The Last Bastion of Men of Low Character (Unforgiven (DVD))

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Unforgiven (DVD)
Date:	28/04/06 (348 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fabulous acting, authentic setting, outstanding story

Disadvantages: May not be your genre

The western has always been a curious genre for me. It’s one with little or no historical precedent in this country, what with the events taking place mainly in 19th century mid-America and yet it still captivates when this particular type of movie is done well. I was brought up on a diet of the cheroot chewing, man-with-no-name brand of gunslinger, celebrating the general machismo that went with the whole cowboy thing. I guess it was only a matter of time before revisionism hit the archetypal US western and in 1992, Clint Eastwood did for cowboy movies what Sam Peckinpah had managed with war films years earlier (note “Cross of Iron” in particular).

William Munny (Clint Eastwood) is a retired gun-fighter. Settling for a life of sobriety on a farmstead with his wife and children, when his wife dies he agrees to take on one last job to secure enough money for a comfortable life for him and his two children. Joining forces with his long-standing friend, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and the myopic Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvet), they make their way to the small town of Big Whisky which has been shaken by the recent slashing of a prostitute’s face. The subsequent reward offered by the other women in the brothel for the killing of the two cowboys responsible lures Munny, Logan and the kid to the town to enforce the request and collect the reward. The town itself is run by a sadistic sheriff called “Little Bill” Daggett who enforces the anti-gun code with ruthless efficiency. It’s his encounter with the trio that provides the dynamic for the rest of the plot.

Directed by Eastwood himself, “Unforgiven” could only have been put together by a small handful of people with any credibility of which Eastwood was almost certainly the best candidate. First of all, the acting is truly top draw. Eastwood himself simmers in the lead role. Gone is the charismatic, poncho-wearing gringo from Leone’s spaghetti westerns to be replaced by a sensitive, yet borderline psychotic man seeking redemption. One minute we learn that Munny won’t sleep with a hooker out of respect for his dead wife, the next we are hit with the revelation that Munny has murdered women and children as well as a long line of men without remorse or pity. It’s clear that the central character is trying to make his peace with life as much as himself and the point is made both at the start and the end of the movie. Of course, the movie's title gives a big clue as to the road that the the audience will take underpinned by the opening reels of text telling us that Mrs Ansonia Feathers had made the arduous journey to Hodgeman County to visit the last resting place of her daughter. This adroit, visual pen-picture sets the rest of the story up beautifully. The screen text goes on to say that there was nothing on the marker to explain to Mrs Feather’s why her only daughter had married a known thief and murderer, a man of vicious and temperate disposition.

The rest of the cast is both stellar and on top form. Morgan Freeman is, well, Morgan Freeman at his steady, trustworthy best whilst Jaimz Woolvett is utterly convincing as a cowboy with a bravado that masks an underlying naivety about to be sliced apart by the events that unfold. With the dependable Richard Harris playing the wonderful (although immoral and really rather nasty) English Bob, it’s hard to tear your eyes away from the screenplay unfolding. For me, the pick of the bunch is Gene Hackman. I’ve always liked Hackman and found him pretty compelling in most of the movies he’s starred in – from Popeye Doyle in “The French Connection” to Agent Anderson in “Mississippi Burning”. As the house building, psychotic sheriff, there’s a brooding violence that Hackman brings to the screen that is breathtaking in its delivery. His encounter with English Bob as well as what follows with the movie’s leads underlines the message that Eastwood is trying to get across through David Webb Peoples’ story. The line between the good guys and the bad is as blurred as anyone could imagine and the de-glorification of violence never better imagined than through the ultimate fate of the offending cowboys who had scarred the prostitute. We know that Hackman is the sheriff and yet he’s as mean as a rattlesnake; we know that Eastwood is a vicious killer and yet the audience can’t help but empathise with his character. The line between what’s right and wrong becomes as ambiguous as a 19th century, mid-western debate about the rights of prostitutes and Daggett’s dismissal of their plea for justice undermined by the notion that gunslingers can just ride into town and dispense their own version of summary justice.

Often the movie emphasises just how lonely many of the guilt-ridden characters probably were, trying to make a living by violence but often, ultimately, abhorred by their own actions or at least eventually haunted by events from the past. The concept of the dramatic showdown at high noon is brutally taken apart by the screenplay with dark, storm driven scenes of sadism and cowardice. The vulnerability that maybe we all thought was there all along is depicted through the eyes of pretty much all of the lead characters and none more so that the self-named Schofield Kid. Of course, the greatest irony is that the boundaries between moral right and wrong may have been interpreted differently in a different time and a different world and perhaps the question is being asked as to who are we to judge what may have been right or wrong? For this in microcosm, see the scene in Daggett’s jailhouse featuring English Bob, Beauchamp and the morally flawed sheriff.

As with any modern western, much of the format and style owes due credit to the Sergio Leone spectacles of the 60’s and 70’s. Rolling, panoramic cinematography is woven into taut face-offs between the main characters at the appropriate times. Shot in Calgary, Canada, the set is about as authentic as it can look and some way removed from the predominantly, Spanish desert-bound sets of the spaghetti westerns of Leone and Don Siegel. The movie spends nearly all of its runtime simmering with the tension of the story but it’s the dismantling of any gloss previously associated with western shoot-outs that sets “Unforgiven” apart from anything else that has gone before. By including Saul Rubinek as W.W. Beauchamp, the be-spectacled biographer who trails around after English Bob initially, there’s almost a feeling of mapping the “winning of the wild west” in much the same way that “Once Upon A Time In the West” did in 1968 (surely one of Henry Fonda’s finest performances?).

I’ve seen this movie several times now and never tire of its grandeur. Sitting at the very top-table in its genre, “Unforgiven” may even be THE best western ever made. A classic, a masterpiece or just a really great film, whichever label you use this may well be Eastwood’s finest directorial hour and deservedly won four Oscars back in 1993. With a running time of 131 minutes and rated 15, “Unforgiven” is an adult film with adult themes and some of the violence is graphic. Personally, I rate this as one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Highly recommended.

Thanks for reading

Mara

DVD/VHS available at Amazon from £6.97.

Summary: Write up of the movie