UNFORGIVEN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: A film to debunk most of the myths in
other Western gunfighter films. Perhaps Eastwood made
UNFORGIVEN as an act of contrition for glorifying violence in
so many of his previous pictures. In any case, this is a
very adult and intelligent Western about myth and reality.
Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4).
"This is the West. When the legend becomes a fact, print the
legend."
Newspaper reporter in THE MAN WHO SHOT
LIBERTY VALENCE
I understand that the Marlboro Man died recently. For years he represented the spirit of the Old West with a tattooed hand holding a pack of Marlboros while he sat around the campfire or rode a magnificent horse through snowy prairies. The cause of his death, in wonderful irony if not total coincidence, was lung cancer. He spent the last part of his life doing public service messages to warn people against smoking. The myth of the macho smoker and the reality were, in his case, very different. He lived off the myth, but at some point he realized the myth was dangerous and wanted people to know the reality.
I picture Clint Eastwood as having gone through a similar moral crisis. He was the Man with No Name who could kill men by reflex. He was Dirty Harry, who made his day by gunning down punks. Eastwood made his living by that image. Perhaps there are even kids in urban high schools and even junior highs who have patterned their own gun skills on Eastwood's. Perhaps that was a concern of Eastwood's; perhaps not. But he certainly has made a film about the myth and reality of gun fighting. Saul Rubinek plays a small but very central role as W. W. Beauchamp, who follows around the great gunfighters and writes dime novels that glamorize the life of the gun. He turns the dirty, disgusting, demeaning profession of killing into exciting and completely inaccurate accounts for avid readers. UNFORGIVEN is a story of gunfighting as it really was--and it was a little less romantic than killing chickens for a living. Eastwood produced and directed a powerful and nightmarish Western.
It is 1880 in the flyspeck town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming. Two cowpokes are in town taking advantage of the local whorehouse. One of the whores makes an ungenerous comment and her client goes after her with a Bowie knife. In the dark, his partner may have tried to restrain him, but the end result is a woman cut up very badly. Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (played by gene Hackman) wades in to bring peace. In his judgement, it is the owner of the whorehouse who has been wronged and must be paid off in valuable ponies. Whores, being whores, do not need to be paid back. This is not a decision which goes over well with the women. They decide to pool their money and offer $1000 to anyone who will kill the two men, whether it is one or both who are guilty.
A young gunslinger, anxious to make a name for himself (played by Jaimz Woolvett), decides he can collect if he teams up with the legendary gunfighter Bill Munny (played by Clint Eastwood). Marriage has made a very different man of Munny and now he is a widower with two children to raise, a failing pig farm, and nightmares of the men he has killed. In spite of being incredibly out of practice, he decides to go along, but only if his old partner Ned Logan (played by Morgan Freeman) will join them.
UNFORGIVEN is a dark Western. It is dark in tone and often dark in photography. It is a murky film about murky moral decisions. Nobody is totally good; nobody is totally bad. While there is not a lot to redeem to cowpoke who sets the whole fiasco in motion, there is at least a modicum of understanding of why he did what he did and the feeling that his intended punishment may outweigh his crime. I could be wrong, but it seems to me his partner was only well-intentioned and he too is pulled far too deeply into the mess that ensues. If the timing had been different, Hackman's character as a sadistic sheriff could have been inspired by Daryl Gates. He combines a laudable desire to defend justice with a dangerous desire to define it.
This film shows a surprising bitterness about the myths of the Old West. Yet where they are debunked, the film rings true. Sleeping out under the stars may be nice, but with storm clouds it is a different matter. the great gunfights of the West are about as romantic as the great gunfights of Vietnam. An obvious "happy ending" is foreshadowed and then avoided. And one nice touch of bitter irony it would be a pity to miss: the saloon and whorehouse that is the core of the hellhole town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming, is called "Greeley's."
UNFORGIVEN ranks up with THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES as one of Eastwood's two best films. I give it a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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