Spike Lee Slams Clint Over WWII Films

CANNES, France - Spike Lee criticized Clint Eastwood for his two movies about the 1945 battle for Iwo Jima, saying the filmmaker overlooked the role of black soldiers during World War II.

Lee - whose next film is this fall's "Miracle at St. Anna," the story of an all-black U.S. division fighting in Italy during the war - said Eastwood's 2006 films "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima" did not include any black soldiers.

"He did two films about Iwo Jima back to back and there was not one black soldier in both of those films," Lee said Tuesday in Cannes, where he was a judge in an online short-film competition.

Find more film news and reviews at Military.com's Movie Page.

"Many veterans, African-Americans, who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood. In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that. I have a different version."

Eastwood was in Cannes for his missing-child drama "Changeling," starring Angelina Jolie. At a news conference for the film, a reporter tried to ask for his reaction to Lee's criticism, but the moderator cut her off and told journalists to limit questions to Eastwood's own film.

Due in U.S. theaters in October, "Miracle at St. Anna" centers on four Americans - played by Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso and Omar Benson Miller - in the Buffalo Soldiers division in Tuscany.