In making a movie about U.S. Marines in the battle of Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood became concerned that he was telling only half of the story.
So he made another movie.
The two films — "Flags," telling the story of six men who raised an American flag on Mount Suribachi, and the tentatively named "Lambs Before the Wind" on the Japanese side of the battle — are scheduled for simultaneous release next fall.
Eastwood had difficulty articulating to Time magazine why he took on the ambitious projects.
"I don't know — sometimes you just get a feeling about something. You have a premonition that you can get something decent out of it," he told the magazine in an interview in this week's issue. "You just have to trust your gut."
Nearly 7,000 American troops and more than 20,000 Japanese died in the battle from February to March 1945.
Mount Suribachi, a 550-foot dead volcano at the tiny, teardrop-shaped island's southern tip, was where five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised a U.S. flag on Feb. 23, 1945. The flag-raising — the second one that day on the mountain — was captured in the famous photograph by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.
Eastwood, 75, has won two best-director Oscars, for "Million Dollar Baby" and "Unforgiven."