Unforgiven

Clint Eastwood’s elegy for the western, Unforgiven (1992), is so meticulously crafted and expertly directed that the awe one feels for the film occasionally overshadows its main themes.

It’s the 1880s, and Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) plays the corrupt sheriff who refuses to enforce any true justice on a cowboy who cut up a prostitute’s face because she laughed at his (hmm, how to word this?) undersized wee-wee. His refusal to be objective lies in the fact that he believes the women are sinning, and, thus, deserve whatever they bring upon themselves. The other women take exception with this disregard of objectivity, and get word into all the western lands that they’ll offer a reward to anyone who kills the cowboy who scarred the prostitute.

William ‘Bill’ Munny (Eastwood) is a reformed killer who now cares for his two small children on a small piece of property and silently mourns his widow. He is not a good farmer, he cannot clear the sick pigs away from the healthy ones, but he is devoted to each farming task because it silences any old thought from being resurrected. Indeed, vengeance and alcohol once clouded his senses, and he refuses to return to that old lifestyle. However, he knows that his children cannot live on his petty income since he isn’t a good farmer, and so he contemplates a return to murderous justice when the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) asks for his help to avenge the prostitute.

Recruiting his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman aka the voice of God), Munny and the Kid head north to take revenge on the cowboy. Along the way, Munny reveals his childlike devotion to his dead wife, using his unending devotion for her to quiet any resurrected thoughts of dark vengeance. Yet when tragedy ensues, Eastwood does not shy away from examining how darkness can creep up in one man, and how violence brought against friends can demand a sense of retribution that goes far beyond justice.

As a result, it is within the final scenes in Unforgiven that Eastwood identifies the film’s preoccupation with vengeance and forgiveness. Munny has finished the job he was hired to do, yet he returns to settle the score, and, in doing so, he returns to that primitive being he once was. He knows it, and so does Little Bill Haggett, as noted in this exchange:

Little Bill Haggett: You just shot an unarmed man.
Bill Munny: He should have armed himself…

What’s more, he almost seems to relish the ability to once more drink and murder, since he is far from selective in whom he targets. Consequently, any joyous celebration of retribution becomes silenced since the audience understands how far Munny has gone, and doubts whether or not he can revive that devotional aspect to his life once more. Hence the importance of the opening and ending title cards.

Unforgiven is a solid contribution from Eastwood, and an incredibly rich experience on the nature of justice, past lives, and friendship.

Unforgiven: 9/10