Spike Lee gets in Clint Eastwood's line of fire

· Director told to 'shut his face' after race comments
· Row over black casting in second world war films

'A guy like him should shut his face' - Clint Eastwood on Spike Lee. Photograph: Nicolas Guerin/Corbis

Clint Eastwood has advised rival film director Spike Lee to "shut his face" after the African-American complained about the racial make-up of Eastwood's films.

In an interview with the Guardian published today, Eastwood rejected Lee's complaint that he had failed to include a single African-American soldier in his films Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, both about the 1945 battle for the Japanese island.
http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,2283921,00.html

In typically outspoken language, Eastwood justified his choice of actors, saying that those black troops who did take part in the battle as part of a munitions company didn't raise the flag. The battle is known by the image of US marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2284235,00.html