Tuesday, March 18, 2008

the western post




The movie Unforgiven, although featuring all of Clint Eastwoods insane amounts of rugged handsomeness, has a rather unconventional protagonist. throughout the film, Will is never has the certainty and conviction to get his bounty. He constantly has reluctance haunting him in the form of his dead wife, who he claims has healed him of his old problems. The movie doesn't establish that Will is undoubtedly justified. Throughout the movie, Will even constantly questions himself as to whether he should kill the two "criminals". The movie questions the old mythical and overly glorified conceptions of heroism in the West. Both of the "criminal's" deaths are not glorified at all. Eastwood portrays them both very realistically: dying in fear.
In fact, the showdown at the very end isn't even between Will and the criminals. The main antagonist is actually Bill, who spends most of the movie not even knowing about Will. It's only at the end of the movie, when Will has the showdown with Bill that they meet. And the funny thing is, Bill is actually the one that society views as respectable, and Will is the disreputable outlaw and killer. After the showdown, Will is undoubtedly shown to be the wrongdoer, but the audience doesn't sympathize at all with Bill; I was actually cheering Will on. I mean, the final showdown ultimately comes down to a battle of ruggedness and Bill honestly had nothing compared to Clint Eastwood.

2 comments:

Rima H said...

let me just tell ya that you are amazing for mentioning Clint Eastwood's rugged handsomeness and that i'm with you on the whole bill had no ruggedness compared to clint! hahah good use of words!! :]]

Ross Neal said...

Yeah, there no comparison to manly ruggedness when it comes To Clint Eastwood. I mean he's the Chuck Norris of the west, unstoppable and handsome. I don't feel at all that it was wrong to kill Bill who took advantage of his job by going out of his way to punish innocents.