This emblematic Clint Eastwood Western is a spiritual sequence of his best role

Are you a fan of “Dirty Harry” or more of a man without a person name? Whatever your preference, there is no doubt that the two are emblematic characters of Clint Eastwood’s filmography. I no longer lean personally towards the latter, although his laconic unknown in the “Dollars trilogy” of Sergio Leone is more a atmosphere than a three -dimensional character. He is barely two -dimensional – I mean, what do we know about him that the cool nickname does not already tell us? He likes to rock a poncho and prefers long and thin chéots to cigarettes or pipes. He saves his right hand for shooting (in “For a few more dollars”, at least), and briefly mentions that he is from Illinois in “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly”. It is almost as much a backdrop as us. We don’t even get much indication what’s going on behind this famous strabismus. As Sergio Leone said that the style of an actor of Eastwood, he had two expressions: with a hat and no hat.

The nameless man is an enigma, a white, and what makes him so memorable, is simply the power of the star of the presence on the screen of Eastwood while his sharp recovery force blows through these three films. Even the term “nameless man” is vague, prepared afterwards by United Artists as a marketing stratagem for the release of films in the United States. For Leone and Eastwood, he was variously known to three nicknames: Joe, Manco and Blondie, respectively. And all that is quite well – the role has made Eastwood one of the best Western cinema actors, and we do not need a detailed biography for him. (I would hate if someone was prequel to “dollars” and revealed that “Manco” was actually the name of his beloved pets for pets like a child or something stupid like that.)

Although the Historical Spaghetti Westerns of Eastwood with Leone are now considered with the classics, the “dollars trilogy” has been badly received by certain criticisms that challenged violence. Pauline Kael was not a big fan; She liked to denigrate Eastwood films to be too macho, stupid and violent. At least, she was half straight on violence: there is not a little refusal that Clint Eastwood built her career by playing violent men. However, when he matured as a filmmaker, he would end up considering his ruthless western heritage in “Unforgiven”. In many ways, this Oscar -winning film was a spiritual continuation of its stars in “Dollars” films.

“Unforgiven” brings us back to Big Whiskey, Wyoming, in 1880, where a drunk cowboy Maims Westher Worker Delilah Fitzgerald (Anna Thomson) taking a knife on her face. The city’s sheriff, Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) leaves the attacker and his friend with a fine. The friends of Delilah are furious with the lack of justice and pool their earnings to offer a bonus of $ 1000 to anyone who killed the cowboys.

We also meet William Munny (Clint Eastwood), formerly a notorious Gunslinger who is now scratching life as a widowed farmer with two young children. His wife helped him throw alcohol and give up her old evil manners, but the bonus turns out to be too tempting when he is approaching to associate by the Schofield Kid (Jamiz Woolvett), a boasting young man who claims to be a ruthless killer. Now severely out of training, Munny decides to take along his former partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) for backup.

Meanwhile, returning to Big Whiskey, a British self-aggregating fighter known as the English Bob (Richard Harris) arrives with his biographer WW Beauchamp (Saul Rubinek) to ask for the price. Bob ignores the city’s unarmed policy and faces Little Bill’s anger, who brutally beats him to ward off any other potential assassin. Munny receives similar treatment when her small group goes up. But Logan is captured and whipped to death by Little Bill, creating a final test between the former aging killer and the sadistic sheriff.

Eastwood considered “unfortgiven” as a chance to adopt a more realistic approach to the classic Western format and also deliver a strong message. He said to AFI:

“I wanted to make a statement according to which the West was based on myth and created by characters who exaggerated the myth of all this. But I also wanted to make a relevant declaration for today’s society with regard to the […] Romanticism of shooting and violence. “”

Clint Eastwood is one of the least flashy directors of Hollywood, and its unadorned style is the perfect choice for the dark tone of “Unforgiven”. The Academy also thought it. Finally, obtaining his due as a filmmaker and actor, Eastwood received his first Oscar (best film) and two other head nods for the best director and best actor.

There are a lot of online theories that William Munny is the nameless man in his last years. The calendar corresponds, but it may be Eastwood’s goal in “Unforgiven” too literally. Munny is clearly a man haunted by his past as a composure killer, a former villain who was hardly drinking to shoot someone with wickedness and who caused the death of women and children. This does not exactly correspond to the description of the laconic rifle that we see in the “dollars trilogy”, which is ironic and calm during the dispatch of his opponents and has clearly a weakness for children.

“Unforgiven” is more a spiritual sequence of these films, a rumination of the neat and apparently without consequence of the character who made Eastwood a star. He pulled 41 groaning villains during three films (according to all Outa Bubblegum), and you rarely have the feeling that they were all those who are missing. You also have the feeling that the nameless man would not lose any sleep on them.

With “Unforgiven”, Eastwood responded to all the criticisms that previously criticized violence in his films in a usual frank manner. Here, he shows how armed violence is nasty and disorderly and murder always has deep repercussions, including for the person who makes murder. This point is underlined by the tortured memories of Munny of his past actions and perhaps the key quote from the film: “It is a hell of something, killing a man. Remove everything he has and everything he’s going to have.”

At another level, “Unforgiven” himself shows the manufacture of the myth of the West West in action. The formidable reputation of Munny crossed the boundaries of the state and the kid on his own count, while the exploits of Bob English are extremely exaggerated by his biographer. Even the extent of Delilah’s injuries is overestimated as a new bonus differences. Once Bob English was sent to the packaging (even his chic accent is a lie), Little Bill Garde Beauchamp around to write an account of his own actions. In the de-Glamor of violence inherent in Western films and by deskating the American border, Eastwood signed gender with a powerful praise that echoes “the man who pulled on Liberty Valace”, John Ford and John Wayne Western of 30 years earlier. Three other decades later, “Unforgiven” remains the masterpiece of Eastwood.