After viewing Unforgiven I don’t believe it is a revisionist film. The alpha male cowboy is still a white male and he still dominates over the enemies. Women and nonwhite folk are still treated as objects and abused. Morgan Freeman’s character, Ned, is a perfect example. He is respected by Bill but that is about it. When he goes into the billiards building and goes upstairs every man at the tables stops and watches him. He is the only black person seen in the movie. Then once he is captured by Little Bill’s men he is whipped, like what happened to slaves when they disobeyed. Later on we find out that he is dead. By killing Ned, it means that he wasn’t an important character. By displaying his corpse in public shows the towns’ people lack of respect for him. Also, women in this film are viewed solely as objects. They are all “whores” and have no value in life. When the whore’s face is cut, the punishment was to give the owner of billiard’s seven horses. The men were never actually punished. This shows how valuable women are in the town. The men also handle to women as if they were men and slap them in the face and hold their arms behind their back.
The kind of alpha male cowboy Clint Eastwood plays is not the typical alpha male. First off he has a family. He is a widow and has a son and daughter. When he married his wife, he put his past of killing and crime behind him. Bill Munny at first is hesitant to accept but then finally accepts. We have never seen a cowboy hesitate to agree to take on a mission. He also makes mention of his dead wife many times throughout the film showing his still love for her. We also never see the alpha male cowboy get sick. Clint Eastwood gets sick and is unable to work for three days. Another aspect that we see happen to Clint Eastwood is that he gets beat up by Little Bill. Clint Eastwood does not put up a fight, due to his illness, and lets Little Bill have at him. We also never see a big change of character in the alpha male cowboy like we see in Clint Eastwood. He goes from being hesitant to kill the two cowboys to marching into the billiards with a gun loaded ready to kill Little Bill. He shifts back into the man he was before he married his wife. Once in billiards building he shoots five men with revenge in his eyes. He also takes a drink of whiskey for the first time since he married his wife.
Unforgiven was made in 1992. By the time this movie was made, the natural template of the western was no longer popular. This film can be classified as a revisionist film. This means that the producer re-examined what the classic western and produced something that is different from the natural template. The classic western has a young, white alpha male cowboy. In this movie, Bill Munny, played by Clint Eastwood, is one of the alpha male cowboys. The other is played by Morgan Freeman. His name is Ned Logan. He is a black man. This defies the alpha male cowboy stereotype. In the classic western, Ned would be classified as an “other” but here is as important as Bill. The character played by Morgan Freeman represents the great progress that African Americans made from the period of the classic western until the 1990’s.
ReplyDeleteBill Munny as an alpha male cowboy also breaks the classic western stereotype because he is not the all mighty macho man. When we first meet him, he is old and lives with his two children. He struggling to make ends meats to support his children. When he attempts to mount his horse, he significantly struggles. In the beginning he refuses to accept the mission is untypical for an alpha male to do. He also makes mention of his dead wife, making her seem alive to one of the prostitutes. The flaws that Munny has reflect the revisionist point of view within the film.
Some other characteristics that help classify Unforgiven as a revisionist film are the amount of violence and language used. We are exposed to the severity of violence that will take place within the film in the opening scene when a prostitute is stabbed and has her face slit. This amount of violence never occurs in the classic westerns. We see Bob receive a vicious beating from the sheriff. We also witness and also hear the whipping that Ned Logan receives after being captured. The language used by all the characters within the film is harsh and disrespectful. The prostitutes even swear, showing the filth of the true wild west. The true west is depicted through the revisionist perspective in this film.