Clint

Setting aside the politics, I want to say a few things about Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper.” I promise this has something important to do with aging. Just stay with me for a moment.

The movie knows what it’s about and goes for it. Where it could be arty and dramatic, it is blunt and unsentimental. We know what we need to know just when we need to know it. The acting does not feel like acting. The skirmish/ battle scenes, which need to communicate confusion and randomness without themselves being confusing or random, do just that. The movie, with very few glitches, is a sharp, clear, sure-handed, finely crafted piece of work, professional and powerful from beginning to end. It is the directorial work of a master.

That master happens to be 84.

What I have been hearing (from friends who’ve seen the movie, from media commentary) is how amazing it is that an 84-year-old could do something like this. Wow. He is an old guy and, gee, he is in top form. Isn’t that astonishing! As if being old is an obstacle to excellence as opposed to a contributor.

Clint Eastwood could make this kind of movie because he is 84 not despite the fact that he is 84. (And, anyway, who knows how old he really is…as in biologically. His chronological years make far less difference to his energy, vitality and creativity than his biological age. That’s the counterclockwise message I’ve been preaching in these columns. That’s the counterclockwise message the science of aging communicates unequivocally.)

I want to repeat: Eastwood is capable of such work because – not despite of – his age. Can we please please stop playing the age card, stop assuming that people past a certain chronological age are diminished? Can we please please stop viewing those who continue to contribute as “exceptions to the rule”? It may be that they ARE the rule.

Here’s what Pablo Casals had to say about age and excellence: “The first twenty years you learn. The second twenty years you practice. The third twenty years you perform. And the fourth twenty years you play.”

Play on, Clint.

And consider the lives of these “elderly” folks.