Stu Presents, Genre Deconstruction In Film: A Crash Course!

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Wait, you're a novelist?

Unpublished, but I have completed one. I had to wait until I was fully confident in my abilities since I used to suck at writing. I hope I can get it published soon on Kindle but there are a lot of things I need to worry about first.



Also, another common aspect of 50's Sci-Fi that 2001 subverted (that I didn't have space to mention in my original write-up) is how they tended to go out of their way to explicitly reaffirm familiar, traditional notions of morality & religious faith, which you can see in the paraphrased quotes below...



...as if they were afraid they would scare their audiences on some level with the futuristic settings/technology they depicted, and wanted to say "Hey! We may be aliens/living in the future, but we still believe in the same God as you do, okay?", which is a stark contrast to the way that 2001 not only never mentions the concepts of God or faith, but also basically elevates some sort of mysterious alien intelligence to being on the same level as God (right down to being invisible), before basically doing the exact same thing to man himself at the end (and without any audience-coddling explanations to boot) wouldn't you say?



Unpublished, but I have completed one. I had to wait until I was fully confident in my abilities since I used to suck at writing. I hope I can get it published soon on Kindle but there are a lot of things I need to worry about first.
Cool! I had ideas of writing novels when I was younger, before I realized I didn't have the skill for it (which is why all the writing I do now is just discussing movies and other forms of art that other people created), but it's great that you've comitted to it yourself; good luck, man!



Cool! I had ideas of writing novels when I was younger, before I realized I didn't have the skill for it (which is why all the writing I do now is just discussing movies and other forms of art that other people created), but it's great that you've comitted to it yourself; good luck, man!

Thanks!



I never got antsy at all with either the pacing or the length of the "Dawn Of Man" sequence, not even during my first viewing when I had no idea what was going on, as I was just too busy being intrigued by what it could all mean, but I do feel that the laser light show in "Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite" should've been cut in at least half, if not moreso; maybe Kubrick could've used the time he save there to expand on the sequences on the moon, like you said? It certainly would've been a better use of the film's time. Still, besides that, it's still pretty much a perfect film on the whole, if you ask me.
I think it's perfect too. This is a link to my review, take a look it's one of my better reviews 2001: A Space Odyssey



As for 2001, it's certainly unique in the way that it's both an incredibly one-of-a-kind film, especially if you whittle things down to just Sci-Fi (and especially if you compare it to any major Hollywood Sci-Fi that had come out up to that point), but at the same time, you can still feel its influence all over the genre ever since, and I have to wonder if something like Arrival would have come out in recent years if it hadn't been for 2001 helping to give Sci-Fi a new level of prestige as a genre.
Definitely. Not only Arrival, but Interstellar, or even Annihilation, if we're being specific. The impact of the film, especially on scifi, is undeniable.
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Victim of The Night
Cabaret (Fosse, '72)



Deconstructed Genre: The Musical

Historical Background: The Musical was born as a natural way to demonstrate the defining technological development in cinema of the early 20th century, that being the introduction of sound itself, before helping to showcase the rise of color film later, which is a bit ironic since, as the medium grew closer to reality on a sensory level, the fundamental nature of Musicals meant that they often functioned as an escape from that reality in one way or another, offering audiences brief respites from the back-to-back hardships of The Great Depression and World War II, before joining forces with the Historical Epic, another spectacle-heavy genre, to become one of the most dominant styles of film throughout most of the 50's and 60's. However, by the end of the latter decade, the good ol' days of the genre were coming to an end, as a string of financial failures such as Doctor Dolittle, Paint Your Wagon, and Hello Dolly! combined with the cinematic revolution of the New Hollywood movement to make the genre seem hopelessly dated, and it seemed as though the Musical was on its way to the grave, not only in the traditional style that Hollywood was known for, but in any other way, shape, or form for that matter.

How Cabaret Deconstructs It: However, through the direction of Bob Fosse (because who better to deconstruct a genre than someone who helped define it in the first place?) Cabaret helped adapt the genre to the more cynical, disillusioned spirit of American film in the 70's, primarily by taking the defining trait of the Musical (that being the music, of course), and forgoing the accompaniment of any grand, invisible orchestras, instead, choosing to go with an entirely diegetic score, provided by the comparatively small, meager band of the KitKat Club, which in turn provides an on-screen justification for the song-and-dance numbers, instead of having its characters interrupting their spoken dialogue to randomly break out into pre-written tunes, which, while not inherently a negative trait of Musicals, still required a certain suspension of disbelief on our part, a suspension that Cabaret forgoes. Besides that distinction, while previous Musicals often displayed more elaborate scenery as a way of showcasing the greater possibilities of film when compared to the genre's stage roots, every single musical number in Cabaret (with the exception of the notorious "Tomorrow Belongs To Me") takes place on an actual stage, no color-drenched sets or on-location shoots on majestic hilltops in sight, with many of the scenes outside the Club taking place in humble, dingy apartments, adding a layer of urban grit, and further helping to keep the film as close to real life as possible

Finally, Cabaret distinguishes itself from previous Musicals through its overall tone, which contrasts the generally upbeat, feel-good spirit that characterized the genre in favor of a colder, harsher reality, as the central romance ultimately ends in heartbreak, and the film takes advantage of the abolishment of the Hays Code to include more mature content, including a bisexual protagonist, an abortion featured as a significant plot point, and an overall brutally honest look at the rise of Nazism and anti-Semitism in Germany during the early 30's (including a scene where a Jewish woman's dog is killed and dumped on her doorstep by a bunch of goons). And, while Michael York is fortunate enough to leave Germany before the "stuff" really hits the fan, instead of focusing on his escape in order to strike a triumphant note at the end (as The Sound Of Music did with the von Trapp family less than a decade prior), Cabaret instead concludes with a mirror-distorted shot of the KitKat Club's audience being dominated by swastika-wearing Nazi punks, which serves as a cold splash of water on us as viewers, and a reminder that things are about to get much, MUCH worse for the people left behind.

Impact On The Genre: While it didn't quite lead to a new Golden Age for the Hollywood Musical, Cabaret still helped pave the way for other subversive, non-traditional entries in the genre like Tommy, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Fosse's own All That Jazz, leaving behind a legacy that can still be felt in the genre even nearly half a century later, and, while the Musical generally hasn't been dominant like it was during its heyday (save for the revival of the animated side of the genre during the Disney Renassaince), it's still remained stubbornly viable to one extent or another, both financially and as an awards season darling, all the way up to the present day (although I think the sooner everyone forgets all about the Cats movie, the better).
Well done.
I didn't watch the movie until I was almost 40 years old, even though it was on HBO when I was young and I saw most if not all of it in parts, and I was really taken by how good a film it is, largely because of what you discuss here.
I would only add that Joel Grey needs to be mentioned any time this film is brought up, even if his performance doesn't fit into the discussion of the film that's going on.



Victim of The Night
I watched 2001 once many years ago and found it to be a bore. I think it is one of the most overrated films I've ever seen.

So I need to give it another chance, but do we need 20 minutes of apes and another ten of someone's eye changing colour?
I do.



Excellent thread so far, Stu! I'm very impressed with your writing and analytical skills. Feel like I should receive a college credit for following this thread. I hope you continue with it. I'm particularly curious to see which films you select to represent horror and westerns. (I'm guessing The Wild Bunch or Unforgiven with the latter.) Sorry I don't really have anything to add in terms of discussion, as I was mostly just reading and nodding my head in agreement.

Unfortunately, my research on/writing for the next entry here is currently being delayed by me having to engage in this pointless debate over on Match Cut, but rest assured, I'll have the next one done as soon as I can!
Whoa, whoa, whoa -- you're cheating on us!? And with such an ugly forum?! We're so much prettier than she is!!!!
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Excellent thread so far, Stu! I'm very impressed with your writing and analytical skills. Feel like I should receive a college credit for following this thread. I hope you continue with it. I'm particularly curious to see which films you select to represent horror and westerns. (I'm guessing The Wild Bunch or Unforgiven with the latter.) Sorry I don't really have anything to add in terms of discussion, as I was mostly just reading and nodding my head in agreement.



Whoa, whoa, whoa -- you're cheating on us!? And with such an ugly forum?! We're so much prettier than she is!!!!
Thank you so much for the encouraging words, Captain! And I definitely know which Revisionist Western I'm going to do, though I haven't yet nailed down what I'm going to write about for a deconstructionist Horror film (or if I'm even going to write one for that genre at all), but I definitely want to try, so we'll see eventually what happens with this project. I'm kind of still figuring out what I want to do here, y'know? I don't really know when I'll have the next entry ready either, as I'm trying to make myself wait until the desire to do so is strong within me again, so my writing will be the best it possibly can, y'know? But at any rate, thank you again, and stay tuned!


Oh, and Match Cut is a great forum; you should try it out, man!



Chinatown (1974)




Deconstructed Genre: Noir


Historical Background: Despite a number of spiritual predecessors having been released in previous decades, what we now know as classical-era Noir truly began peaking in the 1940’s, as filmmakers worldwide synthesized the cinematic influence of German Expressionism with the lurid content of vintage pulp literature, churning out tales driven by seedy crimes, casually cynical moods, and black-and-white cinematography drenched in shadows as dark as the souls of the films themselves. And, while the genre’s classic era is generally considered to have ended with the 50’s, its rich legacy lived on in the Neo period afterward, particularly in Hollywood during the 70’s, as a number of significant productions brought renewed attention to the genre, by both tributing the films of the genre's heyday, while also updating it for the cinematic sensibilities of the time, which leads us to the film in question here.

How Chinatown Deconstructed It: By maintaining an essentially perfect balance between subverting the elements that defined classical Noir, while also serving as a genuinely affectionate love letter to the genre at the same time, through the multi-layered central mystery, courtesy of Robert Towne’s brilliant, clockwork-precise screenplay, an obvious call-back to the relatively Byzantine plots of many old-school Noirs. But, instead of just being surface-level busywork (ala The Long Goodbye), Chinatown’s intricate, conspiratorial plot is just as compelling and well-written as the best Classical Noirs, never becoming convoluted or confusing just for the sake of being so, but rather, slowly, steadily unravelling its mystery step by tantalizing step, maintaining a very well-justified confidence in its storytelling all the way until the (very) bitter end.

However, as far as its characters go, Chinatown takes the two most iconic archetypes of Classical Noir and seems to establish textbook examples of both with its male & female leads, before turning both of them completely and utterly around on their heads by the end. With Evelyn Mulwray, the combination of her initially cold demeanor and our genre expectations cleverly manipulate us into assuming that’s just another iteration of the treacherous, deceitful femme fatale at first, but a number of shocking story turns reveal that not only is she entirely innocent of the wrongdoing she’s suspected of, rendering her a highly sympathetic figure in the process, but also makes her the biggest victim in the entire film to boot, taking an extremely familiar stock character and breathing all-new life into her, as she slowly forms a romance that's unusually affectionate and genuine by the typical standards of the genre, although it ultimately proves to be a doomed one in the end.

And with Jake Gittes, we get a protagonist who first appears to be a vintage hard-boiled private eye, the wisecracking type who never truly loses his cool no matter how much hot water he’s in, before utterly putting him through an emotional wringer, often humiliating him in various manners along the way, the kind we never saw done to Bogart back in the day, whether it be him excitedly telling a dirty, racist (and not particularly funny) joke while he's ignorant of the presence of a female client behind him, having the antagonist repeatedly mispronounce his last name, or getting his nose sliced up by a petty, two-bit hood at one point, forcing him to to wear a comically over-sized bandage as a result. Besides that, the detail of him specializing in petty adultery investigations is an early hint that he's in way over his head trying to uncover Noah Cross's scheme, as, even though he does eventually unravel that central conspiracy that drives Chinatown’s story (after getting fooled multiple times, and making a number of false assumptions along the way), he’s ultimately completely powerless to either stop it or to save Evelyn, with his hard-boiled exterior finally cracking for good at the end.

Finally, Chinatown updates Film Noir by utilizing a contemporary cast and crew of New Hollywood-era icons (along with the nice homage of casting one of the directors that popularized the genre in the first place), by dragging the genre out of the high-contrast, black-and-white shadows of old and into the harsh light of modern color film (despite the film’s 30’s period setting), and by shaking off the shackles of the Hays Code, which kept Classical Noirs from ever getting too lurid with their content, either by forbidding even just the mention of such acts as incest (which Chinatown very much does), or by preventing the bad guys from ever truly “getting away with it”, preserving the naive overall message Classical Hollywood sent that, no matter what, you could always count on the baddies getting some sort of comeuppance in the end. Not so much with Chinatown; here, even though Jake has finally figured out the incestuous billionaire’s greedy scheme, it’s all for naught, as he holds the local police in his massive pockets, leaving Jake completely helpless to either put a stop to the resource-hoarding conspiracy, or even just to save the life of the woman he loves, a Watergate-era message that holds even greater resonance in a post-Trump America, as all an emotionally-devastated Jake can do at the end is walk away, to the haunting trumpet of one of Neo-Noir’s greatest works.



This next entry got a bit too long in the tooth for one post, so I'm splitting it up over two; enjoy!

Die Hard (McTiernan, '88)



Genre: Action

Background: While physical action has been an element of cinema all the way back to the silent era, whether you’re talking about certain daredevil comedians of that time, or such trigger-happy genres as War films or “yippee-ki-yay” Westerns (see what I did there?), I still agree with Tom Breihan that the modern Action film didn’t really become a genre of its own until the 1960’s, when films like The Dirty Dozen, Bullitt, & The Wild Bunch provided the kind of over-the-top, intense stuntwork that helped establish the style. From there, the genre added a layer of urban grit throughout the 70’s, before the 80’s took it to brand-new heights of overkill (literally), perfect for the decade of excess, with their overabundance of bulging, ‘roided-out biceps, gratuitous, machine gun-driven carnage, and unstoppable one man armies. However, while the 80’s Action movie was basically a genre unto itself, and that era as a whole has proved to be the style’s golden age in retrospect, it still needed to be brought back down to Earth eventually, so it’s only fitting that, as the end of that decade approached, we would receive a movie that did just that, in the form of Die Hard, a movie that would basically redefine the genre as we knew it.

You see, while director John McTiernan had his big breakthrough the previous year with fellow Action classic Predator, a movie that already engaged in a certain amount of genre deconstruction itself, with a bit of a critique of American imperialism in Central America, and a certain famous scene of “impotent” gunfire destroying the jungle (and absolutely nothing else, as you can see: h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?t=891&v=InyKZ0F-fVU&feature=youtu.be ), the first act of that film still engaged in the sort of one-liner spewing, balls (and knives) to the wall Arnie action that arguably made him the most iconic Action star all time, and, even though Schwarzenegger finally faces a physical challenge with the arrival of the titular creature later on, he still manages to defeat it single-handedly after the Predator had already wiped out the squad of badasses that Arnold began the film with, which, in a manner, made him seem look like even more of an unstoppable force than he already was, if that's possible.

How Die Hard Deconstructs It: Not so much with Die Hard, which goes all-in with its deconstruction of the 80’s Action film, right down to it contrasting the behavior of its main character with a direct reference to Rambo, having one character mock another’s comparison of the situation to the Vietnam War, and by name-dropping the aforementioned Schwarzenegger as well, which is ironic, since him and Stallone were both originally approached to star, which almost certainly would’ve resulted in very different, much more typical final product here.

Thankfully, Die Hard ended up not being anything but a typical 80’s actioner, right from the ground floor (no pun intended) with its setting, which is a single skyscraper over the course of one night, a decision that not only adds a ton of claustrophobia and tension inbetween the literally explosive action, but shows a great creative discipline on the part of the filmmakers, and functions as the first hint that this film is looking to strip away the excesses that the genre had accumulated over the course of the 80’s. And, while Die Hard isn’t the first significant single-location Action film (that would be the original Assault On Precinct 13), it still popularized the concept more than any other film, to the point that “Die Hard On A X” is its own TV Tropes page, and without McTiernan’s film, we almost certainly wouldn’t have The Rocks, Air Force Ones, or the Speeds of the world to enjoy (I also like the fact that there are so many copycats of this film now, some critics have absent-mindedly described a few of them as being “Die Hard in a skyscraper”; ha!)

Besides that, Die Hard further deconstructs the genre with its main character, portrayed in a career-defining role by Bruce Willis, who, believe it or not, was actually a highly unlikely choice at the time, despite his current status as an Action star (which is the most due to this film, heh), since he was only known as a comedic TV actor then, due to his role on Moonlighting, and his gig as a spokesman for Seagram’s Wine Coolers (I kid you not), which explains the reports of audiences literally laughing when they saw him in the first trailers for the film, a response that actually lead Fox’s marketing department to de-emphasize his role in subsequent promotional material.

However, while the film's pre-release hype suffered from its lack of an established Action star (and the actor who played “Karl” would’ve made for a much more physically-intimidating star), I don’t think anyone can picture Die Hard without Willis playing John McClane, as his nervous, smart-alec persona makes him perfect to play the schlub-y, blue-collar, fish-out-of-water everyman, the one who becomes an action hero not by casually volunteering for a suicide mission in a non-descript 3rd world jungle, but by accidentally ending up in the right place at the right time (although I’m sure he would argue the opposite), visiting his wife’s officeplace Christmas party while a team of heavily-armed mercenaries are coincidentally taking over the building at the same time, threatening the lives of everyone inside in the process, and forcing him into action.

To Be Continued...



Lucy is the bets movie i found



Also, sorry about the messed-up Youtube URL in that post, but I couldn't find a way to post it without the forum automatically embedding the entire vid into the post, which I didn't want, so I had to add that space at the front; just take it out, and you'll be taken straight to the part of that video I was referring to. Anyway, I'll be posting part 2 soon, so get ready!
Lucy is the bets movie i found



Victim of The Night
I want to talk some about Chinatown, but we just finished Mardi Gras here and I'm going to sleep. I'm gonna check back in hopefully tomorrow evening.



Registered User
Would Saturday Night Fever count for a deconstruction of the musical? It certainly wouldn't be considered a musical, but music maybe... perhaps... It has all of the features of a musical, except it isn't.



I want to talk some about Chinatown, but we just finished Mardi Gras here and I'm going to sleep. I'm gonna check back in hopefully tomorrow evening.
Please do, since I've been dying to see some more discussion sprout up in this thread, and I had no idea you were a fan of it too (though it's not that big a surprise, since many people are), so I'll eagerly waiting, Wool!
Would Saturday Night Fever count for a deconstruction of the musical? It certainly wouldn't be considered a musical, but music maybe... perhaps... It has all of the features of a musical, except it isn't.
Possibly, but I already wrote up Cabaret as an example of a deconstructionist Musical, and, more importantly... I've never seen Fever. So there's that little detail. I'm kind of curious now to check it out since you brought it up, so thank you!



Die Hard, Part 2

But even then, John doesn’t try to take matters entirely into his own hands, as he tries to pawn off his task onto the local authorities multiple times, just like any other normal human being would do in his place, before the realization that the LAPD isn’t up to it forces him to rise to the occasion, and he only does so out of great reluctance anyway, because he literally has no other choice in order to survive. And of course, doing so isn’t easy, not by a long shot, as he gets shot, beaten to a dirty, bloody pulp, and has his feet cut to absolute shreds by shards of glass, due to him losing his shoes while trying a ritual a fellow plane passenger suggested to him due to his fear of flying earlier (ironic, considering that he mocked another character for giving a “s hit" about broken glass” earlier; turnabout is fair play, baby!).

Of course, all of this remains believable because of Willis’s comparatively scrawny, roids-less physique (which is featured prominently in the film through his increasingly filthy tanktop), and not only is John physically vulnerable throughout, but emotionally as well, as, even without comparing him to other Action icons, he still seems like an extremely authentic, unsure human being, one with genuinely relatable personal problems, especially with his marriage, as he unnecessarily starts an argument with his estranged wife for reverting back to her maiden name, before he beats himself up for doing so (verbally beats up, that is; the physical beatings won't start until later). He’s a guy who’s “good at his job, but bad at his life”, and an action hero who isn't really trying to be a hero, in other words.

Of course, his multiple near-death experiences over the course of the night lead him to reflect on how much he doesn’t want to lose Holly, she being “the best thing that ever happened” to him, making his mission not just one to save her physically, but their entire relationship, which makes for a stark contrast to the moment in First Blood II where Rambo takes about a minute to mourn the death of his unnecessary love interest, before laying total waste to an entire camp’s worth of enemy soldiers in retaliation.

Besides that, John’s background as an off-duty police officer make his eventual antics in the film even more plausible, and, even though it may or may not be totally believable for a 1988 beat cop to smoothly handle a sub-machine gun as McClane does, it’s still more plausible than Ripley suddenly turning into “Rambolina” after 5 minutes of dry-fire practice with a pulse rifle in the otherwise excellent Aliens. Of course, that isn’t to imply that McClane displays absolutely no 80’s Action-isms here, as he finds time to pop off plenty of badass one-liners, but most of them are either feel like a psychological smoke screen to intimidate an in-film audience ("Yippie-kay yay, motherf ucker") or a coping mechanism for John to deal with the stress of the situation ("Welcome to the party, pal!"), and even his climatic one (“Happy trails, Hans”) is still undercut by his premature celebration of what would’ve been the main baddie’s coup-de-grace in most other Action movies, which, of course, proves to not be the case here.

Finally, Die Hard deconstructs the genre through the action itself, which I feel achieves pretty much the perfect balance between providing the excitement we demanded from the genre, while also believable enough to maintain a solid grounding in the real world, as none of the crazy stuff John does in the movie feels like it was put in because the filmmakers thought it would "look cool", but because he genuinely had no other option in that scenario; he had to climb his way down the ventilation shaft because that was the only way he could escape at that time & place, he had to throw the body into Powell's patrol car because that was the only thing he could do to get his attention, and he had to do the improvised bungee jump because that was the only way he could get away from the FBI chopper gunning for him, and the roof that was fixing to blow (and even then, he's plead-praying to God not to let him die, genuinely fearing for his life like, y'know, someone in that situation in the real world would).

Besides that, John also only takes on about a dozen baddies throughout the course of the entire film, which is about half the number of guys the typical 80’s action hero would’ve gunned down with ease in a single scene (and that’s not even considering the fact that he never takes out Theo the technician, and he only knocks out another guy towards the end because he’s honest-to-God running low on ammo!). But, this reduction in forces allows the crack team of mercenaries (or "common" thieves, if you ask Holly) more breathing room to develop and showcase their own individual identities and personalities, and keeps them from devolving into just another wave of faceless baddies, and, even facing these relatively paltry numbers, John still spends much of the film on the defense, frantically improvising solutions throughout, retreating as though their automatic weapons actually have a chance of hitting him (that was sarcasm, for the record).

And, while it’s this realism that the series lost touch with as it became increasingly bloated with new entries, more and more resembling the kind of Action film that Die Hard was reacting against in the first place (as you can see here:
h ttps://youtu.be/1PVZ2ajOnKg ), the original still helped bring the genre back down to Earth again, creating a market for future everyman Action stars with the Keanus and Nic Cages of the world, setting a new(-ish) template for imitators to follow, and still towers like Nakatomi Plaza over the genre, even to this day; yippie-kay-yay, motherf uckers! Oh, and “paper or plastic, you sonofa-“




Unforgiven (Eastwood, '92)



Deconstructed Genre: Western

Historical Background: Generally popular from the release of the earliest narrative films at the beginning of the 20th century, the Classical Western offered audiences a relatively sanitized vision of the Old West, one that tended to have a fairly black-&-white moral dichotomy between the hero and the "bad guys", as the virtuous (white) man of action protected the innocent from various bandits or hordes of Indians (glossing over the genocide that was committed against them in the process), and, despite the genre's reliance on resorting to shootouts in order to settle the landscape's conflicts, there usually wasn't much moral reckoning with the justifiability of that violence on the part of the good guys, as, even at the worst, that bloodshed was still generally portrayed as a tragic necessity in the end. Because of that, it seemed like a genre that was stuck in the past (partly because it literally was), which is why it needed the shot in the arm that the sub-genre of the Revisionist Western gave it, particularly during the 60's with the popularization of the Spaghetti Western, when West met East(wood), which resulted us a far grittier, more morally ambiguous vision of genre than Hollywood tended to present. This continued into the 70's, the decade in which the screenplay for the film in question here was written, before the aforementioned actor was finally ready to film it, during a revival of the genre in the 90's, as one of the greatest icons of the Western returned to the genre one final time, not to send it a cinematic love letter, but to bury the myths of it once and for all.

How Unforgiven Deconstructs It:

By embracing moral ambiguity and the demythologization of the Old West as its central themes, since Unforgiven scrutinizes the kind of consistent violence that defined the Western as a genre. This makes its choice of leading man all the more perfect, since, although his role in The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly was a career-defining performance, one that came in a film that was certainly darker than the typical traditional Western, Leone's film still engaged with certain conventions of the genre, by often portraying its sudden quick draw duels (which Unforgiven lacks entirely) as entertaining, or even "fun" to watch, with no lingering emotional effects left on The Man With No Name in their aftermath.

On the other hand, Unforgiven begins decades after that film, and most other Westerns, for that matter, would've ended, with the kind of protagonist most of them would've had as "the baddie" (mirrored by an antagonist who would've been the good guy in a traditional Western to boot), as Will Munny is no badass, Man With No Name-style gunslinger, but a weary old man struggling to run his pig farm, a man who nearly dies from a "mere" fever instead of a bullet at one point, a man who's forgotten how to shoot, and who expresses severe emotional torture, both by the memories of the late wife who tried (possibly in vain) to mend his ways, as well as by the tremendous spiritual toll that killing men, women, and children takes upon someone, making Munny feel like he could be an older version of Blondie, one who's grown tired of the killing that helped him prevail over his foes in the past. However, this doesn't mean he's left that violence behind him, as, despite his continual protests that he's not the way he used to be, he's still the one to spill the blood when both the older and younger generations of outlaws prove they aren't up to it, as it's Munny who pulls the trigger when his old partner loses the stomach for such bloodshed, as well as when the young, unjustifiably braggadocious "Schofield Kid" immediately loses the knack he claimed to have for killing as soon as he actually shoots a man for the first time.

In this way, there are no real good or bad guys in the film, as the "villain" of the film, Little Bill, is a man of the law, one who tries to achieve a good end (preserving the peace of his town) through brutal means, and, coming in the year of the Rodney King riots, he transcended the film's historical setting in order to reflect contemporary outrage over modern police brutality (in more ways than one, since Hackman reportedly based his performance off of then-LAPD Chief Daryl Gates). Unforgiven is also as explicitly deconstructionist as anything else I've covered (or will cover) in this project, as demonstrated through the sub-plot of English Bob, a gunslinger who builds his legend by feeding wildly inaccurate "eyewitness" accounts of his own exploits to W.W. Beauchamp, a writer of the type of cheap, sensationalistic dime novels that established the romanticized cultural image of the West in the first place. However, when Bill takes the two men into custody (after first unnecessarily beating Bob to an utter pulp, that is), he destroys those myths entirely, informing Beauchamp that English Bob didn't shoot a fellow gunslinger (and his six henchmen, as his book portrays it) for "insulting the honor" of a beautiful woman, but as a petty, spur-of-the-moment revenge for the other man placing his reportedly massive manhood (which was the real reason for his nickname "Two Gun") in a French lady that Bob had an eye for, although Bill repeatedly emphasizes the point that Bob missed his first few shots because of how drunk at the time.

And throughout the entirety of Unforgiven, it refuses to come to any sort of moral conclusion about its characters, retaining its ambiguity in that regard all the way to the end; was the prostitutes' vendetta against the cowboy justified at all, in light of the light punishment he recieved for his mutilation? Was there any validity in Bill's tactics, considering the wild landscape he was trying to tame? And what kind of a man was Munny; was he still the same bloodthirsty outlaw he seemed to be in his youth, or was he an old man genuinely trying (albeit momentarily failing) to move on from his violent ways? Like the bookending text says, there was nothing on Claudia's grave to explain to her mother why she had married "a known thief and murderer", just like there's nothing in Unforgiven to give us an answer about Munny, or anyone else in the film; that's what it's so great, and makes it feel like a "Western to end all Westerns", so to speak.

And, even after obtaining his revenge at the end, there's little satisfaction to be had for Munny, as, while at least The Wild Bunch got to go out in one final, spectacular blaze of glory in their film, Munny is instead faced with the spiritual emptiness of such vengeance, going on to linger in life with a career in dry goods in San Francisco, a fate hardly benefitting a legend of the Old West, although the film itself has avoided such a mediocre fate, instead, winning a richly-deserved Oscar for Best Picture, becoming a cinematic legend in its own right, and one of the greatest examples of the very genre that it deconstructed, once and for all.



Great write up on Die Hard, Stu. I’ve seen it a million times and I’m still Impressed with how well McClane usually does the practical, logical thing in the moment to get out of his situation and yet is still stuck where he is without the movie ever feeling forced or contrived to put him where they story needs him to be.