riding a horse in High Plains Drifter

John Wayne as Ethan standing in the doorway in The Searchers

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