Unforgiven

By the 1990s, the movie Western was starting to wind down as a genre. It wasn’t completely dead, as films like Tombstone, Young Guns II, and Dances With Wolves were still making splashes in the film market, but it was well past its heyday of the 50s through the 70s. By 1992, Clint Eastwood had already long since established himself as the quintessential Man With No Name in Italian Western films as well as his long tenure as the star of television’s Rawhide. He had been offered the script for Unforgiven decades before but at the time felt that he wasn’t quite old enough for it and the timing wasn’t quite right, either. That all changed in the 90s. 

Gene Hackman was nervous at the time, too, to take on a film that appeared on the surface to be so violent. His kids at the time were concerned that violence in films were leading to acts of violence in the real world. He initially passed on the role only to reconsider when Clint Eastwood took him aside personally and explained that the film he was envisioning would be anti-violence. Indeed, while there are acts of violence on screen, they are hardly glamorous, and there are several moments that establish that killing someone will change you as a person for the rest of your life. 

The standard Western film, like the penny dreadfuls of the past, builds up the killers of the West to the point of legend. This was surely the case of such figures as Billy the Kid and Jesse James, both real people whose exploits are the source of numerous books and films. The real truth is generally nowhere near the legend, though, yet many of these historical figures counted on these legends to build up their infamy. The dime-store biographies circulated around the West, exaggerated the exploits of these men long after they were gone. Unforgiven hits on these notes heavily with nearly every main character exaggerating their history for one reason or another.

The film is bookended with on-screen text introducing our main character: Will Munny (Clint Eastwood). Will is a former gunman, responsible for the deaths of many people in the past. But at some point, he married a young woman who helped him put aside alcohol and his violent ways and settle down on a small farm out in the middle of nowhere. A few years prior to the start of the film, she died, leaving him with the farm and two young children. Without her presence, the farm has struggled along but is in serious need of money.

From this brief prologue, the film cuts harshly to a room in a brothel in Big Whisky, Wyoming, where one of the prostitutes is cut up badly in the face for giggling at one of her client’s shortcomings. The brothel owner, Skinny Dubois (Anthony James), is only concernedfor his lost income as he has bought and paid for her services for a set period of time. He ties the man up, alongside his partner who was not directly involved in the attack, and calls for the Sheriff. The Sheriff, “Little” Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), has no more compassion for the injured woman than Skinny does and lets the two men go, charging them only a handful of ponies to be paid to Skinny for his lost wages. This naturally upsets the women who feel that justice was not served and they pony up a reward of $1,000 from their savings to offer any gunman willing to come and kill the two cowboys. When word gets back to Daggett, it sets him and his deputies on the edge because now they expect an onslaught of gunmen coming into town determined to get that reward. 

This reward brings into town a braggadocio by the name of English Bob (Richard Harris). Bob is a legend of his own making, traveling with W.W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek), a writer who is tagging along to chronicle the exploits of this man. When it turns out that English Bob has been embellishing his own stories and is easily bested by Sheriff Daggett, Beauchamp abandons him in favor of the more impressive Daggett. English Bob is beaten severely, then, after a night in jail, is sent on his way, his weapons confiscated and destroyed. 

The reward also attracts another man, The Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett). This young man, self-professed as an experienced killer, rides into Will Munny’s farm and offers him half the reward in exchange for help in killing the two cowboys. Munny initially turns him down but reconsiders because of the failing farm and his desperate need for money. He recruits his old partner, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to assist. The rest of the film is about the tracking down of the cowboys and a final confrontation with Sheriff Daggett, a confrontation that only he is to blame for. 

Unforgiven can be looked at as an anti-Western. Westerns have become synonymous with gun violence and a romanticizing of the West. They are usually filled with big sweeping views of the prairies, beautiful glimpses of the Rocky Mountains, and the quintessential hero who rides into danger with his guns blazing. There is none of that in Unforgiven. The land is not particularly inspiring to look at and the gunplay is few and far between. And none of the action is glamorized in the slightest. It is ugly and raw and meant to signify that there really is no such thing as a hero with a six-shooter. There is not going to be a Lone Ranger or Marshall Matt Dillon showing up to save the day for no other reason than it is the right thing to do. The heroes we do get are there just for the money. 

The Scholfield Kid brags early on that he has killed five men in the past, but that is obviously not the case. Likewise, English Bob is being heralded for a big shootout that never really happened, either. W.W. Beauchamp represents the thirst for tall tales that thrived in the Old West, where such exaggerated exploits fed the romanticization of the area, something that exists to this day. When we do get to know real killers, Munny and Ned, they are old and worn down. In the case of Munny, he is so out of step with his old way of life that he struggles even at target practice and rides a horse that no longer wants a rider. When the time comes to shoot the first of the two cowboys, Ned cannot bring himself to kill in cold blood anymore, and Munny has to take several shots just to hit his target. This is not the grit and glamour of the penny dreadful gunslingers. Even The Scholfield Kid isn’t what he appears to be, suffering from extreme near-sightedness, unable to see much beyond fifty yards. When he gets his chance to show his mettle, he succeeds in killing his man but will be so shaken from the experience that he vows to never do it again. 

Sheriff Daggett is an interesting enigma of a character. He has a dark history that is barely tapped into. He is depicted as a competent gunman who is determined to keep his city peaceful by forcing anyone other than his deputies from carrying firearms inside the town limits. He also is depicted as a completely incompetent carpenter who is trying to build his own home but cannot do anything right. This humanizes him a bit while also hiding for a short while just how dangerous of a man he really is. We don’t get a real sense of that until his altercation with English Bill and then much later when his men capture Ned Logan. This is a man who may be effective at maintaining the peace during peaceful times but doesn’t know when he is stepping over the line.

Unforgiven has a lot to say about the romanticization of the Old West and how we glamorize these figures. History is written by the victors, a phrase that is heavily alluded to with the character of W.W. Beauchamp, a man whose only interest is writing something that will make him famous. He has no heroism of his own, and when his own life is threatened, he wets his pants, something that will never show up in one of his own books. Munny is no hero, either. At no point does he do what he does for heroism. His motivation is money, and then later revenge. Even the prostitutes are not painted in a good light. It’s obvious from the start that the one cowboy was not responsible for the assault, yet they want him dead alongside his partner; there is no mercy in their eyes. This is not a film that would make you want to live back in those times the way something like Gunsmoke or Bonanza might. This is an ugly time where law and order were merely words in a book, and morality doesn’t really come into play.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Clint Eastwood (won)

Best Director: Clint Eastwood (won)

Best Actor: Clint Eastwood

Best Supporting Actor: Gene Hackman (won)

Best Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen: David Webb Peoples

Best Art Direction: Henry Bumstead and Janice Blackie-Goodine

Best Cinematography: Jack N. Green

Best Film Editing: Joel Cox (won)

Best Sound: Les Fresholtz, Vern Poore, Dick Alexander, and Rob Young

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Release Date: August 7, 1992

Running Time: 131 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris

Directed By: Clint Eastwood