[Mind Riot]

I noticed some folks mentioned the film "Unforgiven" in the Tombstone thread and this film is so excellent I thought it deserved it's own thread.

My personal favorite spot in the film is toward the end. Clint's standing there after just shooting the owner of the bar where all the 'posse' is gathering, with his shotgun on everybody.

Throughout the entire film, whenever anyone remarks on his reputation as a gunslinger, killer, and general bad ass ("You're William Munny! I heard you...") he always said piously that he wasn't like that no more and his wife, bless her soul, cured him of all that.

But then Gene Hackman says "You'd be William Munny out of Missouri. Killer of women and children."

And Clint doesn't even blink as he says: "That's right. I've killed women and children. Killed just about everything that walked or crawled at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill. For what you did to Ned." It's like he's gone back to what he used to be for this brief moment of vengeance, and after looking down like a shy kid the whole film he's staring down his gun sights at these guys with this almost animal intensity. Gives me chills every time I see it.



Another thing I like about the film is more general, and that is that it is kind of a demystified western. The hookers in the town are not particularly pretty, and there's no love story with any of them. Everybody is cold, dirty, mostly ugly, and illiterate or nearly so. It's not all glamorous and clean and shiny, and nobody squares off for a quick draw in the street. Killing someone in this film is not easy or fulfilling or righteous, it's just ugly and violent, even when it could be said that it's justified. It's more like what it was really like back then, harsh and difficult, and the people are just people and not so cleanly divided into good guys versus bad guys.


Great film in my opinion, lots to like about it.