Clint Eastwoods Unforgiven - Movie Review Example

Unforgiven Introduction Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven takes his role as a star, movie producer and Hollywood director to wield power on the basis of their creative control in film making process. He brings out aspects of cultural identity during this particular era. Clint presents some prostitutes with a reward of $1000 for whoever gets to kill Quick Mike and Davey Boy hunting. These two cowboys disfigured one of their own ladies known as Delilah. Munny is one of the murderers recruited by Schofield Kid to kill the cowboys. All actions that Munny does later haunt him and he feels unforgiven by all the people he had killed. Directed by Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven uses low key lighting to incorporate English influence, best known for dramatization of issues that applied in the olden days such as revenge and murders to gain satisfaction. The Unforgiven portrays the myth of the Old West on how it portrays war through the ugly scenes that it presents. It brings out the theme through its drama effects and addresses the Production Code’s Prohibition against excessive onscreen violence. Unforgiven thus provides an example of film noir as a genre that reflects the film industry’s strategy of brand recognition, the influence of Western expressionism, and the genre’s creative treatment of potentially objectionable themes under the restrictions of the Production Code. Discussion At the start of the film, Munny has the urge to kill but later after ambushing the cowboys killing Bunting he retreats and resents from his old ways. The revenge plans he has for Bill makes him kill them together with some deputies which later retaliates back to him as he try to get over the dead he has killed (Belton. 123). Munny retains is character of a person with bad intentions who can kill and do malicious things to other people such as killing the cowboys. His individual traits are recognized from one performance to another. Schane does not portray his character well and could revert back to his friendly personality that he has always had since his childhood. He only becomes a murderer later hence we cannot really say much about his ability to get back to his friendly ways. The film portrays the untamed west as full of evil practices such as murder, prostitution which is supported by others, lack of proper justice and law as people are not allowed to handle guns yet they still have them, revenge,, feminism and law enforcement. Munny embraces several of his traits by having a pistol, a rule against the law, supporting prostitution by saying that he would return to the city if they are mistreated again, murders several people like Bill and feminism where he leaves his children to go and carry out execution plans for Kid (Ebert, 87). Bill pursues Munny with a posse and finds him alone, not in the company of Kid. After an intense dialogue and fighting, they engage in a battle that leaves Bill injured. As Munny takes revenge, he kills Bill who leaves him before he dies. Bill tells Munny that they will meet in hell and these books him for that due the thoughts he has. The curse instead of engaging in a peaceful conversation haunts Munny and he feels that he should not have killed him. The unforgiveness he had for others has now turned to him and he feels unforgiven by the dead. Munny leaves his wife and children to carry out execution plans for Bill. The pig farmer’s wife lives in misery and she later dies, leaving Munny a widower. This is perhaps the reason why he defends prostitutes from being beaten up. This is due to his negligence of the wife that makes him feel guilty and defend those who do not seem to be worth it. He piously repeats the temperance and decency creed of his dead wife as a series of homiletic principles learnt by rote and constantly referring to her intervention as a powerfully transforming moment of his life. Munny’s willingness to kill and anger is more directed to him more than his enemies. The Unforgiven presents Munny as willing to kill, while his friend Ned is his opposite. Later as he tries to seek vengeance on those who killed his friend, everything gets back to him. He has to be willing to forgive so that he can seek justice for Ned, rather than trying to kill, something which Ned was not fond of (Belton, 67). In Clint’s Unforgiven, Munny gets his woes back in a terrible manner. He has been hired by Kid to do the dirty job, but the murders that he gets involved in retreat back to him in an unfathomable experience. Munny gets caught and he is quizzed several times about his involvement in murders and related cases. Most of the murders he denies saying that he did all that under the influence of alcohol and could not remember any. The souls that he killed are seeking justice in their own way that is the reason why the long arm of the law final catches up with him (Jefford, 23). In a handful of scattered scenes, he confides to Ned that he is haunted by the horror of his earlier deeds. The memories of what he did are imprinted in his mind as the details of a series of terrible atrocities that he committed. In the delirium brought up by the fever and his beating he cries out aloud saying that he is afraid to die and he dreamt of his wife being eaten by worms. Unforgiven champions and critiques cowboy masculinity, arguing that it debunks the myth of Westerns. It reminds of his body failings but also celebrates his return to masculine form as a legendary gunfighter who single handedly vanquishes Bill, the corrupt sheriff. Munny’s restoration to his former status as a gunfighter symbolizes American identity in the post-Cold War era. She contends that, like Big Whiskey, a weaponless world is a dangerous world. It is only when Munny returns to Big Whiskey that justice is achieved through the violent elimination of the autocratic Little Bill, a symbol of post-Cold War despots who must be eliminated through violent U.S. intervention in hostile nations’ affairs. Little Bill fails to distinguish between property rights and moral rights. In avenging the death of Ned and the disfigurement of Delilah, Munny asserts the priority of moral, human rights over an economy based on the definition of people of color and women as property. Conclusion As a longtime and very successful Hollywood luminary, Clint Eastwood exemplifies multiple aspects of the star system. Nowhere is the power he wields as a star, producer, and director more evident than in Unforgiven (King, 35). As a Clint Eastwood western, Unforgiven bears the hallmarks of Eastwood’s star persona as a cowboy anti-hero, the influence he wields over the filmmaking process through his role as a one-man talent package, and the way that his role as a gunfighter who returns to form dramatizes aspects of American identity in the post-Cold War era. Works Cited Belton, John. “The Star System. American Cinema/American Culture, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 87-121. Print. Belton, John. “The Making of the West.” American Cinema/American Culture, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 262-263. Print. Ebert, Roger. “Unforgiven.” Internet Movie Database. n. pag. Web. date accessed. Jeffords, Susan. “Masculinity and the Reagan Legacy.” Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era, New Brunswick, NJ, 1994. 178-193. Print. King, Geoff. “Star Power.” New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 147-177. Print. Read More