UNFORGIVEN (1992)

Neha says
EASTWOOD loves his characters- you can see it with the sort of time he spends lingering over them, giving them heart, scars and demons to wrestle with and you can actually feel it through the performances, the nuances, the rustic mid west setting and the darkness looming in and out of each frame- I’m talking about UNFORGIVEN here folks- and a true connoisseur of his art ( I’d like to believe I am) will relish the insights, the tragedy and the triumph that we get to see in this 1992 Oscar winning western drama. Here Eastwood plays WILLIAM MUNNY- a tragic and temperamental widower who gives up the world of guns and assignations for the simple life. But when an arrogant cowboy kid comes by- asking him to pick up the gun once again to kill two evil cowboys responsible for disfiguring the face of a hooker back in the small town of Big Whiskey with a 1000 $ prize money attached to it- Munny feels this might just be the opportunity to earn some much needed cash. So he joins the kid on his journey, picking up his ex partner NED (Morgan Freeman) on the way. But the three musketeers didn’t account for Little Bill (Gene Hackman) a notorious local sheriff who will not allow guns and assassinations in his domain-who can crack the whip, pull the trigger and flash a cocky smile to get what he wants, when he wants.

When the camera pans slowly onto Eastwood’s face with a cowboy hat at a 100 degrees angle with his brooding intensity in place and he fires an old 80’s rifle and knocks down not one but five cow boy heavy weights it’s a bonafide western movie moment. When he aims his gun at an important character and bellows “See you in hell” your screaming for an encore. There’s enough of rustic gun fighting and shootouts on offer- but it’s really in Eastwood’s hands that you celebrate more often the character whose doing the shooting than the actual physical gun match itself.

We spend the better part of the film understanding the nuts and bolts of Munny’s character and how this hunter became the haunted. In a poignant moment Munny, in a delirious state turns to his friend Ned and talks of dying and seeing the angel of death. And yet the irony of it all is that while he insists he’s no longer a killer anymore, each step of the way he walks towards that very destiny and when its play time-the gun comes out and he fires like it’s what he was born to do. I call that the POWER of dramatic writing.

There’s another thing that stands out- Little Bill- the so called bad guy of the story. I couldn’t wait for the face-off between Eastwood and Hackman-albeit only two but watching these actors in the same space is my kind of eye popping candy. Little Bill is an enigma-his violent actions are understandable but his sadistic nature is highly questionable. Hackman makes him quite the charming bad boy, giving Little Bill that big edge (especially when you have the svelte Eastwood to lock horns with). I for one would have loved to see even more of Eastwood and Hackman at cross-fires with each other- in more of a verbal battle- but I’ll have to settle for watching those two scenes in repeat mode to satisfy that urge.

Eastwood settles for the real and raw feel-I wouldn’t want it any other way. He focuses on his characters and gives each one a definite edge-he makes us sympathise with the bad guys and makes us deconstruct the bad actions of the good guys in a new and empathetic light. So my question to Eastwood really is- Who do you want the audience to root for? There’s just enough enigma surrounding each one to make you root for all-and maybe clever, clever Eastwood that was always the plan.

Ira says
Munney: It’s a hard thing killing a man. You take away all he’s got and all he’ll ever have.
The Schofield Kid: Yeah but I guess they had it coming.
Munney: We all have it coming kid.

What is it about the Western film that makes you question ideas of humanity, morality, and mortality so fundamentally? There’s something unforgiving in the exchange above and a stone cold steeliness on Eastwood’s face, somehow befitting the man who has been Hollywood’s quintessential anti-hero since he started his career in the 1960’s.

There is, in fact, something unforgiving about the way Eastwood, revisits the genre that made him a Hollywood icon. Unforgiving in the opening scene and in its depiction of violence, in the Sheriff’s (a brilliant Gene Hackman) reaction to a woman in his town being ‘slashed up’ by an angry cowboy, in the way the narrative penetrates ideas of justice, morality and humanity and in the films characters who are at once familiar types but much greyer and complex than we assume. Prostitutes, outlaws, no good tramps, vicious ex-gunmen, fresh recruits with no respect and patience for their elders, and supposed lawmen like the Sheriff who turns out to be the most ruthless are not ‘types’ but fleshed out, complex personalities making us question and re-think that eternal conundrum of good guy versus bad guy with a fresh, often unsettling new vigor and interest.

The story of an ex gunman William Munney played by Eastwood, who’s reluctantly pulled back into one last mission, Eastwood’s swan song to the genre won 4 academy awards including for Picture, Director, Editing and Supporting Actor for Hackman and is a strong, uncompromising film. Eastwood brings a brooding weariness to his performance but this time he’s also aided by a superb supporting cast and a rich screenplay. Hackman, Richard Harris, Morgan Freeman and Maggie Smith are excellent and I liked how the writing not only inverts traditional ideas, mores and norms of right and wrong but also, pivots the story around women, blends elements of fact, fantasy, fiction, with violence and truth through the character of ‘WW”, a writer names Beauchamp played by Saul Rubinek and brings in a generational theme through the character of The Schofield Kid (James Woolvett).

Surprisingly dark and layered in its writing, its dimly lit, moody landscape, and orange-tinted color palette, through sharp editing and camera Eastwood also creates the precision and economy he’s famous that convey both a sense of tension and often a ruminative silence. In its landscape, its texture, its cast of veteran male and female actors, in its themes of gunmanship, gunplay, killing, prostitution, law, moral accountability, and a way of life, this one is a hard hitting, well made tribute to the Western, a film that is for all ages.