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Unforgiven (Eastwood, '92)
It's a hell of a thing, killing a man; you take away all he's got, and all he's ever gonna have.
Unforgiven is haunted by many things; as a film, it's haunted by an American west that never existed, its protagonist is haunted by the memory of his late wife, by the atrocities he committed as a young outlaw, and by the fear he'll get what he deserves in the afterlife, and finally, one could say that Clint Eastwood himself was haunted, by the long shadows his cinematic mentors still cast over his career (Sergio Leone & Don Siegel to be exact, to whose memories the film is dedicated to). However, while Will Munny never truly escapes any of the demons haunting him, the man who portrays him did, winning himself an Oscar for Best Director, in addition to the well-earned Best Picture Oscar the film itself received, earning it a richly-deserved status as a true modern classic, and the status of a "Western to end all Westerns", so to speak.
You see, it's immediately obvious that Unforgiven is no traditional Western from its first five minutes alone, when a scene of intercourse is interupted by a cowboy slashing his prostitute's face for giggling at the size of his manhood, and, when the local sheriff gives the man and his friend a rather light punishment, the women of the brothel conspire to offer a $1,000 "Wanted Dead" bounty on the two men, a catalyst that causes the notorious outlaw Will Munny to come out of "retirement". However, it's obvious from the very first moment we see him that Munny is no unstoppable, Man With No Name-style gunslinger, but a muddy, exhausted old man, struggling to wrangle his pigs, half of whom are sick anyway, into the pen of his small, meager farm, and this demythologization of the Western outlaw continues throughout Unforgiven, as Munny gets pistol-whipped half to death at one point, nearly dies from a "mere" fever instead of a bullet, and, most importantly, is constantly, emotionally tortured by the memories of the past horrors he committed.
This extends to the tone and conventions of the overall genre as well, as the prostitutes are treated more like livestock than human beings here, the "action" scenes are realistically bloody and confused, with no exciting "quick-draw" duels in sight, and law enforcement isn't shown to be any more moral than the criminals it opposes, as Gene Hackman delivers a memorably chilling performance as "Little Bill", a man who seems reasonable and pragmatic at first, but who eventually reveals himself to be a brutal sadist instead, dealing mercilessly with anyone who threatens the tranquility of his town, often enjoying himself as he does so.
He's trying to achieve a good end through evil means, a moral ambiguity that extends to Munny as well, as it's obvious that he wouldn't have taken the job if he didn't have two young children to support, he expresses constant, legitimate remorse over his past sins, and when he shoots one of his bountyheads in the gut (the one who had nothing to do the initial mutilation of the prostitute, it must be noted), Munny ceases firing when he hears the man's cries, and demands that he be brought a canteen of water, to ease the pain of a slow death just a little. Unforgiven's absolute refusal to provide any easy answers or moral conclusions is what makes it so incredibly, undeniably powerful, and elevates into being a grand eulogy for Westerns overall, really, as the whole affair has a timeless, mythical quality to it, no more so than in its masterful final shot, when Munny visits his wife's grave at sunset one last time, and, as the lone, sorrowful acoustic guitar of "Claudia's Theme" (written by Eastwood himself) begins to play, the bookending text tells us:
"Some years later, Mrs. Feathers made the arduous journey to Hodgeman County to visit the final resting place of her only daughter. William Munny had long since disappeared with the children... some said to San Francisco, where it was rumored that he prospered in dry goods. And there was nothing on the grave to explain to Mrs. Feathers why her only daughter had married a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously violent and vicious disposition."
It's a hell of a thing, killing a man; you take away all he's got, and all he's ever gonna have.
Unforgiven is haunted by many things; as a film, it's haunted by an American west that never existed, its protagonist is haunted by the memory of his late wife, by the atrocities he committed as a young outlaw, and by the fear he'll get what he deserves in the afterlife, and finally, one could say that Clint Eastwood himself was haunted, by the long shadows his cinematic mentors still cast over his career (Sergio Leone & Don Siegel to be exact, to whose memories the film is dedicated to). However, while Will Munny never truly escapes any of the demons haunting him, the man who portrays him did, winning himself an Oscar for Best Director, in addition to the well-earned Best Picture Oscar the film itself received, earning it a richly-deserved status as a true modern classic, and the status of a "Western to end all Westerns", so to speak.
You see, it's immediately obvious that Unforgiven is no traditional Western from its first five minutes alone, when a scene of intercourse is interupted by a cowboy slashing his prostitute's face for giggling at the size of his manhood, and, when the local sheriff gives the man and his friend a rather light punishment, the women of the brothel conspire to offer a $1,000 "Wanted Dead" bounty on the two men, a catalyst that causes the notorious outlaw Will Munny to come out of "retirement". However, it's obvious from the very first moment we see him that Munny is no unstoppable, Man With No Name-style gunslinger, but a muddy, exhausted old man, struggling to wrangle his pigs, half of whom are sick anyway, into the pen of his small, meager farm, and this demythologization of the Western outlaw continues throughout Unforgiven, as Munny gets pistol-whipped half to death at one point, nearly dies from a "mere" fever instead of a bullet, and, most importantly, is constantly, emotionally tortured by the memories of the past horrors he committed.
This extends to the tone and conventions of the overall genre as well, as the prostitutes are treated more like livestock than human beings here, the "action" scenes are realistically bloody and confused, with no exciting "quick-draw" duels in sight, and law enforcement isn't shown to be any more moral than the criminals it opposes, as Gene Hackman delivers a memorably chilling performance as "Little Bill", a man who seems reasonable and pragmatic at first, but who eventually reveals himself to be a brutal sadist instead, dealing mercilessly with anyone who threatens the tranquility of his town, often enjoying himself as he does so.
He's trying to achieve a good end through evil means, a moral ambiguity that extends to Munny as well, as it's obvious that he wouldn't have taken the job if he didn't have two young children to support, he expresses constant, legitimate remorse over his past sins, and when he shoots one of his bountyheads in the gut (the one who had nothing to do the initial mutilation of the prostitute, it must be noted), Munny ceases firing when he hears the man's cries, and demands that he be brought a canteen of water, to ease the pain of a slow death just a little. Unforgiven's absolute refusal to provide any easy answers or moral conclusions is what makes it so incredibly, undeniably powerful, and elevates into being a grand eulogy for Westerns overall, really, as the whole affair has a timeless, mythical quality to it, no more so than in its masterful final shot, when Munny visits his wife's grave at sunset one last time, and, as the lone, sorrowful acoustic guitar of "Claudia's Theme" (written by Eastwood himself) begins to play, the bookending text tells us:
"Some years later, Mrs. Feathers made the arduous journey to Hodgeman County to visit the final resting place of her only daughter. William Munny had long since disappeared with the children... some said to San Francisco, where it was rumored that he prospered in dry goods. And there was nothing on the grave to explain to Mrs. Feathers why her only daughter had married a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously violent and vicious disposition."
