Unforgiven

[Jason McCullough]

Wow. Quick reactions:

It's a generational update of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? Instead of the untamed west being replaced by law, order, and civilization, the old generation of drunken, amoral gunman in a pointless society is replaced by a new one of cowardly braggarts and effete wimps in a decadent society.

Amusing bit I found on a webpage:


Saul Rubinek asks Eastwood how he chose the order in which to shoot six deputies in UNFORGIVEN (1992). Eastwood replies that he got lucky. This is a sly reference to Eastwood's earlier film THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES (1976), in which Chief Dan George asks Eastwood how he chose the order in which to shoot four Union soldiers, and Eastwood responds with a lengthy explanation about their various holsters and the looks in their eyes.

I'm not sure where the people writing about how its "a complete inverse of his previous movies are coming from." Seems to fit pretty well to me.

[Bub, Andrew]

Definitely one of my favorite films Jason, glad you got around to it. As both a homage and a deconstruction of the genre it's first rate, but it works well even if you've never seen a western or an Eastwood western. Also, in my opinion it has one of Hackman's finest performances - up there with Doyle and his eavesdropper from The Conversation. Not to mention performances from Eastwood and the late great Richard Harris as "The Duck of Death."

"the old generation of drunken, amoral gunman in a pointless society is replaced by a new one of cowardly braggarts and effete wimps in a decadent society."

Where do you put Hackman here? I've always fancied him the villain that's more chilling because he believes he's wearing the white hat.

[Jason McCullough]

Oh, I agree, Hackman scares the shit out of me in the part. He's got his own private little gulag he's running there; you can see it on the townspeople's faces as he beats the living crap out of English Bob.

I guess Little Bill never had to deal with his past, is a shit carpenter, etc.

I'm working my way through the highlights of the genre, but I'm not sure if I can stomach any of Eastwood's other stuff; my tolerance for vigilantes is pretty low.

Oh, what was up with the complete lack of attention to race? You'd think a black cowboy having a good time with the ladies would get a bit more objections at the time, among other things.

[Jupiter Jones]

I'm working my way through the highlights of the genre, but I'm not sure if I can stomach any of Eastwood's other stuff; my tolerance for vigilantes is pretty low.


I'm not sure that you would characterize the rest of Eastwood's western characters as "vigilantes", however "payback" and "revenge" seem to always play a part. Eastwood as director made 3 1/2 of the greatest westerns of all time:

"High Plains Drifter"
"Outlaw Josey Wales"
"Pale Rider" (first 1/2)
"Unforgiven"

The greatest "Spaghetti Western" (and possibly the greatest western ever made) was not one of Sergio Leone's Eastwood pictures, but instead "Once Upon A Time In The West" which is tragically, still not available on DVD.

[graller]

Don't get me going on Western's. I love the "Man with no name trilogy" but they are definitely not the best of the bunch. The ones you named are all definitely classics. If I had to pick my favorite "anti-western" though it would have the be "The Wild Bunch". Released the same year as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid it got buried in the hype around that movie but this is really one of the strongest, harshest, movies of the west you will ever see. Sam Peckinpaugh at his finest.

[Jason McCullough]

Ah, so the vigilante stuff is just in the Dirty Harry series? I'll check out the Sierra Leone work then.

Something I didn't pick up on last night: the scene where the whore rattles off Munny's barbaric history is the high point of the movie. She's got this great "I'm going to get killed if I do or don't tell him this" thing going on . Explains why the kid was both afraid Munny'd shoot him and why he ran screaming off, too.

My favorite is still High Noon; especially since it pissed John Wayne off.

[Slothrop]

I have mixed feelings about the ending of Unforgiven: the fact that Munny finally slides back into alcohol and ends up shooting everybody and yet gets a happy ending, seems to go against the "message" or whatever.

I'm also glad there is a new transfer out, as the one previously looks like crap in my opinion; way too dark and grainy.

[Chris Nahr]

Ah, so the vigilante stuff is just in the Dirty Harry series? I'll check out the Sierra Leone work then.

Eastwood plays a bounty hunter in all of the Leone films. I love those movies because they're largely amoral -- his Wild West is full of brutal selfish gunmen, so there's no teary justification needed to kill them by the dozen. I didn't like any Eastwood's other films because he always comes up with this sickening moralizing bullshit, both in his vigilante movies and in his non-Leone Westerns. (edit: haven't seen Unforgiven though.)

(Not sure if this was a joke or a type, but Sierra Leone is a country which, although small, is still significantly larger than the Italian director Sergio Leone. :) )

[Jason McCullough]

Doh, I knew I mispelled it.


I have mixed feelings about the ending of Unforgiven: the fact that Munny finally slides back into alcohol and ends up shooting everybody and yet gets a happy ending, seems to go against the "message" or whatever.

I'm also glad there is a new transfer out, as the one previously looks like crap in my opinion; way too dark and grainy.

Yeah, I was thinking that, but "the new generation is full of shit gunmen" kind of explains it. The lot of them look like they've barely fired a gun, much less killed anyone.

[Supertanker]

I have mixed feelings about the ending of Unforgiven: the fact that Munny finally slides back into alcohol and ends up shooting everybody and yet gets a happy ending, seems to go against the "message" or whatever.

I never thought of that ending as happy. Munny was a gunfighter that tried to live a normal farmer's life as the west was settling down. He was terrible at it & was drawn back to his true nature as a gunfighter. Like a Greek hero, his flaws made him unable to resist rejecting the long slow life in favor of a short violent one. He's true to himself, but that dooms him in the civilized west.

[Slothrop]

I have mixed feelings about the ending of Unforgiven: the fact that Munny finally slides back into alcohol and ends up shooting everybody and yet gets a happy ending, seems to go against the "message" or whatever.
I never thought of that ending as happy. Munny was a gunfighter that tried to live a normal farmer's life as the west was settling down. He was terrible at it & was drawn back to his true nature as a gunfighter. Like a Greek hero, his flaws made him unable to resist rejecting the long slow life in favor of a short violent one. He's true to himself, but that dooms him in the civilized west.
What I meant by happy ending was him not dying I guess. And that he uses the reward money to take his kids away from that pig farm and open a dry goods store in San Francisco or something. Isn't the tragic flaw supposed to lead to the hero's destruction? I guess it felt like a bit of a copout to me because it smacked of the very tired Western cliche of the quiet man that eventually is pushed too far and has to blow everybody away, and I liked how up til then the movie had seemed to really skewer Western cliches.

[Supertanker]

What I meant by happy ending was him not dying I guess. And that he uses the reward money to take his kids away from that pig farm and open a dry goods store in San Francisco or something.

Ah, right, I forgot about that bit of text. I think I mentally edited it out. :) You're right, that does take away a lot from the ending if he ends up with the long happy life anyway. Instead of "too bad he's a gunfighter" it becomes "good thing he was a gunfighter."

[Jupiter Jones]

[
Yeah, I was thinking that, but "the new generation is full of shit gunmen" kind of explains it. The lot of them look like they've barely fired a gun, much less killed anyone.

I remember thinking that this was a "greater comment" on older people in professions being kicked out for younger ones, with a disregard for the older's people's ability and life experience. Specifically I thought Eastwood was trying to say that he could still make good films.

[Kyle Wilson]

What I meant by happy ending was him not dying I guess. And that he uses the reward money to take his kids away from that pig farm and open a dry goods store in San Francisco or something.

I never saw this as a happy ending. Eastwood's wife is dead, his only friends are dead, and the one thing in life that mattered most to him -- living up to what his wife wanted him to be -- he's failed at. Death would be the easy way out. I thought the music and tone of the final scene implied that while he may have "prospered in dry goods," that didn't really matter very much.

[Slothrop]

What I meant by happy ending was him not dying I guess. And that he uses the reward money to take his kids away from that pig farm and open a dry goods store in San Francisco or something.

I never saw this as a happy ending. Eastwood's wife is dead, his only friends are dead, and the one thing in life that mattered most to him -- living up to what his wife wanted him to be -- he's failed at. Death would be the easy way out. I thought the music and tone of the final scene implied that while he may have "prospered in dry goods," that didn't really matter very much.

Well, in the context of the plot, what would you have seen as a happy ending? I mean, I don't think he was a happy guy to begin with, so maybe a happy ending would have been him somehow hooking up with some woman that he saved from Little Bill or something dumb like that. But if you look at what he was trying to do in the plot, he pretty much succeeded.

What you say about him failing to live up to what his wife wanted him to be--I kind of wanted him to end up totally messed up because of that failure, rather than just "sadder and wiser".

[William Harms]

What I meant by happy ending was him not dying I guess. And that he uses the reward money to take his kids away from that pig farm and open a dry goods store in San Francisco or something.

Ah, right, I forgot about that bit of text. I think I mentally edited it out. :) You're right, that does take away a lot from the ending if he ends up with the long happy life anyway. Instead of "too bad he's a gunfighter" it becomes "good thing he was a gunfighter."

I don't see it as a happy ending at all. His character didn't change--at his core, he's still a whiskey-swilling, murderous bastard. The final sequence, where he kills Little Bill and then threatens to annihilate Big Whiskey, shows the real William Munny.

And that's the real tragedy--despite his best efforts to change he will never be able to fully gain control of his murderous side. (And it should be noted that the only reason he even tries to be "good" is because of his deceased wife.) One can only assume that if he suffers an unjust personal loss (along the lines of Little Bill killing Ned) that Munny's response would the same--find the person responsible and make them pay.

[Bub, Andrew]

"It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. You take away all he's got and everything he's gonna have..."

Great line.

I side with the folks who see the ending as more ambivalent than uplifting. Munny is a tortured character who believes he's changed. "I ain't like that no more." A backslide of Big Whiskey proportions can only make him more tortured, in my opinion.

Nahr. Shut up about Eastwood Westerns until you see Unforgiven. ;-)

[Tom Chick]

Nahr. Shut up about Eastwood Westerns until you see Unforgiven.

Careful, Bub, or Nahr will fire back that you have to shut up about Westerns until you've seen Fassbinder's Whitey.

Agree with Wilson and Harms about the ending. It's a far less conventional and more profound form of the hero's destruction than simply killing him. In the movies, failure is worse than death.

Jason, what's this about High Noon pissing off John Wayne?

-Tom

[Supertanker]

I think I read more into the "prospered in dry goods" ending that some of you. If he took his kids to a major city and ran a profitable business, then Munny wasn't a failure in shedding his savage ways. He had a momentary relapse when pressed the first time, but even without the guidance of his wife he was able to overcome and join the ranks of civil society.

[Jason McCullough]

Jason, what's this about High Noon pissing off John Wayne?

Oh, it's hilarious; just google "high noon john wayne." The movie was made during the McCarthy/blacklist period, and apparently was a reaction to that; the (communist) scriptwriter left for Europe as soon as it was released. According to various paraphrases I've found, Wayne considered the ending, where Cooper throws the tin badge into the dirt in disgust over the cowardice of the town "completely unamerican."

[Kyle Wilson]

"It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. You take away all he's got and everything he's gonna have..."

"Yeah, well, I guess he had it comin'."

"We all got it comin' kid."

[Bub, Andrew]

"You just shot an unarmed man!"

"He shoulda armed himself, if he was gonna decorate his saloon with my friend."

[Desslock]

"It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. You take away all he's got and everything he's gonna have..."

"Yeah, well, I guess he had it comin'."

"We all got it comin' kid."

I can't watch parts of this movie without laughing, since Jamez Woolvett, who plays the Kid, is an old friend of mine, and I just see goofy Jamez saying a bunch of lines.

Uh, given his inability to springboard off that role, it may just be because he was a bit out of his depth -- in fairness, who wouldn't be, in your first major role stacked against Eastwood, Freeman, Hackman and Harris.

[Lunch of Kong]

I have a mental list of movies that will be in my film library if I ever have kids. Unforgiven is one of them. So is Paint Your Wagon.

[TimElhajj]

I have a mental list of movies that will be in my film library if I ever have kids. Unforgiven is one of them. So is Paint Your Wagon.

uh, maybe it's because I have 5 year-olds who are easily scared by movies, but I don't get why you'd say this Roger. Wouldn't you want to check out Mary Poppins first? :shock:

[Bub, Andrew]

He's right Roger, Paint Your Wagon is pretty intense for kids.

[Jupiter Jones]

He's right Roger, Paint Your Wagon is pretty intense for kids.

Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood duets are pretty intense for anybody.

[Derek Smart [3000AD]]

"High Plains Drifter"
"Outlaw Josey Wales"
"Pale Rider" (first 1/2)
"Unforgiven"

"The Quick and the dead"?

/me ducking and running


Ah, so the vigilante stuff is just in the Dirty Harry series? I'll check out the Sierra Leone work then.

uhm, you meant Sergio Leone, right? :D

[Jupiter Jones]

]

"The Quick and the dead"?

/me ducking and running

[

I've never seem Sam Raimi "The Quick and The Dead" but Robert Totten 1963 movie of that name is god-awful.

[Sean Tudor]

How representative are films like Unforgiven of the real American West as it was ?

[Jason McCullough]

None of them are even remotely realistic. What the west was actually like is really interesting though; you'll have to look to professional historians.

[Jupiter Jones]

How representative are films like Unforgiven of the real American West as it was ?

The closest thing in "Unforgiven" is the portrayal of the cowhands and "cowboys". I found that really refreshing. Otherwise, Jason is right, you just have to read some books to find out how it was. The "University Of Arizona Press" here:
http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/catalogs/west/west.htm
is a good place to start.

[VegasRobb]

High Noon was just on one of the classic movie channels this past weekend. What a great movie. I can definately see why the ending would piss people off back in that day and age.

I was so into the move that the ending of Unforgiven actually scared me when I first saw it.

[Bub, Andrew]

How representative are films like Unforgiven of the real American West as it was ?

How representative of Australia's Wild ..um... middle(?)... is Quigley Down Under?

[Sean Tudor]

How representative of Australia's Wild ..um... middle(?)... is Quigley Down Under?

No idea - I have never seen this film.

Point taken though.