Eastwood: 'Lee should shut his face'

Clint Eastwood has hit back at Spike Lee after he was accused of failing to use black actors in his movies.

In an interview at the Cannes Film Festival, Lee said his fellow director had not depicted any African-American troops in Iwo Jima dramas Flags Of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima.

Eastwood responded that black soldiers who fought in the battle would not have raised the American flag, as depicted in the famous image.

He told The Guardian: "The story is Flags Of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and [black] soldiers didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go: 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate."

He added: "I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is. When I do a movie and it's 90% black, like Bird, then I use 90% black people."

He said of Lee: "A guy like him should shut his face."