Unforgiven Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

 Title: Unforgiven
Year: 1992
Director: Clint Eastwood
Country: US
Language: English

Unforgiven, much like John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, is a critique of Hollywood’s treatment of the West. Director Clint Eastwood rethinks how we view the Western and, to a greater extent, America. His film questions how we understand a Western hero, how we applaud the hero’s violent ways, and how history is so often exaggerated. The film represents a turning point in Eastwood's filmography; after this he would slowly inch away from Hollywood and attempt to make more mature pictures. 

 Retired Old West gunslinger William Munny (Clint Eastwood)  reluctantly takes on one last job, with the help of his old partner (Morgan Freeman) and a young man (Richard Harris). 

Six years prior to its release, Clint Eastwood bought Unforgiven's screenplay from David Webb. He waited on it not because he wanted to make changes, but Eastwood wanted to make the picture when it was more relevant to Hollywood and his career.  Eastwood maintains that his intentions behind the film were to provide a commentary on violence in cinema, saying “We’ve reached a stage of our history, where I said to myself that violence shouldn’t be a source of humor or attraction.” Aside from the ending, the majority of the film is grim and portrays violence as having dire consequences. 

By 1992, the typical Western had lost an enormous amount of popularity. Audiences were sick of tradition and myth; they wanted truth and humanity in the Old West. Hollywood would oblige and Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves won 7 Oscars in 1990. Unforgiven would not only tap into what audiences needed at the time (becoming a financial success in doing so), but it would also be the first of many of Eastwood's self reflective pictures. Perhaps, at the time, he regretted his past contribution to a culture of violence.

Eastwood exposes typical Western Tropes and reverses them for the sake of his film. The heroes defend the honor of prostitutes and not a God-fearing innocent. Rugged gunslingers are exposed as cowards and weaklings and liars, while others find they have outlived any desire to take another man’s life. He denies a west full of heroes and villains; claiming that only drunken fools with big mouths managed to make themselves considered "legends".