Unforgiven

I've never watched a Western film before, but I did know some things that Western films 'had to have' like the swinging doors, saloons, the hay, dust, and the gun fight. However, Mr. Bennett mentioned that 'Unforgiven' shows more of the truth of the West instead of the Hollywood West.

The movie starts off with a man cutting up a prostitute, but they only had to pay horses as a consequence. The women obviously see this as unjust and hire a killer to kill the two men that were there. Even though Little Bill is there to bring justice to the town, he lets the men get away. I did find the Schofield Kid annoying at first because of all his claims about how he could kill a man easily and how far he could shoot. But later on, I felt bad for him after he killed one of the men because he was clearly shaken up. He had claimed to kill so many because he wanted to impress Will, but he hadn't killed anyone.

Will Munny is not just a good guy or just a bad guy. He's both, and that's what I like about him. He's good to his children and he seemed like a good guy when Delilah asked him if he wanted a reward, but he refused on account of his wife. However, we can see that he's a bad guy because he's going to be off killing random men for money and because he was a drunk murderer before his wife. The gun fight at the end was definitely living up to its Western movie-ness, not to mention exciting. However, the way Munny nonchalantly kills all the men there is unnerving. Munny's good and bad character shows the moral ambiguity of the film.

The theme of exaggeration is shown in the film many times as the story of the 'cut-up whore' is embellished upon as it gets told from one person to the next. The movie's title, Unforgiven, refers to how Will Munny didn't forgive himself because he went back to all the things he had left behind when he married his wife: drinking whiskey and murdering people.