Unforgiven is a Western by definition, but in the end it deconstructs the genre, deglamorizing established myths about the Wild West with its traditional black-hatted outlaws and white-hatted heroes, and it emerges as the definitive anti-Western. I didn’t like this film when I first saw it back in 1992. It struck me as a rather simple tale of revenge with offbeat characters that weren’t very engaging. I wasn’t invested in them or the story, and it didn’t impress me as “Best Picture” material. A second screening years later found me digging deeper. I started to pick up on the subtler complexities, and now it’s safe to say the film has grown on me and continues to do so each time I see it. There’s a lot going on here, and the movie’s title is key. It’s a well-chosen word that applies to the obvious “revenge” plot but also individual characters and their plights.
On the surface, the story is about a group of prostitutes in a Wyoming saloon that pool their life savings to use as a bounty for revenge. One of them, called Delilah (Anna Thomson), has had her face slashed after giggling at a john named Quick Mike (David Mucci), embarrassing him. He and his buddy Davey (Rob Campbell) hold her down and brutally disfigure her in retaliation. The local sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman in his second Oscar-winning performance) orders them to give the saloon owner (Anthony James) seven ponies as a fine for what they did, but that doesn’t satisfy Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher) or the other girls. They tell all customers passing through to spread the word about their $1,000 bounty on the heads of those two men who hurt Delilah.
The news reaches Kansas, where an arrogant young man going by the name of the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) shows up on the doorstep of Bill Munny (Clint Eastwood). Munny is an aging, widowed, pig farmer with two young children and a pen full of feverish hogs. We learn that he used to be an outlaw and murderer before his late wife convinced him to change his ways. The Kid idolizes Munny as a notorious legend and wants to join forces with him to go after the bounty. Munny sends him on his way, but with his farm in shambles and his livestock sick, Munny reconsiders. He decides to leave his children to fend for themselves, telling them he’ll be back in a few weeks, and he sets out to find the Kid.
Along the way, he picks up his old partner in crime Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), but another bounty-hunter known as English Bob (Richard Harris) arrives ahead of them in Wyoming with his personal biographer (Saul Rubinek) by his side. Bob’s pretentious manner, foreign accent, and inflated reputation clash with Little Bill, who savagely beats him before arresting him on a bogus charge of illegal gun possession. After debunking English Bob’s heroic stories in front of his biographer, Bill runs him out of town, but the biographer stays behind, latching onto Little Bill for more “true tales of the Wild West.”
The deconstruction of the narrative and unraveling of its characters becomes more apparent after that. No one is actually how they present themselves, and the line between good and evil is not just blurred, it’s often reversed, causing all of us as viewers to examine our preconceptions of others. The word “unforgiven” applies to everyone in this story. The Schofield Kid expects a legendary outlaw to accompany him for some easy money, but he finds an aging, docile, pig farmer instead. The Kid turns out to be an annoying fraud with poor eyesight and zero experience as a gun-slinging rebel. He is devastated and in tears from the moment he kills one of the men and realizes he won’t ever be the same. Munny’s former partner Ned Logan may have been fearless at one point, but now he can’t bring himself to pull the trigger when the time comes. He winds up beaten to death by Little Bill with his corpse set out on display as an example for anyone entering the saloon. The prostitutes say they want justice for Delilah, but even after Davey brings an extra prized pony as his personal gift to her, Alice steps in and declares it isn’t enough. She wants Davey and his friend Quick Mike dead instead.
Little Bill is the law in town, the supposed “good guy,” but he employs inhumane, sadistic methods to get what he wants. Then there’s the biographer W.W. Beauchamp, who romanticizes the Wild West like a nervous fanboy, moving from one sensational story to the next. After finishing with English Bob and Little Bill, he focuses on Munny, hoping to extract any juicy tidbits of dastardly deeds in order to exaggerate and elevate them in his forthcoming novel.
Finally, there’s Munny, who starts out as a ghost of his former self until he’s put to the test. Once the trio stumbles onto their first target for the bounty, Munny is the only one among them who can kill in cold blood. He tells Delilah she may have scars on her face, but he wears his deep on the inside. When Munny is informed about the horrible demise of Ned Logan, he goes after Little Bill alone. That’s the moment Munny is revealed as the frightening outlaw he once was. But who wears the white hat? Who wears the black? It’s almost as if Eastwood is thumbing his nose at the iconic prototype he helped make famous in so many successful Westerns of the 1960s and ’70s. Little Bill, on the other hand, is savagely murdering a prisoner, changing laws as he goes along, and deciding for himself who to punish and who to set free. He claims he only wants to relax and retire on the porch of his poorly made house, which is a perfect symbol of the shoddy, unstable world he has constructed for himself. During the final face-off in the ransacked saloon, when a bleeding Little Bill stares down the barrel of Munny’s rifle, he defiantly declares, “I’ll see you in Hell,” before Munny shoots him in the chest without remorse. Speaking of symbolism, consider the currency-related character names swarming around this bounty hunt: Munny, English Bob, and Little Bill.
There are no stock-in-trade heroes and villains in Unforgiven. Each well-drawn character conveys a seemingly worthy cause. Throughout the story, their flaws and hypocrisies pile up, and by the end, I’m left with no one to cheer for. I might feel sorry for a few but can’t help thinking most of them get what they deserve. In a conventional sense, it’s a less satisfying conclusion than your average Western, but it’s also thought-provoking and compelling. I’m guessing that’s exactly the point.
Unforgiven
Director | Clint Eastwood |
Primary Cast | Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Jaimz Woolvett, Saul Rubinek, Frances Fisher, Anna Thomson, David Mucci, Rob Campbell, Anthony James |
Familiar Faces | Gene Hackman from The French Connection, Morgan Freeman from Driving Miss Daisy, Anthony James from In the Heat of the Night |
Firsts | First Western since 1931’s Cimarron to win Best Picture |
Total Wins | 4 (Picture, Director, Supporting Actor: Gene Hackman, Editing) |
Total Nominations | 9 (Picture, Director, Actor: Clint Eastwood, Supporting Actor: Gene Hackman, Screenplay: Original, Cinematography, Art Direction, Editing, Sound) |
Viewing Format | Blu-ray Disc |