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'''Unforgiven''' is a 1992 Western film which tells the story of a retired gunslinger who takes on one more job for money. A Western that deals frankly with the uglier aspects of violence and the myth of the Old West, it stars Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Jaimz Woolvett, Saul Rubinek and Frances Fisher.
The movie was written by David Webb Peoples and directed by Eastwood, and won four Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Gene Hackman), Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture. ''Unforgiven'' was inducted into the United States National Film Registry in 2004, and Eastwood dedicated the movie to former directors and mentors Don Siegel and Sergio Leone.
Other than the fact that both films are set in the West, this film has no relationship to the 1960 film ''The Unforgiven''.
| Contents |
| Plot |
| Themes |
| Violence |
| Hero worship |
| Masculinity |
| Alcohol and violence |
| The incompetence of the gunfighters |
| Response |
| Academy Awards |
| Allusions |
| External links |
Plot
The movie opens in a Wyoming brothel in 1880, as a cowboy slashes a prostitute's face for laughing at his small penis. The sheriff fines the cowboy and his friend (who held down the prostitute at first, then quickly tried to stop the attacker) seven ponies — payable to the saloon owner and pimp Skinny. The prostitute's co-workers are furious that the two cowboys received only a fine for their attack and offer a $1000 reward to anyone who kills them.
A would-be assassin calling himself the Schofield Kid (Woolvett), in his search for partners, recruits William Munny (Eastwood) — an infamous retired gunfighter, murderer, and bandit who has married and been reformed by an honest woman. Following his wife's death he lives simply as a widowed father of two young children and a pig farmer whose stock is dying of swine fever. Munny recruits a former associate and neighbor, Ned Logan (Freeman), to help them hunt down the two men responsible for the attack on the prostitute and claim the large bounty.
Meanwhile, another gunman, "English Bob" (Harris), is also on his way to collect the bounty. Bob arrives in town and facetiously claims that he is not carrying firearms, even though his revolver is in plain sight. Bob has also enlisted a writer to chronicle his experiences, in a book called "The Duke of Death." Little Bill Daggett (Hackman), the venomous local sheriff and a former gunfighter, corners Bob and his biographer. After disarming Bob, Little Bill then ruthlessly beats him, to serve as an example to all those who are trying to collect the prostitutes' bounty.
As Little Bill ridicules and insults the jailed English Bob for the benefit of his biographer, Logan and Munny catch up to the Kid. After reaching town on a cold, rainy night, they enter a saloon for a drink and inquire about the reward. Munny remains at a table while Logan and the Kid go upstairs to be serviced by the prostitutes. While waiting for his friends to return, Little Bill discovers Munny is wearing a gun. A town ordinance prohibits guns — upon entering town that stormy night, Munny failed (or chose not) to see the warning sign posted alongside the road. Weak and feverish, Munny is in no condition to fight back as Little Bill brutally beats him in full view of the patrons. Munny manages to drag himself out of the saloon as Ned Logan and the Kid jump out a second-story window. Logan and the Kid then get Munny to high country above the town.
''Clint Eastwood'' as William Munny
Munny retreats and is nursed by his friends and the prostitutes, and after recovering sufficiently from his injuries, the three men ambush and kill one of the two cowboys in a canyon. It is at that point that Logan realizes he can no longer stomach murder, and decides to head home. Munny and the Kid find and slay the other cowboy in an outhouse outside the isolated cabin where he had been holed up for safety.
Logan is captured and brought back to Little Bill, who beats all the information he can out of him, inadvertently killing the middle-aged man. Logan's corpse is put on display in an open coffin outside the saloon as an example of frontier justice. Outside town, the Kid is quite shaken by the murder he has just committed and admits that it was his first kill; he renounces his planned gunfighting career, by saying a phrase to Munny which may symbolize the title of the movie: "I won't kill nobody no more.; I ain't like you, Will...". In fear of Munny's reputation the Kid refuses his share of the loot, to which Munny replies "I aint gonna kill you. You're the only friend I got." One of the prostitutes brings the reward money to Munny and tells him of the death of Logan. This angers Munny, who, breaking his vow of sobriety drinks some whisky, symbolizing the reemergence of his formerly drunken and murderous nature. He then rides into town to confront the sheriff.
That night, Munny walks into Greeley's Saloon, where Little Bill has assembled a posse to pursue Munny and the Kid. Munny demands to see the saloon's owner while holding them all at bay with a shotgun. When Skinny, the owner, identifies himself, Munny shoots him with one of the two barrels. Little Bill curses Munny and tells him that he has killed an unarmed man, to which Munny replies, "Well, he should have armed himself if he's gonna decorate his saloon with my friend". A gun fight ensues where Munny kills three posse members outright and seriously wounds Little Bill and another deputy. The Writer is intrigued that Munny was able to take out Little Bill with relative ease, but leaves unscathed when prompted to. While Munny is reloading a captured rifle, he hears Little Bill try to cock his pistol. Munny steps on Little Bill's hand and points the rifle directly into his face. Little Bill realizes what is to follow and states, "I don't deserve this. ...To die like this." Munny says, "Deserve's got nothing to do with it." Little Bill replies, "I'll see you in Hell, William Munny," to which Munny replies, "Yeah", and shoots Little Bill dead. Munny heads to the door, shooting the last injured deputy without bothering to aim. After shouting threats of wanton violence through the open door to anyone who might be outside waiting for him, he leaves the saloon and rides away on a white horse.
The film ends with a denouement: ''"Some years later, Mrs. Ansonia Feathers made the arduous journey to Hodgeman County to visit the last resting place of her only daughter. William Munny had long since disappeared with the children... some said to San Francisco where it was rumored he prospered in dry goods. And there was nothing on the marker to explain to Mrs. Feathers why her only daughter had married a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."''
Themes
Violence
Its major theme appears to be the nature of violence, and the discrepancies between actual and fictional violence. While most Westerns glorify violence as a justifiable means to an end, ''Unforgiven'' self-consciously depicts violence more realistically, and shows how it harms everyone around it. Certainly Munny does not glorify his incredibly vicious and violent past - indeed, when asked by the Sheriff if he is the William Munny who killed women and children, he replies, "I've killed just about anything that walked or crawled at one time or another, and I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you done to Ned." There is decidedly little glamour in the representation of Munny as a dangerous and vicious killer.
Yet the film ends on a contradiction, as William Munny becomes at the climax a classic Western hero-type, and defeats the villains in a conventional shootout scene. Thus, although many critics and viewers consider the film emphatically anti-violence, David Webb Peoples has stated in interviews that this was not his intention: he wished to present violence as morally complex, as opposed to simply "wrong". Further evidence of this is the statement in the closing moments of the film that Munny is rumored to have gone to San Francisco and prospered in dry goods, lending support to the idea that Munny's brutal slaughter of Big Whiskey's sheriff and deputies at the film's climax was in some sense redemptive.
In further contrast to conventional portrayals of violence in westerns, he certainly does not depart on any classic note. As he prepares to exit the saloon after his "heroic" dispatching of Little Bill and his crew, Munny shouts out, "Any man I see out there I'm gonna kill him! Any son of a bitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only going to kill him, I'm going to kill his wife - all his friends - burn his damn house down!" Munny then turns on his horse and shouts if anyone harms any whores he will return "and kill every one of you sons of bitches." The departure is brutally realistic, contrasting teary-eyed departures in classical westerns such as ''Shane''.
Hero worship
A major subtheme of the film is the hero worship of Wild West gunslingers. In the West, men who can handle themselves in gunfights have power, and they are celebrities. Indeed, the dime novels of the day, celebrating such figures as Wild Bill really created the first celebrity subculture. The movie uses the dime novels about such figures as English Bob to make the same point. W.W. Beauchamp is deeply impressed by them, even to the point of writing English Bob's biography in dime novel form. Beauchamp is actually responsible for much of English Bob's celebrity, magnifying his exploits in the ''Duke of Death''. However, English Bob is only a hired gun for the railroad, paid "to kill Chinamen" for bounty. Their reputation precedes them and Beauchamp basks in it himself as English Bob's companion.
English Bob's ongoing allusions to the power of royalty also reflect this theme. At one point he states that, due to the force of majesty (not far from hero worship) one would find oneself paralyzed if one attempted to assassinate a king or a queen.
In the confrontation at Big Whiskey, Beauchamp attaches himself to Little Bill Daggett after Daggett ejects English Bob from the town. An entire scene (the jail) is pure exposition on the finer points of gunfighting. However, the depth of Beauchamp's hero worship is revealed only after the Greeley's massacre. With five bodies still writhing on the floor, Beauchamp is asking Munny how he decided whom to shoot first. The interview concludes with Munny pointing a Spencer rifle in his face and telling him that all he knew was who would be shot last, meaning Beauchamp, in the event that Beauchamp neglected to leave at once.
This relationship between Beauchamp and Little Bill is paralleled by that between the Kid and Munny. The Kid, unlike Beauchamp, actively tries to live the gunslinger's life, and his admiration for Munny becomes terror and regret when —through his own involvement— he finally understands the real meaning of Munny's former deeds.
Then, as it is today, there was a fine line between infamy and celebrity. As exaggerated as this issue was in the film, many people today still know the names of many gunfighters, such as Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, and Jesse James.
Masculinity
Another related theme appears to be the connection between violence and masculinity. Twice in the film, violence is linked to a literal interpretation of the male organ; the film begins with a prostitute having her face slashed for mocking a man's under-endowment. Secondly, Little Bill equates the penis with a gun, when explaining a nickname. The film further links violence with masculinity in the Schofield Kid's attempts to prove himself, especially when his visual deficiency is exposed.
In ''Unforgiven'', violence is not glorious or heroic, but rather is stereotyped as a painful expression of insecure masculinity. We also see the influence of women on this, generally stereotyped as a civilizing presence. The most obvious example of this is William Munny's mentioning of how his late wife helped him to become a more stable and gentler character. Another example is Munny's meeting with the prostitute who was attacked, which reveals his gentler side. The caring and gentle sensibilities of women contrast strongly with the vengeful and violent nature of men, to which William Munny ultimately succumbs. However, as with many of the themes in the film, the influence of women is not clear cut and absolutely good or evil. While in some instances they act as a "civilizing" force, it is the prostitutes who offer the bounty and demand blood despite the victim's willingness to forgive her attackers.
While Clint Eastwood's earlier roles often featured a "Man with No Name", an anonymous stranger who wanders in to town to set things right, William Munny can be seen as a man who is trying to escape his past identity as the Man With No Name. As other characters relate the horrors of his life in the various atrocities he has committed early in the movie, he continually refers to that being the past, before his wife helped him to stop drinking.
Alcohol and violence
Alcohol and its relation to violence is another theme explored in this movie. Munny stresses throughout the movie he was a different person before his wife helped him stop drinking, and he repeatedly says he does not remember much of his early violent life, because he was drunk. Munny is sober when he kills the first cowboy and his behavior lacks any bloodlust or rage; he seems quite normal. However, towards the end of the film, when he begins to drink after learning Ned's fate, he quickly becomes a fearsome and intimidating individual. By the time he enters the saloon in the film's climax, he has finished the whiskey bottle and is full of murderous intent. Indeed, his rage is palpable, and the viewer sees in the end the demon that alcohol fully unleashes in Munny.
The incompetence of the gunfighters
Contrary to the dime store glory of English Bob's published exploits, the movie finds the classic western heroes as incompetent and inept. English Bob, hero of ''Duke of Death'' is beaten to a pulp by Little Bill, who cannot even put a roof on his beloved house. Indeed, we are told English Bob is really an enforcer for the railroad, killing Chinese workers, not the gunfighter he is mythologized to be. The Scofield Kid cannot see to hit the broadside of a barn with his beloved revolver, Ned Logan cannot bring himself to kill anyone, and at the beginning of the story, William Munny cannot even get on a horse. "This old horse is getting even with me for the sins of my youth," he tells his children. "Before I met your dear departed Ma, I used to be weak and given to mistreatin' animals." Little Bill himself, after explaining to W.W. Beauchamp that a skilled gunfighter doesn't draw and fire as quickly as possible, but "keeps his head and doesn't get rattled under fire", pulls his pistol in a panic during the shootout at the end of the film, missing Munny, as do all of the deputies.
The movie shows the clear dichotomy between the dime novel lionization of gunfighters, and their real life behavior. It is alcohol that turns William Munny into a vicious killer, not competence with a gun. None of the traditional characterizations in westerns are shown to be real in ''Unforgiven''.
Response
Critical response was generally very positive. The film makes appearances in both the IMDb top 250, and the American Film Institute's 100 years, 100 movies. In 2005, Time.com named it one of the 100 best movies of the last 80 years. Many critics acclaimed the film for its noir-ish moral ambiguity and atmosphere. [1] They also acclaimed it as a fitting elegy to the western genre. It was also admitted to the National Film Registry, and is one of the few westerns in the registry.
Roger Ebert famously disliked the film upon first viewing, giving it two stars. After much needling from fans, and much acclaim from the critical establishment, Ebert re-watched the film and gave it a better review, later writing about it in his "Great Films Series".
Academy Awards
Allusions
''Unforgiven'' has several allusions to earlier Westerns. The opening scene, where Eastwood stands at the grave of his dead wife, is an allusion to John Ford's ''She Wore a Yellow Ribbon''.
The scene in which Hackman tells Rubinek to pick up the revolver in the jail is an allusion to ''Once Upon a Time in the West'', which has a similar scene in a bar, which again was itself an allusion to the film ''Shane''.
Rubinek then asks Eastwood how he chose the order in which to kill five men, stating that Little Bill had explained to him that an experienced gunfighter always aimed for the best shot in his opponents first, when facing multiple opponents. Eastwood responds, "Is that right? I was lucky in the order...but I've always been lucky when it comes to killing folks". This is an allusion to ''The Outlaw Josey Wales'', in which Eastwood's character, in response to a similar question, gives a detailed response about their various holsters and demeanors, similar to what Hackman had told Rubinek an experienced fighter should do.
Finally, the scene in the jail, in which Hackman's character is discussing how the most important attribute of a gunfighter is coolness under pressure rather than speed and accuracy (noting that it is difficult to be quick and accurate when an opponent is returning fire), mirrors the backyard shooting practice scene in ''The Shootist'', in which John Wayne's character says essentially the same thing to a young Ron Howard.
External links
★
★
★
★ ''Unforgiven'' at Filmsite.org
★ ''Unforgiven'' at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
★ ''Unforgiven'' at rogerebert.com
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