Unforgiven was only the third western film to land the coveted Oscar for Best Picture. It is also the only one among those three films to deserve the trophy. Clint Eastwood served as producer, director, and star, and had essentially complete control of the project. He set out to depict a deeper, more humble, and fully human "Man With No Name". He also wanted to demonstrate that the same qualities that made Munny a feared killer were inseparable from his alcoholism and subsequent cruelty.
The obvious problem with the story is in its setup. If Munny was such a frequent killer of lawmen, women, and children, how was he able to live an uneventful life as a pig farmer? Surely his saintly late wife wasn't able to convince the law that there was no need for a hangin'?
Fortunately, other plot elements fall into place. The prostitutes can get away with endless troublemaking, because Little Bill unconsciously wants the 'assassins' to come. Little Bill despises gunslingers, and seeks to humiliate them and reveal their cowardice. But Little Bill is not a villain, or a sadist. Despite his badge, he is a vigilante at heart. All of his beating victims were armed mercenaries, and certainly guilty under the law.
It is said that Unforgiven is really an anti-western, since the story often removes the mythology from western antiheroes. English Bob isn't defending the honor of a lady, he is simply a drunken and jealous murderer. Munny really did murder defenseless innocents in cold blood. The Schofield Kid is just an immature, nearsighted, and insecure young man.
But while the characters are revisionist, the same cannot be said for the story. Following a time honored formula, the middle of the film is spent building up the antagonist, to increase the suspense of the inevitable final conflict. English Bob is made fearsome by his arrogance and his display of pheasant shooting. Little Bill is made fearsome by his complete humiliation of English Bob. Little Bill is built up only so that he can bested by Munny, whose drinking binge has finally led him to fully embrace the Dark Side of the force.
Curiously, the audience is compelled to cheer for Eastwood as Munny in the final confrontation. Munny will kill one and all to revenge his friend, even though Ned was in fact a murderer, and his punishment was just by frontier standards. The audience feels uncomfortable about supporting Munny, however, and at seeing him get away unharmed despite his slot trot out of town. We find it hard to believe that he later succeeded as a storekeeper, when it is proven that in his late wife's absence he degenerates into a killer.
Unforgiven was a long time in coming. The script was written by David Webb Peoples in 1976. Eventually, the rights were acquired by Clint Eastwood, who waited to film it until he had aged enough to match the lead character.
Certainly, Unforgiven was worth the wait: Eastwood won Oscars for both Best Picture and Best Director, and was nominated for Best Actor. Gene Hackman won as Best Supporting Actor, and Joel Cox won Best Editing. Peoples was given sole credit as screenwriter, although surely the script had been modified from its original form. He received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
The Oscar that Unforgiven truly deserved was for Best Casting. Clint Eastwood (Munny), Gene Hackman (Little Bill), Morgan Freeman (Ned), and Richard Harris (English Bob) are all magnificent. They also radiate star power, but the same can't be said for the more obscure Jaimz Woolvett (Schofield Kid), Saul Rubinek (pulp writer Beauchamp), and Anna Levine (Delilah, the cut woman.)
The important of casting and character is exemplified by the film's weakest scene. A group of deputies discuss Little Bill's carpentry skills and potential cowardice. The scene disappoints because none of the characters in it are memorable, or important to the story.
Onscreen, the film is dedicated to Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, the directors and mentors from his successful early career action films. But the dark side of William Munny is closer to the antihero in Eastwood's own High Plains Drifter (1972). As a drunkard and killer, Munny is far closer to pure evil than his counterparts in the Leone trilogy or the Dirty Harry films. (95/100)
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