Unforgiven
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- This is for the 1992 film. For other uses, see Unforgiven (disambiguation)
| Unforgiven | |
|---|---|
| Image:Unforgiven 2.jpg | |
| Directed by | Clint Eastwood |
| Produced by | Clint Eastwood |
| Written by | David Peoples |
| Starring | Clint Eastwood Gene Hackman Morgan Freeman Richard Harris |
| Music by | Lennie Niehaus |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | August 7, 1992 |
| Running time | 131 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | N/A |
| IMDb profile | |
Unforgiven is a 1992 Western film which tells the story of a retired gunslinger who takes on one more job for the money. 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.
It won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Gene Hackman), Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture. It was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Clint Eastwood), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best Sound and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
It was inducted into the United States National Film Registry in 2004.
Eastwood dedicated the movie to former directors and mentors Don Siegel and Sergio Leone.
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[edit] Plot
The movie opens in a Wyoming brothel in 1880, as a cowboy slashes a prostitute's face for laughing at him. The sheriff fines the cowboy and his friend (who held down the prostitute first, then quickly tried to stop the attacker) seven ponies - payable to the saloon owner (and defacto 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 who is now a widowed parent of two children and a pig farmer whose stock is dying of swine fever. Munny recruits a former associate, Ned Logan (Freeman), to help them hunt down the two men responsible for the attack on the prostitute.
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, Ned 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.
Once Munny has recovered 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 kill the other cowboy in an outhouse outside the isolated cabin where he had been holed up, guarded by several associates.
Meanwhile, Logan is captured and brought back to Little Bill, who beats all the information he can out of him, killing him in the process. Logan's corpse is put on display in an open coffin outside the saloon. Outside town, the Kid is shaken by the murder he has just committed and admits that it was his first murder; he renounces his planned gunfighting career. One of the prostitutes brings the reward money to Munny and tells him of the death of Logan. This angers Munny, who drinks an entire bottle of whisky and rides into town to confront the sheriff.
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; when Skinny, the owner, identifies himself, Munny shoots him with a shotgun at point blank range. Little Bill curses Munny and tells him that he has killed an unarmed man; 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 deputies and seriously wounds Little Bill and another deputy. While Munny is reloading Ned's rifle, he hears Little Bill try to cock his gun; Munny steps on Little Bill's hand and points Ned's rifle directly into his face. Little Bill realizes what is to follow and states, "I'll see you in Hell, William Munny"; Munny replies, "yeah", and shoots Little Bill in the face. 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.
[edit] Themes
[edit] 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 did 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, although it appears that Munny "wins" a classic showdown with the villains, he does so at perhaps the cost of a part of his own humanity, which he had struggled to maintain in his older age as a form of atonement for his many younger years of wickedness. 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.
[edit] 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 the power, and they are celebrities. 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.
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 who to shoot first among other things. The interview concludes with Munny pointing a Spencer rifle in his face and telling him he would be the last.
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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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. In the end Munny uses alcohol to once again unleash the demon before his confrontation with Little Bill.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Academy Awards
[edit] Trivia
- Eastwood told Gene Hackman to model his character on the then LA Police Chief Daryl Gates.
- Most of the rain in the film was artificially created, because Calgary was experiencing a dry spell. However, the snowfall when William Munny was recovering was both unexpected and unscripted.
- When Eastwood phoned him about the film, Richard Harris was watching High Plains Drifter on TV.
- The film 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 Eastwood tells Rubinek to pick up the rifle in the bar 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, in response to a similar question, gives a detailed response about their various holders and demeanors, similar to what Hackman had told Rubinek an experienced fighter should do.
- At the end of the film, there is a post script which says that Munny and his children moved to San Francisco to sell dry goods. San Francisco is the setting of a number of other Clint Eastwood movies, including the Dirty Harry series and Escape from Alcatraz.
- It holds the record for slowest to $100 Million.
[edit] External links
- Unforgiven at the Internet Movie Database
- Unforgiven at Rotten Tomatoes
- Unforgiven at Box Office Mojo
- Unforgiven at Filmsite.org
- Unforgiven at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
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1981: Chariots of Fire | 1982: Gandhi | 1983: Terms of Endearment | 1984: Amadeus | 1985: Out of Africa | 1986: Platoon | 1987: The Last Emperor | 1988: Rain Man | 1989: Driving Miss Daisy | 1990: Dances with Wolves | 1991: The Silence of the Lambs | 1992: Unforgiven | 1993: Schindler's List | 1994: Forrest Gump | 1995: Braveheart | 1996: The English Patient | 1997: Titanic | 1998: Shakespeare in Love | 1999: American Beauty | 2000: Gladiator |
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