By that standard, Unforgiven, for what it is, is almost a perfect film. It is, without a doubt one of my all time favorite Westerns. It sets out to deconstruct the entire genre, and for all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what it does. Unforgiven is a Western with a film noir point of view. It’s a film about retired gunmen getting pulled back into the so called blaze of glory they remember from the good ol’ days, when the good ol’ days weren’t really that great. Clint Eastwood’s protagonist isn’t really all that different than Gene Hackman’s antagonist. They both left the life of gun play and bullets behind to build a new life for themselves, but in the end, they can’t escape who they are or what they’ve done.
It all starts because of a laugh. A whore gets cut up after laughing at a patron, and that makes all the other dominos fall. The other whores get their money together and offer a reward for the death of the cowboy who cut up their friend and his accomplice. When the cowboys come back to repay the man who owns the brothel, one of them offers his best horse to make amends, but by that point, there is no way to stop what’s been set in motion. Word has gotten out, and nothing will ever be the same again.
Hackman plays the film’s “villain,” the town Sheriff, Little Bill. Little Bill isn’t a bad man; he’s a former cowboy who’s finally put his guns away and settled down. He’s building his own house. He doesn’t allow guns in his town. He doesn’t kill anyone. He’s got a temper, but, that’s really about it. His main concern is keeping the peace in his little town and keeping bounty hunters and cowboys out. The whores don’t think he punishes the cowboys enough, and that’s when they set up their reward. Little Bill’s discretion brings everything down around him. It only takes one mistake. When English Bob comes into the city, he takes his guns, and beats him in front of his biographer to send a message to anyone who’s even thinking of trying to collect the “whore’s gold.” Bill’s problem, though, is that, like English Bob, he begins to believe his own hype. He tells the biographer stories about Bob, and himself when they were younger. But, after setting the record straight about Bob, he begins to see himself as a romanticized hero rather than what he really is. And that’s his downfall. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Eastwood plays William Munny, a former outlaw who left behind the alcohol and the guns when he met his wife. After she died, though, times got rough for him and his kids, so when an opportunity for some cash comes along, he has to take it. Eastwood here is analogous to the old samurai warriors who pick up their sword for one last mission. Despite how hard he tries, he can’t escape his past. He is old, he is rusty, and he has no choice. All he’s ever been good at is killing other people, and now it’s time to accept his destiny. He grabs his old friend Ned, Morgan Freeman, and they go off with an inexperienced and nearly blind kid who thinks highly of himself. As they go out, they find the cowboys and begin their work as assassins. When they kill the first one, though, as he dies, they begin to understand the gravity of their actions. He dies in pain, begging for water while everyone hears him. All of a sudden, the nobility of defending women and facing down the ruffians has been stripped away, and all that’s left is a man who’s dying, trapped under a horse for something he didn’t do. The second cowboy is shot by the Kid who has the courage to shoot him while he’s on the toilet. There is no glory to what these men do, and there’s nothing enviable about them that can be romanticized. They are killers, just trying to live with themselves.
“It don't seem real... how he ain't gonna never breathe again, ever... how he's dead. And the other one too. All on account of pulling a trigger,” the Kid says.
“It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have,” responds Will.
“Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.”
“We all have it coming, kid.”
After Ned is killed by Little Bill, the Kid finally understands the magnitude of what Will really is, and how he’s become the legendary killer. The Kid decides he’s had enough, but Will, after he gets a little help from the bottle, goes off to avenge his friend. He finds Ned’s body adorning a bar where Little Bill is getting ready to go after Will. In most Westerns, the bad guy would be hiding from the Sheriff, while the Sheriff gathered his forces to go find the horrible killer. Here, Will goes to confront the man who’s killed his friend. Here, numbers are on the Sheriff’s side. Here, Will’s brought a shotgun to finish his work. This is a Western that’s been tinged by the new view of the world. There is no Gary Cooper or John Wayne. There isn’t a clear cut right and wrong. We repeatedly hear about Little Bill’s failures as a carpenter, and how “there isn’t a right angle in the house.” This gives us insight not only to Bill’s character, someone who can’t keep his own house straight, but also into the main point of the film. There is no solid ground; everything is tilted.
“That's right. I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you did to Ned,” the terrible William Munny says when he finally confronts Little Bill Daggett. He takes down the room full of armed men. And, as he faces Little Bill, who’s crawling on the floor, to a gun, one of my favorite exchanges in cinema history occurs, and we see not only the theme of the film, but one of the many themes in our lives play out between Little Bill and Will Munny.
“I don’t deserve this…to die like this. I was building a house.”
“Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
“I’ll see you in Hell, William Munny.”
“Yeah.”
*Blam*
