Modern classics – Unforgiven

An interesting conversation I had with a friend recently underlined the fact that our celebrity-driven culture is populated by those who seek and achieve their 15 minutes of fame. It is has become so common to describe various personalities as legendary or iconic that, amid the clamour, it is easy to forget who the true legends and icons are.

Unforgiven completely eschews the clearly defined black and white characteristics ... often portrayed in the genre- Paula Fleri-Soler

Clint Eastwood is one such icon, an actor/director/producer/composer, who, at the ripe old age of 82 is showing no signs of letting up. He started acting in the mid-1950s, and made his name of course in a series of Spaghetti Westerns during the 1960s and as Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Eastwood’s first foray behind the camera was with 1971’s Play Misty for Me and he has gone on to direct (while still acting, producing and composing) over 30 films. Most of these can claim to have been exceptionally well-received by both critics and audiences.

Released 20 years ago, Unforgiven is Eastwood’s 16th film as director; an ode to the genre in which The Man with No Name made his name. It is certainly a throwback to the legendary Westerns of John Ford and Howard Hawks. At the same time, however, Eastwood strips bare the glorious myth of the Western, revealing its dark underbelly.

For Unforgiven completely eschews the clearly defined black and white characteristics of the good guys and evil villains often portrayed in the genre. Its characters live in the murky grey areas of moral ambiguity, and there are no real heroes; just ordinary folk trying to carve out a life and survive the harsh realities of life in the Old West.

Eastwood plays ageing outlaw William Munny, a “known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition”. Recently widowed, he has turned to a quiet life of farming and raising his two young children. Munny is lured back into the game in order to get the $1,000 bounty offered by a group of prostitutes from the town of Big Whiskey. The prostitutes want to exact revenge on the cowboys who brutally assaulted one of the girls.

Although Munny’s reasons are noble – he wants to better provide for his family and is appalled at the treatment meted out to the women – he is a man who is very hard to like. This is especially true once the stark realities of his previous horrific crimes are revealed. Standing tall, proud and gruff, he is the epitome of the complexities that the film illustrates.

Munny is not the only well-realised character in David Webb Peoples’ astonishing screenplay. A sublime supporting cast, that’s in excellent form, boasts Gene Hackman as Little Bill Daggett. Daggett is Big Whiskey’s sheriff and he keeps the peace by inflicting violence on anyone who crosses him. There’s also Morgan Freeman as Munny’s friend and former partner Ned Logan. His character brings not a little humour to proceedings with his droll performance.

The list also includes Richard Harris as assassin-for-hire English Bob; Frances Fisher as Strawberry Alice, the angry leader of the prostitutes who fights hard for women’s rights in a place where they are treated like third-class citizens; and Jaimz Woolvett as the Schofield Kid, the cocky, trigger-happy, young man who immediately loses his appetite for the outlaw lifestyle after his first kill. The latter unwittingly echoing the veterans who discover they too have long lost their desire for violence.

This is a highly moral tale that rises from an immoral yet paradoxically beautiful world; the beautiful golden and verdant Wyoming landscapes sitting tranquilly under the deep blue skies, a thin disguise for the dark and brutal violence that lies beneath.

Unforgiven was released on August 7, 1992, and remains one of the most celebrated Westerns in the history of cinema. Cinema review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes records an astonishing 97 per cent positive reviews, saying that “as both director and star, Clint Eastwood strips away decades of Hollywood varnish applied to the Wild West, and emerges with a series of harshly eloquent statements about the nature of violence”.

The movie was nominated for, and won, myriad awards. It earned nine Oscar nominations, winning Best Picture, Director, Best Supporting Actor for Gene Hackman and Best Editing for Joel Cox.

Eastwood, of course, continued his astonishing career, repeating his Best Picture and Best Director successes at the 2004 Academy Awards with the equally sublime Million Dollar Baby. Yet, Unforgiven remains possibly his greatest endeavour yet, a culmination of the characters and genres he embraced so completely during his eclectic career.

Small wonder then the film is dedicated to Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, the two directors from whom he clearly absorbed so much.