The 1992 Oscar-winning Western, Unforgiven, is Clint Eastwoods tribute to his mentors, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel. Unforgiven, regarded by many as the last true Western, truly consummates the Western genre - a genre illuminated by the greats like John Ford, John Wayne, Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, and Clint Eastwood himself. The movie not only revived Eastwoods career as an actor, but also testified his directorial credentials. Unforgiven depicts a clash of egos, a battle of wits between two supreme caricatures, William Munny and Little Bill - brilliantly portrayed by Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman, respectively. The movie’s protagonists are deeply convoluted, grey-shaded characters who are not bounded by the tenets of virtue or vice. Little Bill Daggett, the tough, autocratic Sheriff of the town called Big Whisky, is totally committed to keeping peace in the town, even at the cost of freedom and justice. William Munny, once a personification of pillage and slaughter in the Old West, is an aging farmer bereft by the untimely loss of his wife who was the reason behind his reformation. In the end, the movie proves to be an epic encounter that obscures the fine lines that separate good from evil, man from myth. Sergio Leones ubiquitously renowned ‘Dollars Trilogy’, starring Clint Eastwood as ‘Man With No Name’, single-handedly changed the very face of the Western genre. A genre that was driven by pride, honor, chivalry and machismo, being limited to the realm of black, white, virtue, and vice, soon got transformed into a more real and brutal terrain governed by real-life, grey shaded characters, primarily driven by greed and lust, but not completely devoid of human virtues. Leone’s exploits sowed the seeds for development of a new stream in Western film-making, which served to be an intermediate between the old Western style and Leones Spaghetti style. The early signs of this momentous transformation were most apparent in Sam Peckinpahs The Wild Bunch (1969). This new style was later picked up by Clint Eastwood who developed it further to suit his own style, most evident in his films like The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and Pale Rider (1985). Eastwood offered his official farewell to the Western genre by making his epic masterpiece, Unforgiven (1992) for which he also won the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars. The two scenes that Eastwood and Hackman share in the movie are absolutely magical and serve as the exact antithesis of each other. The first encounter between William Munny (Eastwood) and Little Bill (Hackman) portrays Munny at his most vulnerable, pitted against a brutally dominant and ruthless Bill. The second encounter, which also happens to be the movie’s finale, is a completely different affair with the merciless Munny calling the shots against a helpless Bill. The climactic scene, being starkly unforgiving, immensely adds to the brilliance and power of the movie. Unforgiven is undoubtedly a quintessential Western and a must-watch for the fans of the genre and also those who want to acquaint themselves with it. The full review can be read at: apotpourriofvestiges/2012/03/unforgiven-1992-clint-eastwoods-tribute.html #Unforgiven #Western #ClintEastwood #GeneHackman
Posted on: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 16:53:02 +0000
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