Eastwood tells Lee to 'shut his face'

Clint Eastwood has told Spike Lee to "shut his face" after the African-American filmmaker complained about the lack of black actors in Eastwood's films.

Eastwood has rejected the 'Malcolm X' director's complaint that he had failed to include a single black soldier in his 2006 films 'Flags Of Our Fathers' and 'Letters From Iwo Jima', about the 1945 battle for the Japanese island.

Rationalising his choice, the actor-turned-director explains the African-American troops who were at battle didn't take part in raising the flag.

He tells Britain's The Guardian newspaper: "The story is 'Flags of our Fathers', the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people go: 'This guy's lost his mind'. I mean, it's not accurate."

Referring to Lee, Eastwood adds: "A guy like him should shut his face."

Eastwood's comments came during a press conference at the Cannes International Film Festival last month, where he was promoting his own war film, 'Miracle at St Anna', a war drama about the all-black 92nd Buffalo Division, which fought against the Germans in World War II.