Newsgroups: bit.listserv.cinema-l
Date:         Wed, 30 Sep 1992 11:35:05 BST
From:         Kerr Avon <lcc@WIN.ICL.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: UNFORGIVEN

>From: "(Steve X. Portigal)" <stevep@SNOWHITE.CIS.UOGUELPH.CA>
>> >SPOILER......................
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>> >I saw UNFORGIVEN last w/end. [ . . . ] A couple of minor quibbles though :
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>> > enjoy
>> >the movie quite so much because he felt that there was no 'good' characters,
>> >varying degrees of evil. What do y`all think ?
>>
>   to me, that was the WHOLE POINT of the film. clint has made enough
>westerns in his time, he wanted to make a movie that wasn't so black and
>white, where your feelings weren't fed to you, where it wasn't clear enough
>to everyone what they were supposed to think and feel. I found this challenging
>and I guess more realistic. the idea of the anti-hero, maybe taken a little
>further.

I agree that one of the points the film was making is that there is no such
thing as black and white, good and bad.  The other point, which is related,
is that the Old West was not the place we usually see in the movies, where
they face each other in the street and draw --- they'd be more likely to
shoot each other in the back, or, even better, when the other guy is unarmed
(like when Clint shoots the barman).

The thing that puzzled (and annoyed) me when I saw the movie was this.
Why, given these points that the film is apparently trying to make, does
the final scene (i.e. from the time Clint enters the saloon) revert to the
stereotypical western?  _Unforgiven_, in the last 15 minutes or so, becomes
the very thing that it has been decrying.

Is the film saying, "This is what you usually see, but we've shown you what
really goes on"?  Or "Just as Will Munny (sp?) can't escape his past, nor
can this film"?

I think that there is a lot of depth to this film (for instance, at times
it seems to be parodying itself, with some really corny dialogue), but I
don't think that the finale worked, given the messages that the film was
sending out prior to that.


>From: "(Currie Thompson)" <cthompso@CC.GETTYSBURG.EDU>
>
>>> 2) Clint's shooting at the end of the movie (when he avenges Ned) has
>>> improved a lot since the start of the movie (when he couldn't hit
>>> anything with a pistol)
>>
>>    I think the alcohol had a great deal to do with it.  It was in
>>his drunken stupor that he was able to do the kind of "wicked" things
>>he was guilty of in the past, IMHO.
>
>    I agree with Milton's observation.  As I suggested in an earlier post,
>on the physical level, the alcohol would tend to hurt his ability to shoot.
>But if one assumes that his inability to shoot is primarily psychological,
>the alcohol would help explain the improvement.

Maybe.  But surely his bad shooting would have more to do with being out
of practice?
		Liam.
		====-
                                   *"This is _the_ Jane Harrington?"
     KERR AVON    |   Work: ICL,   *"(with pride) Yes!"
 aka Liam Cairney |Reading, England*"Jane `Bury me in a Y-shaped
  All e-mail to:- | Home: Glasgow, *    coffin' Harrington?"
lcc@win.icl.co.uk |    Scotland    *         -- Blackadder and Percy
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