Clint Eastwood carved a remarkable career playing iconic characters on screen and directing powerful human dramas behind the camera. What is more significant about his legacy is the occasional detour into art-driven pictures that challenged him as a filmmaker. Eastwood’s ability to take on such risky projects can be traced back to his third directorial effort with 1973’s Breezy.
Before he was hailed by critics as a cinematic auteur in the later part of his career, Eastwood showed the film industry he could helm a movie during his box office prime without being the front-and-center lead. Though he cut his directing teeth with the thriller Play Misty for Me and the epic western High Plains Drifter, Breezy offered Eastwood an opportunity to show he could handle a sensitive subject as unique as a forbidden romance. While Breezy stood little chance of being a box office success, it set the tone for the cinematic icon to tackle deeper material in later years.
What Is ‘Breezy’ About?
Written by Jo Heims (Play Misty For Me), the film follows the budding romance of divorced Los Angeles real estate agent Frank (William Holden) and a young hippie drifter who goes by the nickname “Breezy” (Kay Lenz). Frank reluctantly accepts Breezy into his life after her creepy encounter with an older male driver, providing food, shelter, and a trip to the beach. As their relationship becomes increasingly intimate, Frank’s insecurities about the age gap between him and Breezy looms larger.
Being in his early ’40s at the time of production, it was curious that Eastwood would direct a picture featuring a screen legend like Holden pursuing a romantic relationship with the then-19-year-old Lenz against the backdrop of a real-world culture clash taking place in the early ’70s. Breezy lacks the politically charged themes of Dirty Harry, nor does it feature a toxic relationship like the one seen in Play Misty For Me. Instead, Breezy marked a new kind of territory for Eastwood as a storyteller: a man’s self-discovery through the admission of mortality.
‘Breezy’ Paved the Way for Clint Eastwood To Direct Sensitive Material
Holden was well-suited to playing a lonely bachelor of a certain age. His uptight romantic performances in such classics as Sabrina and The Bridges at Toko-Ri were the proper building blocks for a role as insecure as Frank. The character is symbolic of a generation of men coming up in the 1950s who were overly protective of their masculinity, refusing to show much in the way of sensitivity. Frank’s introductory scene sees him treat his blonde female guest like a business acquaintance as she leaves, showing just how much he has the figurative cork screwed tightly into the bottle.
In complete contrast, Lenz, as the title character, represents the free-spirited nature of young people living without rules and restrictions. Outside of gathering with fellow hippies on the streets of L.A., the audience never sees what agendas Breezy tries to promote. She prefers the simple things in life that bring her joy, such as walks on the beach, playing her guitar, and embracing a pup left for dead on the road. These traits in Breezy’s personality melt away the internal barriers of Frank, allowing Holden’s performance to loosen up significantly in the latter half of the movie.Though Eastwood was riding high on his blockbuster hits, Breezy was his first in a series of films that honestly addressed the shortness of life. Initially, Frank loses sight of it once his relationship with Breezy turns sexual. His clothes become more colorful, and he comes across as more extroverted in public. Yet, his reminders of a short-lived relationship stem from not only his sexually repressed friends who look down on the situation but also those in public who mistake him for being Breezy’s father or uncle. The trials of the middle-aged man in America facing mortality may have been a theme that the public could not embrace in 1973. But it did not stop Eastwood from examining it in other ways with future projects such as Honkytonk Man and, to some extent, The Bridges of Madison County.
By making a non-commercial love story on a small scale, Breezy marked a significant shift from the man-of-action movies Eastwood was known for. It may not have been a box office success but, Breezy marked the beginning of Eastwood’s true artistry, discovering future passion projects like Bird and White Hunter, Black Heart to occasionally break away from his epic westerns and gritty cop thrillers.