Unforgiveness
January 30, 2009
The other night I saw one of my favorite westerns on television, and decided to watch it. The movie was Eastwood’s Unforgiven, and it was on the Hallmark channel, which I found a pretty unlikely venue for a movie about a bunch of whores who decide to avenge a brutal attack on one of their own by pooling their savings to hire killers. Was Hallmark hoping that the movie’s depiction of the brutal consequences that follow will persuade more people to send “get well soon” cards instead?
Anyway, I’ve always loved this movie, because it is just so high-concept for a western, a genre which is often seen as a collection of simplistic tales promoting the cult of an outdated masculine ideal. It is thematically dense, raising a number of provocative themes – age, the romantic myths which surround violence, revenge, etc. – and it does all this from a stark, morally ambivalent perspective that has more to do with film noir than it does with Bonanza. In addition, it benefits from so much acting horsepower – Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris – that it feels like almost an embarrassment of riches.
I grew up watching Eastwood in innumerable westerns; it was some of the best quality-time my father and I spent together. Now, later in my life, I choose this one again and again as the one to grow old with.
