It could most certainly be called the western to end all others. It is noted as a great film by nearly all who see it. But more than anything else, it simply changes its viewers, transforms their thinking, and their expectations of what a movie like this one is, of what all other movies are. How exactly did Clint Eastwood do it? What is awakened in those who watch it? And why are those who see it forced to look at things differently? When looking at the methods of deconstruction that Eastwood uses throughout his film, and also in the ways he embeds them within the confines of Unforgiven's own story, we're given a chance to question what makes all movies out there believable.
Please note: Entries about media reviewed in this blog are written from the framepoint that the reader has already seen the work in question. Plot twists and endings will sometimes be examined.
Deconstructing the Western
When we talk about the "deconstruction" of a genre, we aim to take the thing apart, look at its inner workings and see how and why it has the effect on us it does. Unforgiven is a very layered movie, and before looking at its particular mechanisms, it might be prudent to briefly look at the genre as it stood before.
With the box office success of "Unforgiven", the western as a genre was deemed to be a bankable commodity once more by the major studios. The western had largely ceased to draw crowds and interest viewers at the time of its release. Sergio Leone had famously revitalized the genre decades earlier with his "Dollars Trilogy" ("Fistful of Dollars", "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", all staring Clint Eastwood in his much younger years) by adding a certain level of realism that simply wasn't present in the westerns of that time. Leone's films had a gritty style, morally ambiguous characters, and harsh landscapes unlike those found in the american westerns of the time. In many ways, the westerns of that time (the 60's) had grown right out of the very dime novels from the era of the source material itself, following a natural progression to full length novels, radio narrations, TV shows, and the movies themselves.
The westerns of the past drew more heavily on a style of storytelling descending from the tall tale and the wildly exaggerated recounts of people from the "old-west" era who actually experienced such events and embellished upon them with each new telling. Added to this was a sense of morality imposed by each new chronicler, re-enforcing what was each felt was right or wrong. By the time of Leone's westerns, many had gotten to the point where the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys black, enabling audiences to distinguish at a glance. Needless to say, this reduced a lot of pressure on storytellers themselves, but intelligent men like Leone capitalized on audience expectations by giving them more true to life characters who inhabited the moral gray areas of society, keeping them guessing on what would happen next.
When Unforgiven came around this was all old hat. Leone had readjusted the moral abiguity of the western, but its elements as a tall tale were still very much intact. To be certain, there is plenty of room in literature for the "amazing stories" that make up not only the old dime novels, but much of the pulp and even the sensationalized newspaper articles of today. And a lot of what transpires in westerns is the stuff of mythos: gunfights in the streets, women in distress, and men who step up do what they feel is right. So how exactly did "Unforgiven" accomplish to break all of this down so it could rebuild it? Dashing the story with a little authenticity in several areas was a start, but asking the audience to question it all was its true masterstroke.
Deconstructing Unforgiven
Our story begins with a brutal crime. In the town of Big Whiskey, a spurned cowboy slashes the face of a prostitute, sparking the fury of her fellow ladies of the night. The local sheriff, Little Bill (Gene Hackman), renders his judgement in an absolutist sort of fashion, but handles this case with a less than just decision. He orders the cowboy and his accomplice to pay the Skinny, the saloon and brothel owner since the hooker will no longer be as valuable to him. Unsatisfied with this judgement, but with Bill refusing to listen to any disent, the women scrape together a reward hoping to have the two cowboys killed. This attracts the attention of young gun calling himself the "Schoffield Kid" (Jaimz Woolvett) causing him to seek out William Munny (Clint Eastwood). Having heard of Munny's reputation of a violent past, the Kid hopes he will help him kill the cowboys and collect the reward. Munny in turn recruits his old friend Ned (Morgan Freeman), whom he rode with in the past. When the three meet up, Will and Ned discover that the Kid is near-sighted and needs spectacles which he doesn't have.
From this beginning, things are turned on their head in quite a few ways. The cowboys themselves are not the unrepentent bitches one might expect, and one of them even tries his hardest to make amends by offering the mangled prostitute a choice pony. The prostitutes themselves, while looking out for their own, are hardly noble in their quest for justice. They're bitter and want revenge. They even reject the peace offering of the pony without the victimized girl's consent, despite the fact that a pony would do her much more good than two dead cowboys. Little Bill is a tough man and an efficient enforcer, but his rendering is hardly fair. He will soon prove himself to be both merciless and unremitting, but in the meanwhile we often see him in good humour, building a house rather than lounging around the sheriff's office like such a character might in a typical movie. The Kid too, is something of a surprise in that, for all his tough talk, he actually is nearly defenseless in a true gunfight, considering he can't see very far. He hides his disability from others by never mentioning it and pretending he can see fine. He hides his insecurity about it with tough talk and a nickname he clearly has given himself rather than received by others. And William Munny? He's old with two young children, reformed by a dead wife into a strict sobriety, barely scraping by raising hogs -many of which appear sick. He has trouble catching an unruly hog and can't shoot very straight anymore, and even struggles to get back in the saddle when he decides to find the Kid and take him up on his offer.
While all of the above mentioned aspects help the film to turn the paradigm of the western on its end, its most obvious device is the inclusion of a journalist character (Saul Rubinek) who chronicles much of the events as they happen. He is introduced on something of a sideplot; he comes into town along with English Bob (Richard Harris), a gunslinger from England who has also heard about the reward. The journalist (who goes by the name of Beauchamp though I'll simply refer to him as "the journalist" throughout this article) seems completely obsessed with capturing material for his own dime-novel style stories. English Bob provokes a man on the train he takes in to town, and then does manage to demonstrate that he can shoot straighter than average by challenging the man to shoot some pheasants from an open car, helping to re-enforce some of our "old west mythos" to the journalist, and the viewers as well. When Bob gets to town, however, this is shattered immediately by Bill who catches Bob unawares, has him surrounded with his own men and then after disarming the man, proceeds to beat him savagely in the midst of the whole town. While Bob is imprisoned at Bill's office, the latter looks over the journalist's stories, ridicules them, and tells the man about how inaccurate the stories are, as he actually witnessed several of the incidents mentioned, and has been in a few fights himself.
It really is at this point that Unforgiven begins deconstructing things for its audience, inter-cutting between Bill and the journalist on the one hand, a conversation with William Munny and Ned on the other. Questions that aren't generally asked in a western come up. Things like the difficulty and effect on a man's psyche to point a gun at another and then pull the trigger. When Bill challenges the journalist and even puts a in his hand, the journalist can't bring himself to pull the trigger, and hearing the way Munny and Ned remember doing it, they recall it with denial and disbelief saying things like: "We was young and full of beans back then, and drunk most the time too..." and "When I sobered up, I couldn't remember the other guy doin anything so bad it really deserved me to shoot him..."
The journalist leaves Bob's company, deciding instead that he can learn more by following Bill around. Bob is sent away in a carriage, while Munny, Ned, and the Kid arrive in town shortly after. At this point, Bill has set himself up as something of a villain in the story. His and Munny's first meeting is nothing if not unconventional for a tale like this. Munny refuses any alcohol even though it might have helped keep him warm during a spout of bad weather, and arrives in town too cold, sick, and weak to defend himself. He is taken unawares by Bill in the saloon, who in a manner quite similar to that of English Bob, once again beats the man cruelly before kicking him out of town. Ned and the Kid escape unscathed, and the three regroup with the prostitutes later while Munny slowly recovers.
More unconventional still are the scenes of "justice" which follow when the trio ride out to hunt their prey. In many an unrealistic movie, violence is glory, revenge is sweet, and the killings are clean. The same can hardy be said of what occurs next in this story. Munny shoots and kills the kinder and more repentant of the two cowboys (the one who didn't actually cut the girl, and tried to make amends with the pony). The details of this scene are very important. The trio do not confront the cowboys face to face or challenge then to duels or anything like that, but rather ambush them from an elevated vantage point, a move that many would consider cowardly and dishonorable. Munny takes the shot only after Ned backs down, realizing he no longer has it in him to kill a man, demonstrating just how much has changed for these characters since the days when they were killers. Ned no longer finds it easy to take life because he's had time to live a little for himself and knows what he's taking from the boy. At first Munny manages only to cripple the boy with a shot to the leg and then misses several times after while the boy desperately tries to crawl to the safety of cover behind a rock. After shooting him in the stomach the boy cries sadly and begs for water as his life drains away. Listening to it all, Munny feels compasion for the boy and calls out to his companions telling them to bring him some water saying that he won't shoot. And so the movie shows us, taking a life can be awkward, ugly, and clumsy, not to mention difficult work both physically and mentally. Eastwood chooses purposely to have to have the more guilty of the two cowboys follow this one, to further highlight the ugliness of the act. It is after this scene that Ned decides to quit the group and head back home alone, while Munny and the Kid continue.
The killing of the second of the two cowboys can be described with many of the same words as the first. William Munny and the Kid wait for him to leave the house he's holed himself up in to visit the outhouse, and there ambush him literally with his pants down. Again there is no confrontation, only an attack and an escape without warning, but two things strike me about this scene as worthy of mention. First, the cowboy that Munny and the Kid set out to kill knows he's in danger and even has several deputies guarding him at the time. When he has to use the outhouse, one of them even asks him to wait so he can escort him out there, but the cowboys, cocky and rude, makes fun of the man refusing his help. His death is largely his own fault because of this. Second, as two assassins run away Munny tells the Kid to fire his gun at their persuers. Because the Kid cannot see very at all, and yet insists on killing at least one of the cowboys himself they are forced to get close to their target and then run away. As they run, Munny tells the Kid to shoot at the men chasing them. When the Kid objects that he can't see, Munny mentions that he only wants to slow them down by scaring them into taking cover. He knows that their chances of hitting or their persuers is very low, and probably does not even want to since doing so might even cause them more trouble. But escape is tantamount and scaring the men behind them buys them time. How men actually fight, and the fact that fear plays a huge part in it seems to be something that Munny understands intrinsically.
While wating for one of the prostitutes to deliver their reward, the Kid breaks down and cries as the gravity of what he's done begins to settle in. He admits to Munny that up until now he's never killed anyone, despite having said otherwise before. "Killing a man's a hell of a thing," Munny replies, "You take away all he has, and everything he ever will have..." On several occasions throughout the movie, the viewer hears the characters say "They have it coming", when talking about the cowboys, never to any real response. It's only when the Kid says it this time that Munny gives us in the audience a reply: "We all have it coming Kid..."The final part of the film is set up when the prostitute arrives and the Kid and William Munny, along the viewer, learn that Little Bill and his men captured Ned and later, tortured him to death. Munny, who has staunchly refused to drink any alcohol up to this point in the movie, takes the bottle and begins to do so and we begin to see the way alcohol allows Munny to kill indiscriminately. He then tells the Kid to go back to his homestead alone and give his share the money to his children and Ned's woman, and says that he's going into town alone to confront Little Bill.
When Munny arrives at the saloon, he finds Ned's body in front with a sign attached more or less condemning the man and his accomplices. Munny enters quietly to see Bill rallying up a posse he's assembled with alcohol and talk of their success in capturing Ned. Munny figures out which of the men is Skinny by asking who owns the place, and then shoots him to the shock and horror of all gathered. It's worth noting that Munny doesn't even flinch while doing it. Throughout the film it's talked about how difficult it is to pull the trigger on someone and Munny has not only just done so but semms to lack any remorse or sense of consequence. The people in the room are of course all terrified; they've just seen a man killed right in front of them. The only other person who keeps their cool is Little Bill who becomes enraged and calls Munny a coward for shooting and unarmed man. Munny's response, a very oft-quoted line, is absolute indifference: "He should've armed himself if was gonna decorate his saloon with my friend!" Munny points the gun at Bill and then tells him that he's come to kill him, and then a very curious thing happens. Bill cleverly tells all those gathered in the saloon that Munny has only one barrel left in his gun and to kill Munny after he's fired his shot. I can just imagine that every man in the place would be so terrified up till this point that without Bill saying this, it's altogether likely that Munny might've simply walked in, shot both Skinny and Bill and walked right back out, with everyone who saw the thing happen too petrified to act. Whether or not Munny had planned it that way all along is never said, because this doesn't happen; Munny puls the trigger, but his gun misfires, and Bill wastes no time in telling everyone to shoot. Munny's reaction is unique as well; he throws the empty gun at Bill and uses the time he's bought to draw his pistol and shoot Bill. He gets down on one knee and and shoots the each of the men who've drawn weapons on him. Earlier in the film, Bill describes for the journalist how many men make a common mistake in gun-fighting: by drawing and firing too quickly without aiming properly. The gunfight in this scene is indeed over quickly, but there is nothing stylized or elaborate about it at all. The men nervously draw their guns, fire too quickly or unsteadily and miss, while Munny aims, shoots and kills each in turn. When it's over he tells all bystanders to get out unless they want to die as well. It strikes me how the final showdown of this film plays out much like similar climaxes in other westerns (the main character kills everyone, and walks out alive), but at the same time is completely different as well. The details have been arranged in such a way that it all feels real rather than contrived.
Munny takes a drink from the bar, and then gets into a brief but interesting conversation with the journalist who has lingered because he was trapped under a one of the men who fell on him as he died. He remarks that Munny killed the men in the exact order of how dangerous they were, but Munny is dismissive of the whole thing stating simply that he's always been "lucky when it comes to killing people". He doesn't appear to have put much thought into what makes him good at doing it. The journalist character really does seem like something of a leech, and at this point he appears almost ready to begin following Munny around the way he did Bob and Bill up until he is threatened by Munny to get out of the saloon. The final conversation between Munny and the dying Bill is brief as well. Bill complains that it isn't fair: "I don't deserve this. I was building a house..." Munny's reply is cold as ever: "Deserve's got nothing to do with it.", "I'll see you in Hell, Munny.", "Yeah." Munny is more or less unmoved by any of what he's seen or heard, let alone what he's done. He's cold and mechanical and it almost appears that he does what he does because he's simply supposed to. That is to say, he came back and killed Bill not due to sorrow, or anger, or hatred, but simply because that was what someone should do when a close friend gets killed. Though an overwhelming change occurs in his behavior as soon as he hears of Ned's death, he doesn't seem incensed, just quiet, cold, and completely driven. The closest thing to any emotion he shows is when Bill berates him verbally for killing Skinny. Even then, it has more to do with the fact that he's defending his actions than anything else when he says: "He should've armed himself!" Truth be told, he seems only agitated by the accusation. Within the icy logic of his mind, he's doing something completely justified.
Munny shoots Bob dead after their final words together and then the movie gives us a few final surprises in it's treatment of the plot. Munny shouts out several threats to the townsmen lingering outside to help ensure no one else tries to kill him. "I'm comin out now and if I see anyone I'm gonna kill em! And if anyone takes a shot at me, I'm gonna kill them, AND their family AND burn their damn house down!" It's chilling the choice of words he uses. He knows the value of a threat in this situation, doesn't want another fight, and realizes that running out will only get him chased. As he exits we see a couple men outside hiding and one of them gets ready to fire but he too cowers saying he can't do it, though it's never explained if this is because he's frightened of Munny's threats or if it's for the same reasons that have kept many men from pulling the trigger throughout the film. "My god..." one of the prostitutes remarks softly as he leaves, and we sense that only now has the consequences of her action's full weight come down to be felt by her. Did all of those men need to die? Does any of this death make things right?
Unforgiven as a deconstruction of fiction
Unforgiven is to a certainty a deconstruction of the western as a genre. It looks at the time and place and asks questions as to what life was like for people living there, on a day to day basis and not just in times of extraordinary occurance. It picks apart the pieces of the genre itself, turns them on their side and invites us to look in from a different angle that makes things look completely different. But then, one can't help but wonder as well, don't a lot of other genres use similar elements in their story building? Damsels in distress appear in fantasy yarns as well as westerns, lurid tales of murders and kidnapping are found in a lot of the pulp magazines of the noir period and in modern crime tales too. When we say that something is a "tall tale" are we not simply referring to some of the more sensational aspects of any story?
Now with Unforgiven we have a movie that almost seems aware of itself and asks us to ask questions not only of its plot but those of others. Questions like: "Is the way this person is telling their story accurate, or are they just exaggerating to try and impress us the Bob and the Kid did?", "Can these characters really be believed to be as skilled, hard, or intelligent as they say or is it a farce?", "Is what we're seeing really unfolding in a believable way?" All of these questions relate to the scenario of an unreliable narrator. I've found myself strangely aware of Unforgiven with every western I've seen since it; it's almost impossible not to remember the lessons it teaches and this subsequently reflects on other works we view and, after all, isn't a movie in its own way just another account of some story we're being told. It's practically at a point where one could refer to westerns as "post-Unforgiven" because we more or less expect the film makers to have learned from watching the film. To a point, many of the westerns which followed Unforgiven do seem to be aware of this. Films like "Tombstone" and "Open Range" are its successors. "3:10 to Yuma" and "The Assassination of Jesse James" both made direct reference to the dime-novels, newspaper stories, and fiction printed about notorious men, purposely drawing a line between the fantasy and reality of an outlaw existence. The samurai films, many like to point out, have much in common with those of the western genre, and now even a few modern entries such as "Twilight Samurai" and "Hidden Blade" (Kakushiken) both by Yoji Yamada have engaged in a little deconstruction of their own upon the samurai genre.
On the simple manner of details, Unforgiven makes an interesting point as well. When the Kid tells Munny what the cowboys have done to the girl, he uses all kinds of incorrect information making the whole thing sound much more gruesome than it actually is. The way journalist makes it sound, these warriors have deadly aim, and fire with pinpoint accuracy the moment they become aware of each other, making speed everything. The movie makes short work of this logic by showing us just how messy a real fight can get. But in a way, aren't we in the audience being challenged to think about some of the other films we see? Would anyone really flip three times in the air over a simple obstruction in the midst of a battle? Would anyone really spin their blade around repeatedly thinking it would add power to their slices? Details like this are stylistic flourishes to be sure but they certainly do cheapen the reality of a situation when we see them. I remember watching in suspense when the machine slowly beat in a metal door in the first Terminator movie, and shaking my head in disbelief when another knocked a door flying off its hinges in the fourth movie of that series for no reason other than to show the audience the strength of this new opponent (no reason aside of course the fact that it was never bolted in the way a real door would be and obviously not really made of metal). A film like Unforgiven transcends typical fiction not only in its meaning but in its execution as well.
Unforgiven as a Film
So far I've talked about this film as a collection of its elements: pieces and parts that when put together make a whole. This of course all begs the question: "Is it really any good as a film, or simply valuable as a lesson for what it says?" And if it is a good film, in what way has it benefited from tearing down the very genre it represents?
When we see more of the same we get bored. We feel we know where it's all heading, everything we expect to happen often does, and we have little to get excited over. When things don't happen the way we think they will, it puts us on our toes. I might even dare say it's truer to life this way, since few things in life are more memorable to us than the surprises.
Few people expect Munny to be beaten so onesidedly by Bill in their first encounter, or for Ned to die after giving away Munny's identity. So much time is spent tearing down the ideas that these men are tough or even skilled at all (let alone invincible), that by the time Munny walks slowly through the rain to the saloon to confront Bill, we genuinely fear for his death. He's walking into a situation where he is completely out numbered and up against a man who seems as smart and calculating as he is; the movie has been setting up Munny's ultimate fate one step after another, marching inexoribly towards his death the entire time, hasn't it? It's already torn down the myth of the american gunslinger by this point, doesn't it make sense for him to die onscreen physically now as well? By showing us that he has young children, alone at home, without a mother, only worsens the dread. If Munny dies what will happen to them? By making the situation more real, we feel that much more is at stake in this contest, and the tension of it all enough to stretch any viewer.
Clint Eastwood's Own Legend and Mythos
It strikes me that for all its meditation on the genre, Unforgiven is also destined to join the ranks of the very films it scrutinizes. Unforgiven is, in the end, just another western itself. Oh, but it is also so much more, for all the reasons I've just mentioned and also for one final one that actually has less to do with the film itself than the history of its maker, Clint Eastwood.
I remember watching the film with a few friends once, a few of whom had seen it before and some who hadn't as well. At the end of it all, one of them turned to me to say "Man it would be cool to see a movie about William Munny's past." I remember the first thing I could think of was, maybe we already have. As a star in nearly a dozen film westerns (including the famous "Dollars" Trilogy) and countless TV westerns as well, sometimes I can't help but wonder if the Man with No Name we all became so enthralled with didn't eventually become William Munny. He certainly did in a figurative sense, Eastwood did indeed go from the one part in his earlier career to the other at his end, and looking at it all from this frame of mind it's an interesting thought that with Unforgiven, our legendary character finally arrives at the end of their journey.
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