Unforgiven

For other uses, see Unforgiven (disambiguation).

Unforgiven
film poster by Bill Gold
Directed by	Clint Eastwood
Produced by	Clint Eastwood
Written by	David Webb Peoples
Starring	Clint Eastwood Gene Hackman Morgan Freeman Richard Harris
Music by	Lennie Niehaus
Cinematography	Jack N. Green
Editing by	Joel Cox
Studio	Malpaso Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	August 7, 1992 (1992-08-07)
Running time	131 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$14.4 million
Box office	$159,157,447

Unforgiven is a 1992 American Western film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood with a screenplay written by David Webb Peoples. The film tells the story of William Munny, an aging outlaw and killer who takes on one more job years after he had hung up his guns and turned to farming. A dark Western that deals frankly with the uglier aspects of violence and the myth of the Old West, it stars Eastwood in the lead role, with Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris.

Eastwood dedicated the movie to deceased directors and mentors Don Siegel and Sergio Leone. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Hackman), and Best Film Editing. Eastwood himself was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, but he lost to Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman. In 2004, Unforgiven was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The film was only the third western to win the Oscar for Best Picture following Cimarron (1931) and Dances With Wolves (1990).

Plot

A group of prostitutes in Big Whiskey, Wyoming, led by Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher), offers a $1,000 reward to whoever can kill Quick Mike (David Mucci) and "Davey-Boy" Bunting (Rob Campbell), two cowboys who disfigured Delilah Fitzgerald (Anna Levine), one of their own. This upsets the local sheriff, Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), a former gunfighter and now an obsessive keeper of the peace who doesn't allow guns or criminals in his town. Little Bill had given the two men leniency, despite their crime.

Miles away in Kansas, the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett), a boastful young man, visits the pig farm of William Munny (Clint Eastwood), seeking to recruit him to kill the cowboys. In his youth, Munny was a bandit who was notorious for being a vicious, cold-blooded murderer, but he is now a repentant widower raising two children. Though Munny initially refuses to help with the assassination, his farm is failing, putting his children's future in jeopardy. Munny reconsiders a few days later and sets off to catch up with the Kid. On his way, Munny recruits Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), another retired gunfighter who reluctantly leaves his wife (Cherrilene Cardinal) to go along.

Back in Wyoming, gunfighter English Bob (Richard Harris) and his biographer, W. W. Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek), arrive in Big Whiskey, also seeking the reward. Little Bill and his deputies disarm Bob, and Bill beats him savagely, hoping to set an example for other would-be assassins. The next morning Bob is ejected from town, but Beauchamp decides to stay and write about Bill, who has impressed him with his tales of old gunfights and seeming knowledge of the inner workings of a gunfighter's psyche.

Munny, Logan and the Kid arrive later amid a rain storm and go to the saloon/whorehouse to discover the cowboys' location. Munny has a bad fever after riding in the rain, and is sitting alone in the saloon when Little Bill and his deputies arrive to confront him. Little Bill has no idea who Munny is, and after finding a pistol on him he beats him brutally and kicks him out onto the street. Logan and the Kid, upstairs getting "advances" on their payment from the prostitutes, escape out a back window. The three regroup at a barn outside of town, where they nurse Munny back to health. The movie brings into question the morality of complex characters, a sadistic Sheriff who is supposed to represent justice, and the human story of outlaw assassins acting to avenge a sweet woman who was cut up by one of the cowboys.

Three days later, they ambush a group of cowboys and kill Bunting – although it becomes apparent that Logan and Munny no longer have much stomach for murder. Logan decides to return home while Munny and the Kid head to the cowboys' ranch, where the Kid ambushes Quick Mike in an outhouse and kills him. After they escape, a very distraught Kid confesses he had never killed anyone before, and renounces the gunfighter lifestyle. When Little Sue (Tara Frederick) meets the two men to give them the reward, they learn that Logan was captured by Little Bill's men and tortured to death, but not before giving up the identities of his two accomplices. The Kid heads back to Kansas to deliver the reward money to Munny and Logan's families, while Munny heads into town to take revenge on Bill.

When Munny heard that his friend had been killed by Little Bill, he begins drinking whiskey, a sign that he has reverted to his old ways. That night, Logan's corpse is displayed in a coffin outside the saloon. Inside, Little Bill has assembled a posse to pursue Munny and the Kid. Munny walks in alone against Little Bill and over a dozen of his deputies, and promptly kills Skinny Dubois (Anthony James), the saloon owner and pimp of the prostitutes. When Little Bill accuses him of being a coward for killing an unarmed man, Munny responds, "well he should have armed himself, if he is going to decorate his saloon with my friend." Munny then tries to execute Little Bill, but his shotgun misfires, and a confused and violent gunfight suddenly erupts with bullets flying everywhere. The real William Munny comes to the surface, instinctively dropping to one knee, and successfully shooting Little Bill and five of his men single-handed, leaving them all wounded or dead. Munny orders everyone else who doesn't want to get killed to flee, and the remaining men clear out the back. Beauchamp unsuccessfully attempts an interview with Munny while Munny grabs another drink at the bar, before catching and stopping wounded Little Bill from reaching for his pistol. Bill curses Munny -- "I'll see you in hell, William Munny" -- before the latter finishes him with a final gunshot. Munny threatens the townsfolk before finally leaving town, warning that he will return if Logan is not buried properly or if another prostitute is harmed.

The final scene is a bookend shot of Munny's farm, and of Munny paying a final visit to his wife's grave. The epilogue text that follows reads that Munny and his family were rumored to have moved to San Francisco and "prospered in dry goods".

Cast

• Clint Eastwood as William "Will" Munny
• Gene Hackman as Little Bill Daggett
• Morgan Freeman as Ned Logan
• Richard Harris as English Bob
• Jaimz Woolvett as The Schofield Kid
• Saul Rubinek as W. W. Beauchamp
• Frances Fisher as Strawberry Alice
• Anna Levine as Delilah Fitzgerald
• David Mucci as Quick Mike
• Rob Campbell as Davey Bunting
• Anthony James as Skinny Dubois
• Tara Frederick as Little Sue
• Beverley Elliott as Silky
• Liisa Repo-Martell as Faith
• Josie Smith as Crow Creek Kate
• Shane Meier as William Munny Jr.

Production

The film was written by David Webb Peoples, who had written the Oscar-nominated film The Day After Trinity and co-wrote Blade Runner. The concept for the film dated as far back as 1976 under the titles The Cut-Whore Killings and The William Munny Killings. Eastwood delayed the project, partly because he wanted to wait until he was old enough to play his character and to savor it as the last of his western films. Much of the cinematography for the film was shot in Alberta in August 1991 by director of photography Jack Green. Filming took place over 52 days between September and October 1991. Production designer Henry Bumstead, who had worked with Eastwood on High Plains Drifter, was hired to create the "drained, wintry look" of the western.

Reception

Unforgiven received universal acclaim. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes registers a 96% approval rating among reviews. Many critics acclaimed the film for its noir-ish moral ambiguity and atmosphere. They also acclaimed it as a fitting eulogy to the western genre. Jack Methews of the Los Angeles Times described it as "The finest classical western to come along since perhaps John Ford's 1956 The Searchers." Richard Corliss in Time wrote that the film was "Eastwood's meditation on age, repute, courage, heroism – on all those burdens he has been carrying with such grace for decades."

However, the film was not without its critics, including Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert; though the latter still gave it a positive vote, both criticized the picture for being too long and having too many superfluous characters (such as Harris's English Bob, who enters and leaves without ever meeting the protagonists). Ebert did, however, eventually include the film in his "Great Movies" list.

Box office

The film debuted at the top position in its opening weekend. Its earnings of over $13 million on its opening weekend was the best ever opening for an Eastwood film. Unforgiven eventually earned $160 million worldwide in ticket sales and $101 million in the United States alone.

Accolades

Academy Awards

Award	Person
Best Picture	Clint Eastwood
Best Director	Clint Eastwood
Best Editing	Joel Cox
Best Supporting Actor	Gene Hackman
Nominated:
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration	Henry Bumstead Janice Blackie-Goodine
Best Actor	Clint Eastwood
Best Cinematography	Jack N. Green
Best Sound	Les Fresholtz Vern Poore Rick Alexander (as Dick Alexander) Rob Young
Best Original Screenplay	David Webb Peoples

Others

In June 2008, Unforgiven was listed as the fourth best American film in the western genre (behind The Searchers, High Noon, and Shane) in the American Film Institute's "AFI's 10 Top 10" list.

The film makes an appearance in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies. In 2005, Time.com named it one of the 100 best movies of the last 80 years. It was also admitted to the National Film Registry in 2004.

The music for the Unforgiven film trailer that appeared in theatres and on some of the DVD's was composed by Randy J. Shams and Tim Stithem in 1992.^{[citation needed]}

American Film Institute recognition

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - #98
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
  • Sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett - Nominated Villain
  • William Munny - Nominated Hero
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • "It's a hell of a thing killin' a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have." - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - #68
• AFI's 10 Top 10 - #4 Western Film

In 1992, the film poster designer, longtime Eastwood collaborator Bill Gold, won the prestigious Key Art award from The Hollywood Reporter.

References

Bibliography

• Hughes, Howard (2009). Aim for the Heart. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9781845119027. 
• McGilligan, Patrick (1999). Clint: The Life and Legend. London: Harper Collins. ISBN 0006383548. 

External links

• Unforgiven at the Internet Movie Database
• Unforgiven at AllRovi
• Unforgiven at Rotten Tomatoes
• Unforgiven at Box Office Mojo
• Unforgiven at Filmsite.org
• Unforgiven at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
• Psychoanalytic review of Unforgiven