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Unforgiven
(1992)
In producer/actor/director Clint Eastwood's Best Picture-winning,
acclaimed revisionistic western that provided an unromanticized
view of life on the frontier
- it was his own tribute to his legendary legacy in Sergio Leone's
low-budget 'spaghetti' westerns, and a return to his most successful
film genre. It was the winner of four Academy Awards, including Best
Picture - the third western to win the top prize. This serious, dark,
film-noirish, violent tale of retribution radically redefined and
realistically debunked and demythologized the grandeur and romanticism
of the Western genre.
- in this modern-day classic
western shot on location, Eastwood reprised his film origins -
as a gritty and weathered Western character (e.g., The Man With
No Name) and as his urbanized 'Dirty Harry' vigilante in Don Siegel's
films. Eastwood played the role of William Munny, a weakened, once-violent,
mythological, retired but reformed gunfighter - also an aging and
struggling Kansas pig farmer, father, and widower (when his wife
Claudia died of smallpox in 1878) who had given up drinking. However,
the opening scrolling title card described his past reputation
as a mean-spirited killer: "A known thief and murderer, a
man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
- in the early 1880s, the
town of Big Whiskey, WY was run by mean, corrupt, sadistic, and autocratic
Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett (Gene Hackman, winner of Best Supporting Actor).
In the town, the local brothel was owned by Skinny Dubois (Anthony
James) and run by the madam, Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher). Two
vicious cowboys, Davey (Rob Campbell) and Mike (David Mucci) viciously
knife-attacked and slashed the face of one of the prostitutes named
Delilah Fitzgerald (Anna Thomson)
- when the town's Sheriff arbitrarily
reduced the punishment from hanging, to horse-whipping, to a payment
of ponies, to a simple fine for Delilah's disfigurement, it was considered
an outrage. Due to these and other injustices, the women of the brothel
collectively offered a $1,000 bounty for the two cowboys
William Munny (Clint Eastwood)
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Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman)
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The "Schofield Kid" (Jaimz Woolvett)
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- months later, Munny reluctantly
decided to take on one last bounty-hunting job to get the money for
his children when he teamed up with his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan
Freeman) (whose common-law wife Sally Two Trees (Cherrilene Cardinal)
objected to Ned's association with Munny) and a young, cocky, bounty-hunting
braggart named the "Schofield
Kid" (Jaimz Woolvett), to travel to Big Whiskey to track down
the two cowboys and collect the reward. Over a campfire, Munny claimed
to Ned that he had truly reformed himself after marrying: "I'm
just a fella now. I ain't no different than anyone else no more."
- others who had already arrived in the frontier town
of Big Whiskey included white-haired Britisher English Bob (Richard
Harris) and his nervous biographer Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek). The
Sheriff - who thwarted the efforts of anyone attempting to collect
the bounty, convinced Beauchamp to become his own biographer, while
he ran English Bob out of town after almost beating him to death
- upon the arrival of the trio,
the Sheriff regarded Munny as an outsider and severely beat him,
although Ned and the Kid were able to escape unharmed from an upper-floor
window in the saloon while visiting with prostitutes
- after some time passed and Munny healed (while his buddies were "taking
advances" on the bounty money with "free ones" from the prostitutes),
the threesome was able to locate one of the cowboys (Davey) as he
was roping calves, and they eliminated him (Ned fired on his horse,
and Munny killed the downed, injured cowboy)
- Ned decided to give up the bounty quest and departed
from the group to return home, but he was apprehended by the Sheriff's
men, questioned, bare-back whipped (while tied to jail cell bars),
and ultimately murdered
- meanwhile, Munny and the Kid located the whereabouts of the 2nd cowboy Mike, who was being
protectively guarded by the Sheriff's cohorts. During a visit to
an outhouse, Mike was gunned down and killed by the Kid
- following the murder, in a stark scene under a lone
tree, the distraught Kid admitted that it was in fact his first
killing, although he bragged about falsely killing five men earlier,
and he was disturbed by it: ("It don't seem real, how he ain't gonna never breathe again, ever, how
he's dead"). He resolved and promised Munny that he would never
kill again and gave up his gun: "I'm never gonna use it again.
I won't kill nobody no more. I ain't like you, Will." Munny
advised the young Kid: "It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man.
You take away all he's got an' all he's ever gonna have....We all
have it comin', kid."
- now that the two cowboys were
dead, the prostitutes paid off Munny and the Kid, but they also
learned that Ned had been gruesomely murdered by the Sheriff. While
Munny remained behind, The Kid was told to return home to split
the money with Ned's family and buy himself spectacles, although
he was worried that Munny might kill him for the money - until
he was reassured: "You don't have to worry, Kid. I ain't gonna kill you.
You're the only friend I got"
- as he rode into town
outside Skinny's brothel-saloon, Munny observed Ned's bloodied, tortured,
upright corpse in an open casket with a written warning ("THIS
IS WHAT HAPPENS TO ASSASSINS AROUND HERE"). Fearlessly,
he entered the bar with his raised shotgun, and cocked it. Following
his own code of retribution and redemption, he shot the unarmed Skinny
for "decorating" his saloon with his friend ("He should
have armed himself if he's gonna decorate his saloon with my friend");
when criticized by the Sheriff for being a coward, Munny identified
himself to the Sheriff as he had always been remembered, and conformed
to his reputation as the meanest and most fearsome, cold-blooded
killer:
"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."
- Munny's grim mission of moral
revenge, in loyalty to Ned, brought a tense stand-off between the
cool-headed Sheriff and the "mangy scoundrel." When Munny's
gun misfired, he tossed his worthless shotgun at the Sheriff to
distract him, and then fired at Little Bill and some of his deputies
(Clyde, Andy, and Fatty) with the rifle. He wounded Little Bill
and killed five of the others. With his pistol drawn, Munny brutally
warned the others who cowered before him: "Any man don't want
to get killed better clear on out the back."
- seeking bloody, unglamorous retributive revenge
for Ned's death, Munny pointed his shotgun at the downed, wounded
Sheriff, who begged not to die. Entirely
at Munny's mercy after his gun was shot away, Little Bill pleaded
and lamented that he wouldn't live long enough to enjoy his dream
house in old age: ("I don't deserve this, to die like this. I was building a house").
Munny responded coldly: "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it" - the Sheriff's last words were: "I'll
see you in hell, William Munny." After an extended pause with
the gun barrel floating above Little Bill's head, Munny blasted him
- unforgiven
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Little Bill: "I don't deserve
this. To die like this..."
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- striding out of the saloon,
he shot a moaning and wounded Clyde, and then crouched down and
yelled a further warning to anyone on the street who dared to shoot
at him as he left town: ("All right, I'm coming out. Any man I see out there, I'm gonna shoot him. Any
sumbitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only gonna kill him, but I'm
gonna kill his wife, all his friends, and burn his damn house down")
- he escaped unharmed, and as he rode away past Ned's body, he starkly
announced and commanded further frontier justice in the film's final line of dialogue:
"You better bury Ned right! Better not cut up, nor otherwise harm
no whores, or I'll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches."
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Opening Scrolling Title Card
English Bob (Richard Harris)
English Bob with His Nervous Biographer Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek)
The Shooting Death of 1st Cowboy Davey (Rob Campbell)
by Munny
The Shooting of 2nd Cowboy Mike (David Mucci) in an Outhouse
by the Schofield Kid
The Kid Admitting It Was His First Killing
Munny to the Kid: "It's a hell of a thing, killin'
a man"
Ned Captured, Bare-back Whipped, and Murdered by the Sheriff
Munny to the Kid: "I ain't gonna kill you. You're the only friend I got"
Ned's Upright Tortured and Bloodied Corpse in a Casket
Outside the Saloon
Munny's Confrontational Shoot-out In the Saloon
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