Clint Eastwood's 'Unforgiven' - what do you think?

June 16, 2008 | Apollo 13

[Apollo 13]

Hi everyone - being a relative newbie, I could yet not resist this one: yesterday I saw 'Unforgiven' by Clint Eastwood for the first time. To start: I found it a stunningly good movie. It's been labelled as 'the very last western', or if you will, a revisionist version of trad western fare. I'd agree with both comments; but at the same time it's not out of step with tradional storytelling. What makes it special for me is the deep humanity in it all. Women of low standing are heroines; Clint stays true to the one woman that once saved his life spiritually; yes, he's doomed to return to his old habits, but only because of his deep friendship for the murdered Ned Logan. And Gene Hackman is a superb Little Bill, the sheriff that goes to, ahem, great lengths to keep his small town clean of thugs (irony intended). So IMHO, one to watch again. I wonder: what is the consensus at FR on this one (if there is one?). Many, many comments are welcome! Cheers, A13.

[devere]

I suggest you try imdb.com

[IGOTMINE]

It is a helluva movie.

[Dr. Ursus]

The best western ever. I watched The Outlaw Josey Wales,
yesterday.One of the bounty hunters tat he guns down is
Uncle Leo for Seinfeld.

[zert_28]

One of my favorite all time movies.

[avacado]

Are you an Obama mole trying to establish an identity?

[arderkrag]

Fantastic movie. I always preferred Eastwood’s work over the “cleaner” west of the Wayne/Ford type.

[2banana]

And plus it has some classic lines:

Morgan Freeman (Logan): I sure do miss my bed.
Clint Eastwood (Munny): You said that last night.
Morgan Freeman (Logan): No last night I said I missed my wife, tonight I just miss my goddamn bed.

Gene Hackman (Daggett): You just shot an unarmed man!
Clint Eastwood (Munny): He should have armed himself if he’s gonna decorate his saloon with my friend.

Clint Eastwood (Munny): Hell of a thing, killin’ a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.
Jaimz Woolvett (The Schofield Kid): Yeah, well, I guess he had it comin’.
Clint Eastwood (Munny): We all got it comin’, kid.

Jaimz Woolvett (The Schofield Kid): I ain’t never killed no one before that, Will.
Clint Eastwood (Munny): Well you sure killed the hell outta that guy.

[Sybeck1]

Check out “Open Range” too.

[Tolkien]

He continued to say.

When you kill a man, you've taken away everything he has and everything he was ever going to have.

It was a chilling movie.

I was more scared of the Little Bill character than Munny.

Little Bill was an evil character.

[Vaquero]

it is in my top ten best westerns of all time, including, in no particular order:

Unforgiven
Tombstone
The Shootist
True Grit
Lonesome Dove (the original 6 hour mini series)
The Wild Bunch
The Professionals
Will Penny
The Searchers
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

[Clint N. Suhks]

Of the great Westerns; The Shootist, True Grit, Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven may be my favorite.

[Vaquero]

there wasn’t an innocent adult in the whole movie.

There was a wrong, evil streak in everyone. a great DARK western.

[Dr. Ursus]

The gun battle at the end was great!

[RetiredArmy]

You left off the greatest western of all time, Blazing Saddles!!

[xone]

'he's doomed to return to his old habits'

After he killed Skinny, Little Bill and the deputies who didn't leave, there is no indication Munny returned to his drinking and killing ways. Just on the job for the money for a new start.

[misterrob]

Was that really necessary?

[Red_Devil 232]

The Outlaw Josey Wales I watched it again the other evening. It is a good movie and apparently the Library of Congress thinks the same. In 1996, it was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry.

[ninonitti]

Bill Daggett: I don’t deserve this… to die like this. I was building a house.

Will Munny: ’’’’Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.’’’’ [aims gun]

Little Bill Daggett: I’ll see you in hell, William Munny.

Will Munny: Yeah.

[evets]

[tumblindice]

There was a line about that in the movie: “No one’s innocent” or something like that.
The scene where he’s counseling the kid to take his time in a gunfight mirrors John Wayne’s advice in the `The Shootist.’ And of course, Little Bill’s comment about hell and Nebraska.
Great movie, but no orangutans! Welcome to FR new guy.

[avacado]

I think so.

[LS]

As we know with "global warming," a "consensus" is usually wrong :)

I love the movie. A little long, but very much a harder, more graphic version of one of Eastwood's old "Spaghetti Westerns." The "Little Bill" character is one of the worst villains in the movies, exceeded only by Daniel Day Lewis as "The Butcher" in "Gangs of NY" and by his Plainview character in "There Will Be Blood."

[martin_fierro]

One of the bounty hunters tat he guns down is Uncle Leo for Seinfeld.

Did that guy have dramatic range or what.

[DCPatriot]

The Unforgiven is one of my favorite westerns...right up there with Tombstone [with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer], Outlaw Josey Wales, and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

[Vaquero]

Open Range does have a great gun fight near the end.

Charley: “You the one killed our friend?” Butler: “That’s right. I shot the boy, too. And I enjoyed it”.

BANG!!! Charley draws, and shoots Butler right between the eyes.

Of course like all Costner films he drags it on for another 15 minutes after the climax fight scene. Costner needs a good film editor.

[Tolkien]

there wasn’t an innocent adult in the whole movie. There was a wrong, evil streak in everyone. a great DARK western.

I agree that no one was innocent. But there is a difference between an evil streak and the embodiment of evil. Little Bill ran that town with ruthless abandon.

He told the whores essentially, "Too Bad".

He tormented the writer Beauchamp.

He beat the s**t out of Munny and English Bob.

Hell, he beat Ned to death. What do you call that?

Little Bill was a Nazi before there were Nazi's.

That is why we all enjoyed Munny killing him and his minions at the end.

[OKIEDOC]

Blazing Saddles doomed to the Liberal No Common Sense Politically Correct trash dump.

One of my favorite movies of all times.

On my last trip down to South America the local theater showed the old version subtitled that contained all of the politically incorrect words now doomed by liberals to have the wrong flavor.

[kc2theline]

Like your list but no Open Range?

Also +1 on Unforgiven

[Vaquero]

You left off the greatest western of all time, Blazing Saddles!!

yeah I suppose....but it is a comedy and I include it my top ten comedy’s

[andy58-in-nh]

It's a terrific movie and one of the last great Westerns: a stark portrait of dark and fatally flawed characters, where in the end there is no moral ambiguity behind which any of them can hide. It is a very different film from The Outlaw Josey Wales or any of the Sergio Leone westerns, as much as I love all of them.

[bolobaby]

My favorite line from the movie:

Gene Hackman (Daggett): I was building a house...

Unforgiven is a fantastic movie. One of the best ever.

[dblshot]

From the title,”Clint Eastwood's ‘Unforgiven’ - what do you think?’ I figured this would be about Spike Lee's not forgiving Clint for failure to include enough brothers in Band of Brothers etc.

I like just about all of Clint's movie's. My pick for best is the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. epic, wide sweeping but with character development that was perfect.

[conservativeharleyguy]

“Unforgiven” is good. I’ve always felt that “The Outlaw Josey Wales” is by far his all-time best movie, but I really did enjoy “Unforgiven”.

But,... I am sort of a Western junkie. I even love the bad ones, so maybe my perspective is a bit skewed.

[Mr. Pumblechook]

In movies women of low standing are ALWAYS heroes, or at the very least, highly sympathetic characters, and the “hooker with a heart of gold” (this movie’s full of them) is just about the oldest chiche in the world.

[Clint N. Suhks]

I forgot that one too.

[KenHorse]

What? No Silverado?

Maybe not the most accurate western but I always thought it was pretty good nevertheless!

[Non-Sequitur]

The parts were better than the whole. IMHO, of course.

[AngryCapitolist]

Funny... I dint view Daniel Plainview from “There Will Be Blood” as a villain. I saw him as more of a sympathetic character, felt a little sorry for him, but loved his determination.

“Unforgiven” is a very good movie, but I thought “Open Range” was GREAT!!! A very beautifully filmed picture... lots of landscapes and wide shots. Very pleasing in HD.

[Alberta's Child]

I gotta add The Good, The Bad & The Ugly to that list. Great story line, and the cinematography in that movie was amazing. The way they switched from close-up views of the characters to panoramic views of open country was considered a remarkable, novel approach in film-making at the time.

[Resolute Conservative]

Best western since Conager. Easily in the top 10 of all time, Unforgiven is ggod but not that good.

[andy58-in-nh]

Anyone who dares Bowdlerize a work of art like Blazing Saddles deserves to be tied to a chair and forced to watch Rosie O'Donnell eat a whole lasagna without utensils.

[catman67]

I like youir list, but I would replace “Butch cassidy” wit “Crossfire Trail”. I never liked the Butch movie and Tom Selleck does excellent westerns. Also, The Wild Bunch is an underrated western. It has extremely subtle undercurrents which strike a chord with those who have a sense of not fitting in with what their world has become.

I also think that Val Kilmer deserved an oscar for his performance in Tombstone, another underrated film (much better than Costner’s Wyatt Earp).

[Rebelbase]

My favorite part of Josey Wales is when Eastwood spits tobacco juice on the dog’s head.

[Alberta's Child]

I read somewhere (perhaps it's just a legend) that Clint Eastwood actually bought the screenplay for Unfogiven years ago, and kept it under wraps for a couple of decades because he thought an older version of himself would be an ideal actor for the Munny character.

[cartan]

Wonderful movie. Another favorite Western of mine is Chato’s Land.

[DCPatriot]

You're right! How could I have not included Open Range on my list of top westerns?

Just as Val Kilmer's performance in TOMBSTONE was Oscar-worthy and 'made the movie'...so did Robert Duvall's in OPEN RANGE.

[pennboricua]

one of my favorite too, if you ignore Danny Glover, although he did a good job on the film.

[pennboricua]

best of spaghetti westerns, Once Upon a Time in the West, Henry Fonda, fantastic bad guy.