It all started at the Cannes film festival where Spike Lee got his panties all in a wad over Clint Eastwood’s portrayal (or non-portrayal) of black people in Eastwood’s highly acclaimed films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. Lee had this to say at the time:

“There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint for not having one [in the films]. That was his version: the negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version.

“Here’s the paradox,” he said. “These African-American men wanted to fight against fascism in the name of democracy. At the same time, they were still second-class citizens.” Although Lee emphasized his respect for Eastwood as a film-maker, he claimed that the director had been told of the African-Americans who fought at Iwo Jima, and had chosen to ignore that “information”.

Lee’s “different version,” which he mentions in the quote, is his film Miracle At St. Anna which chronicles the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II. That film is set to hit theaters on October 10.

Well, Eastwood didn’t comment on what Lee said at the time, but he has since given an interview to The Guardian in which he said plenty:

“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’d go: ‘This guy’s lost his mind.’ I mean, it’s not accurate.” Referring to Lee, he added: “A guy like him should shut his face.”

Come on! You gotta love Eastwood! He just told Spike Lee to SHUT HIS FACE! That’s freakin’ awesome! That article mentions that Clint once also said that he would kill Michael Moore if he showed up uninvited to his house.

Eastwood wasn’t done with Lee yet, though. He had plenty more to say:

Defending the racial make-up in his films as historically accurate, Eastwood referred to another of his films, Changeling, which was set in Los Angeles before the city had a large group of African-Americans. “What are you going to do, you going to tell a fuckin’ story about that?” he said. “Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I’m not in that game. I’m playing it the way I read it historically, and that’s the way it is. When I do a movie and it’s 90% black, like Bird, then I use 90% black people.

“He was complaining when I did Bird (the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker). Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that’s why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else.”

Eastwood’s next project, The Human Factor, will be about Nelson Mandela’s attempts to foster national unity in post-apartheid South Africa. Asked if he would remain historically accurate with depictions of the former president, he said: “I’m not going to make Nelson Mandela a white guy.”

In fact, Morgan Freeman, who actually brought Human Factor to Eastwood, will be playing Nelson Mandela in that film. Matt Damon also recently joined the cast.

The Anthony Peckham scripted drama is an adaptation of John Carlin’s book “The Human Factor: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Changed the World.”

Damon will play rugby star Francois Pienaar, who created, with Nelson Mandela (played by Freeman), an event that gave whites and blacks in South Africa a common cause to rally around as the country was trying to heal from the wounds of apartheid.

Freeman was the moving force behind this production. After receiving Mandela’s blessing, Freeman took the project to his pal Clint Eastwood and to WB where Eastwood has his production deal.

Eastwood will make this his next project after he finishes Gran Torino (you know, the project that’s not a Dirty Harry film).

Damon just wrapped the untitled Paul Greengrass directed drama for Universal based on “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,” and he’s currently starring for Steven Soderbergh in The Informant for Warner Bros. He plans to rest up in the fall and make Human Factor his next starring role.