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	FEEL LUCKY PUNK? Clint Eastwood gives directions on the set of his new film 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.'

Little Morgan, barely 11 months, is loving it. So is he.

This is not your father's Clint Eastwood. This is Clint Eastwood, father. (Actually, he's a father seven times by five different women, but more on that later).

This is not your father's Clint Eastwood in other ways, too: Dirty Harry and the Man With No Name -- lonely, violent, enigmatic, retributive, scary macho men -- have long been supplanted by the director of films rife with intelligence and nuance.

That's why the 67-year-old director-actor dismisses the notion that many critics who once dismissed him have pulled a "180" by fawning over much of his recent work.

"Maybe I pulled a 180, and they saw that," he says in that quiet rasp that sounds hoarse after talking all day. "Or else, maybe -- I've always thought it was probably 'cause they just grew up with me. Ö Or I can answer it by saying I've just outlived everyone, or we've all just changed; we've all mellowed with the times."

It's a little like what the central character in his latest directorial effort, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, says: "Truth, like art, is in the eye of the beholder."

"There's certainly been a lot of different views expressed on my work," he says.

And much of it has entailed misconceptions about him, he says.

"In the early '70s, it was: he feels like a rogue cop. Or a cynical cowboy (in the '60s)," he says. "Who knows? And because I've always had a little touch of ambiguity in some of the films, even dating back to the Fistful of Dollars characters, there's always been that thing where people have been drawn in by their own interpretation."

While his action-adventure image seems long ago and far away, Eastwood doesn't preclude a modified return to such a role.

"Nowadays there are so many younger guys doing that sort of stuff. And I kind of drifted away from it in my own quest to diversify a little bit over the years. I wouldn't say that I wouldn't drift back to that sort of thing, to something that had an action-adventure feel about it, but the story would have to mean something," he says.

He cites Unforgiven and In the Line of Fire as examples, saying they had action sequences but were more about men with a lot of miles on them, some damage, a little vulnerability -- and a desire for redemption.

Those characters were more interesting to play than some of his younger characters who "might have been seeking some redemption but not a lot." He laughs.

Both characters, too, find they have to make some concessions to advancing years -- something that Eastwood seems to be thinking about when he uses the words "maturity" and "age" in talking about his sustained success in Hollywood.

Eastwood doesn't see his work as having "a considered progress, particularly thought-out. It just kind of happened. I think it just happened with life, with maturity Ö It seems like at this stage right now there's quite a few elements you can throw into it to make the characters more interesting."

As for his longevity, he takes a long pause.

"I can't put my finger on it," he says, pausing again. "Luck, maybe. Maybe I've chosen the right things. Maybe I've matured ahead and just done some projects that have worked -- and stayed up with the aging process. It's all a crapshoot."