Film Review: Unforgiven

 "Unforgiven"

**** (out of ****)

The American Western has usually been defined by its moral simplicity - the sheriff shoots the bandit. How each man lives with the blood on their hands and soul is never discussed. There was never a need to consider the ethics of the bandit or the righteousness of the sheriff. Clint Eastwood's revisionist Western, "Unforgiven" (1992) asks us to follow a man with many sins from his past and question if he is truly a changed man.

"Unforgiven" is a sobering contemplation of themes Eastwood has spent a career redefining - Western mythology, redemption, heroism, morality, and justice. When it was released in 1992, it may have been Eastwood's greatest statement on these subjects. It is no small wonder it won the Academy Award for Best Picture and earned him his first nomination and win for Best Director. 

Eastwood is an actor best known for his roles in spaghetti Westerns and for playing Dirty Harry. Turning in performances characterized for their interpretation of rugged individualism and masculinity. With each new movie and each portrayal Eastwood brings that screen history with him. That's what makes it so important he play the role of Bill Munny, the hero (?) in "Unforgiven". Eastwood, a case study in virility and brutality, allows himself in this movie to display moments of vulnerability, reflection, aging, and weakness. And that's what makes us question if Bill has truly turned over a new leaf. We never see the cruelty Bill and others say he engaged in and yet because Eastwood is in the role, we believe it to be true.

For if Bill was truly a changed man why does he want to join the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) - a young and eager gunfighter desperate to make a name for himself - hunt down and kill a man, with a $1,000 bounty on him, for beating and cutting a woman (Anna Thomson), one of the town's prostitutes? Does the man, known as Quick Mike (David Mucci) have it coming to him for what he did? Is this justice? Or are we unable to escape our past? Bill says he's changed but is the temptation to go back to his old ways too strong? Bill says he'll kill the man strictly for the money, so he can provide for his two children, after his wife has died. She, Bill says, was responsible for his change. But how can a reformed man leave behind his two very young children and go out to kill a man and then come home to play daddy?

Perhaps untrusting of the Kid or merely seeking the comfort from the ol' days, Bill approaches his old partner Ned (Morgan Freeman) to ask if he will join him. Ned has similar skeletons in his closet but maybe not as plentiful as Bill. Ned agrees to travel along but not before hitting Bill with a key observation, he (Bill) wouldn't be doing this if his wife was alive. If revenge for the prostitute is the moral and just thing to do, what difference would it make if Bill's wife were alive or not? But we can tell on  Bill's face he knows what Ned says is true.

As the three men travel cross country, there are other men willing to cash in on the bounty. One of those men is an old and notorious gunfighter himself, English Bob (Richard Harris). He is currently travelling with a writer, Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek), who he regals with stories from his past to be written into his biography. And here Eastwood comments on the mythology of the Wild West. It made me think of the classic Western, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) - also about Western mythology - and the famous line from the movie, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend". What has influenced our perceptions of the Wild West? Most likely stories like the ones English Bob told men like Beauchamp who published them in books. But were the stories true? Men like English Bob live on their reputation from the stories passed along.

"Unforgiven" creates a darkly comical contrast between English Bob and Bill Munny. Whereas English Bob, we come to learn, has embellished his stories, Bill Munny downplays his. When the Kid asks Bill if it's true he shot two men by himself, Bill confirms but it isn't until later that Ned confronts Bill to clarify, wasn't it three men? Beauchamp becomes the symbol for this commentary as we see both his horror and wide eye fascination with men like English Bob, Bill Munny, and Little Bill (Gene Hackman), the town's sheriff. His eyes almost glisten as he trades in one gunfighter's stories for the next. For ever on the lookout for the bigger and better story.

When English Bob arrives in town it captures the attention of Little Bill and his deputies. They are aware of he bounty the prostitutes have placed on Quick Mike and are fearful of men riding into town to stir up trouble. The appearance of English Bob may signify trouble. Little Bill sets out to make an example of English Bob and offer  warning to the prostitutes. They better not expect someone to cash in on that bounty. As far as Little Bill is concerned the beating of the prostitute is not worth killing a man. The prostitute isn't viewed as human but rather as a piece of property, belonging to the saloon keeper. What kind of justice is this sheriff engaging in?

In addition to Western mythology, Eastwood also uses these characters to remark on changing times and the death of the Wild West as it once was. English Bob, Little Bill, and Bill Munny are relics from the past. After a shootout scene the Kid asks Bill, is that what it was like in the old days? Meanwhile Little Bill may have once been a tough customer but today he tries his hand on carpentry and building his own home. Rugged masculinity mixed with respectability. A modern frontier lies ahead. Men like English Bob and Bill won't be around forever and the younger generation really doesn't want to follow in their footsteps. Pay attention to the relationship between the Kid and Bill. The Kid gets a feeling for what Bill must have been like in the past and after a small taste of it, realizes the stories aren't all they are cracked up to be.

That doesn't make "Unforgiven" a pacifist film by any means. While Eastwood's Bill may repeatedly say he's not the man he used to be - is he trying to convince others or himself? - he is not really the archetype I have described as the "Cowardly Liberal" either. A man of liberal ideals who when pushed into a corner must prove his masculinity in a brutal display of violence - "Straw Dogs" (1971), "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943), and "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) all have examples of this character. However it is a final act of violence the film leaves us with. Suggesting Saintly Bill was simply provoked too far. "Movie critic" Godfrey Cheshire, who gave a very lukewarm review to the film, summed up this element of the story in his New York Press review by writing, "Eastwood proves his storied prowess by trashing the remnants of his wife's pacifist code - an irony that would be cruel were it not lost in the roar of gunfire and the heart-pumping reward of revenge."

And so we come back to the morality of the Western genre. True, the characters are switched, this time it is the bandit that shoots the sheriff however the "justice" in the final shootout remains the same. The more "moral" man is victorious. Some things will never change.

"Unforgiven", I believe, was truly the start of a new chapter in Eastwood's career. He had become an accomplished filmmaker. Some of his greatest directorial efforts where still to come - "Mystic River" (2003), "Million Dollar Baby" (2004), "Changeling" (2008), and "American Sniper" (2014) - proving naysayers wrong that feel with age, talent diminishes. Film critics such as Roger Ebert, Michael Wilmington, and Andrew Sarris all named "Unforgiven" as one of the best films of 1992.  It scored a total of nine Academy Award nominations, winning four (Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Hackman), and Editing) and in an amazing display of good taste, was a financial hit, grossing more than $150 million at the domestic box-office.

Last year on this blog I declared it "the year of me", as a way to celebrate the 15th anniversary of this blog and to honor my 40th birthday. From that celebratory tone we switch this year to a more critical one. This year I have dubbed "Was I Right"? I will periodically look at movies I placed on various top ten lists throughout the years to answer the question, was I right? Does a movie hold up. "Unforgiven" was placed on my top ten list of the best films of 1992. I ranked it in the number 10 spot as part of a three way tie with Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" (1992) and Neil Jordan's "The Crying Game" (1992). I was both right and wrong. I was correct to include the film on my list but wrong not to give it its own individual spot, which I have now rectified.

"Unforgiven" is a richly entertaining, contemplative study of themes Clint Eastwood has spent a career examining. At its time of release, "Unforgiven" was a highlight in Eastwood's long celebrated career and his greatest statement yet on these issues. It remains one of the great modern American Westerns.