Clint Eastwood is Hollywood's elder statesman and its conscience. He is the standard by which other films and filmmakers are judged. He represents both classical Hollywood and an entirely modern, uncompromising and unfussy directorial presence.

There are those who adore him as a cowboy, a superstar, the rugged, unyielding yet introspective face of American machismo. There are those who read him as a great American auteur fashioning uncompromising, fascinating, intellectual films about his country, about life, about whatever the hell takes his fancy.

No single figure in all of Hollywood, operates so freely outside of the strictures of commercial pressure. And yet, or perhaps that is because, he makes hit after hit.

Separation of actor and director is almost impossible. They are intimately related, cross pollinating, but he has become in the latter half of his career to be view as one of the great American artists. While drawing connections from his wider work as an actor, and those who have influenced him, it is his identity as a director that this book will celebrate.

This is not a career ? it is a landscape.