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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...

In the classic Westerns, before the genre got all psychological and had people kissing everything except their horse and girl friend, there was a mandatory scene with a mandatory line. Early in the movie the bad guy would confront the good guy and say, “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.” The rest of the movie consisted of everyone choosing sides, then the final, shoot-em-up, in which the good guy (against all odds) prevails. The classic version is Gary Cooper in High Noon. More complex is Clint Eastwood in The Unforgiven. The Byzantine version, in which a...