Unforgiven

“It’s horrible, boring and not worth your time.”
These were the words going through my mind when it was announced we would be watching a western film called “Unforgiven”. I was definitely a skeptic at first, I was expecting the typical male to constantly provoke others with a beer-induced slur wanting to shoot any man in his sight who seemed slightly annoying but, was gladly surprised to see it wasn’t all of what I initially deemed it to be.
Clint Eastwood put up a rather applaudable performance as the protagonist William Munny, a retired killer thanks to his late wife, considering his role of both directing and producing the film. As the film progresses, temptation settles in as his desperation to provide for his children intensifies by the bounty offered by the woman of a brothel through the “Schofield” kid played by Jaimz Woolvett. Once Munny decides to take on this offer he makes his way to his partner of his past Ned Logan played by Morgan Freeman to join in on their quest to seek revenge for the men who cut-up the whore-house woman's face in return of enough money to gain smiles from his kids. The 1992 American revisionist Western film was released on the 3rd of August which went on to gather a total of four Oscar academy awards: Best Picture and Best Director for Clint Eastwood, Best Supporting Actor for Gene Hackman, and Best Film Editing for editor Joel Cox.
The film for me almost served as a finale to the downhill genre, from the opening shot of the barren house with the lonely grave to the end of the film which is the same. Eastwood himself stated that Unforgiven would be his last Western in fear of both repeating himself or replicating another's work.
The film evoked distant, ambivalent feelings similar to the characters of the film themselves. Throughout the film, we are able to realise how every character possesses such qualities that allow us as the audience to be able to easily identify and categorize them as either good or bad. I felt this helped engage me further into the film as I thought I was rather onto it. The film also goes against typical films as the four lead actors cast were over 55 years of age and offers more than your typical Western
The film defies typical Westerns as it shows how the “heroic Old West” myth is a lie and destructive. The Western genre showcases a part of America's history, and in Unforgiven Eastwood identified the issue with glamorising the “heroic Old West” as since time has passed more and more people have realised that it wasn’t as heroic and glamorous as what was shown in the past Westerns. The film was added to the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2004, where Unforgiven was deemed as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Unforgiven also incorporates the cost and limit of violence and tends to demystify violence.
As the film neared its end I felt a mix of emotions. I felt the film was done very well and redeemed itself to be a great Western, but also felt slightly alienated from the characters and message of the film. The film concludes itself by playing a gentle finale song (Claudia's theme) in the background when showing his homestead where Munny had struggled to master the wilderness both internally and externally. The barren isolated house has its only accompaniment of the wide clothing line and the lonely grave under the tall barren tree symbolising the Western genre’s popularity- dead.