Just re-watched Unforgiven, a good movie if there ever was one.

For those who haven't seen it, it's all about Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman (and some little weasel)  setting out to get a $1000 reward for killing a couple cowboys who sliced up some 'hos (in an imaginary Wyoming town set maybe about 1880).

It's sort of a White Knight drill with a money incentive, and the whores (the term the movie uses) are major characters throughout the film, and portrayed sympathetically throughout.

It starts out with a couple cowboys slicing up a girl really badly because she giggled about his little dick, and how the sheriff Gene Hackman blows it off, so the girls take it into their own hands, which pretty much sets off a series of battles in the town, with cold blooded Hackman beating the shit out of Richard Harris and Morgan Freeman, only to eventually get his own ass shot off by Eastwood.

There's all sorts of individual psych dramas here, with the girls torn up about the situation, and the weasel and Freeman alike not liking to shoot people, while Eastwood kills pretty coldly when he's drunk - otherwise, he's a pretty decent fellow.  

There's an interesting scene between Eastwood and the cut girl Delilah, where he declines a freebie and then tries to explain he didn't mean to hurt her feelings.

Anyway, it's a film almost everybody here would like, and could watch a half dozen times without figuring out completely.

Yeah, that's a good movie.  Loved it when Eastwood blew away the skinny bartender, "I'm the owner of this establishment, I bought it from Mr. Greely..."        BAM!!!
Hackman aka "Little Bill", "Mr. you just killed an unarmed man!"
Eastwood, "He should have armed himself, before decorating his saloon with my friend!  I'm here to kill you Little Bill!  Anyone else that don't want to get killed, better run along!"

Classic Eastwood!

Good story, great cast.

I like the way the film provokes questions about the good and evil and whether those things actually exist.

the fight over the girls; and the backdrop is that Eastwood's big hangup is over his dead wife who he credits with making him sober.

The girls as a group are portrayed pretty sympathetically - you can't help but feel they're being screwed figuratively in every way.

seemed like a reversion to the old, "bad" Will Munny who killed from spite - because while Skinny was a general asshole, he was far from the worst, and it wasn't at all clear that he had anything to do with putting Ned out front.

I like Eastwood as director-producer as much as the way he plays the part.


Little Bill is such a cocky SOB, he doesn't understand what he sets loose when he lets the cowboys run free, and then he struggles to control it by beating up everybody who comes thru town with a gun.

I'd have fucked Delilah in a NY minute.  Scars or not, she was a cute babe, and I think they intended that.

I mean, about the girls, etc.

Don't need discussion of the guy who gets shot sitting on the can.  

When that guy said, "man, I gotta go" he had no idea how permanent his leave-taking was to be!

undo the damage - you can't unwind the tape of Delilah getting hurt, or scarred.

What do you think would have been a fair resolution?  There are both criminal and civil issues here.


IMHO, this is a good example of the reason to draw a clear line between words and deeds.   So this guy gets his feelings hurt by somebody giggling at him - so the fuck what?  How the hell does that justify beating a person up in any way, let alone cutting them up for life?

I think they cast her as very pretty because of the sympathy factor.

I remember thinking long and hard about it.  It's such a cinematic landmark, one of those films that is more like a piece of literature than merely a hollywood blockbuster.  At first, I thought of it as Clint Eastwood's way of tying up loose ends; after years of playing tough cowboys and gunslingers, he wanted to show people what happens to gunfighters after they retire (IF they retire).  Later, I started viewing Unforgiven as an indictment of Hollywood screenwriters and producers for portraying violence as glamorous or (worse) inconsequential.  Violence in Unforgiven is neither.  

Wikipedia has a very thorough and well-written review of the major themes of this movie.  This is a quote from the article:  

"In Unforgiven, violence is not glorious or heroic, but rather is stereotyped as a painful expression of insecure masculinity. We also see the influence of women on this, generally stereotyped as a civilizing presence....  However, as with many of the themes in the film, the influence of women is not clear cut and absolutely good or evil. While in some instances they act as a "civilizing" force, it is the prostitutes who offer the bounty and demand blood despite the victim's willingness to forgive her attackers."

Shot in Italy with a European cast, in Spain, an American Star and ripping off the script from a Japanese Samari director.  That's filmmaking.  That's the real West.

""the influence of women is not clear cut and absolutely good or evil. While in some instances they act as a "civilizing" force, it is the prostitutes who offer the bounty and demand blood despite the victim's willingness to forgive her attackers.""

There's 2 separate offenses in any criminal attack, the attack on the community, which is crime; and the attack on a private person, which is a civil problem.

So Delilah's forgiveness, or resignation, or whatever, does not mitigate the threat to the other girls, or indeed anybody else who might inadvertently insult somebody.

I think you can see that in many situations, that group members will (legitimately) feel more threatened than the victim, who may be merely resigned.

I think the reviews in Wiki, Imdb and Rotten Tomatoes just scratch the surface of a very complex film.

What's interesting is that the whole reason for the film's conflicts are in the basic man-woman conflicts, not only hookers vs attacker vs White Knight mercenaries, but also in Munny's relationship with his own wife.

"I think the reviews in Wiki, Imdb and Rotten Tomatoes just scratch the surface of a very complex film."

I agree.  But they are accessible and, in this case, fairly well-written.  Besides, the author of the article is probably just a layman expressing his or her opinions, and therefore just as qualified to expound on the subject as you and me.

shot mostly in Canada, it's almost noir.  I think it's the water.

Half a dozen times without completely figuring it out?

Maybe for you, Jacko. But being a little slow to pick up on the obvious is something you seem to excel at.

I was hoping some of the ladies would weigh in about the girls' roles.

But I doubt that many chix watch many Eastwood flix.