Unforgiven

[Note: Just in case I hadn't mentioned it before, this blog has a standing spoiler alert. Read at your own risk.]

I finally Netflixed Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven last week. I've been on a slowly matriculating western-movie kick for about a year now, so I figured it was about time I saw what's supposed to be the quintessential anti-western. That's to say, the sophisticated, deconstructing sort of film that takes apart all those "naive" John Wayne ideals like justice and honor and rugged individualism.

It's a devastating one, too -- if one defines the western merely by its stylistic pretensions. But set Unforgiven up against the masterpieces of the genre, and it takes on a far different color. Far from debunking the western, it reinforces by contrast some of its most fundamental insights.

As to Eastwood's anti-western intent, I'd submit that he's created what could be the most artistically made straw man in the history of film.

Certainly, Eastwood's anti-hero, Bill Munny, has all the markings of John Wayne's evil twin: A retired and reformed former gunslinger, Munny rides out one last time to do rough violence, supposedly for the sake of his loved ones. But he's unable to return to his former profession without waking and embracing his old demons, ultimately committing mass murder in the town of High Whiskey, Wyoming.

Eastwood tells the story with skill and to effect, but Munny's relapse itself doesn't quite serve to stand the western on its head. If anything -- as a friend of mine put it -- it just shows there are a lot of violent, evil men out there who could probably use a killing . . . from someone like John Wayne.

What's always made western films so fascinating, however, are their political angles. It's interesting that the western is the only genre of film to be defined by its setting -- essentially, the outposts of civilization, beset on all sides by wilderness and violence. This allows the artist to get down to brass tacks with hard questions of justice, politics and the survival of human society.

Unforgiven is no exception -- except that Eastwood's High Whiskey is a town woefully incapable of responding to Munny's menace, despite the John Wayne bravado and rough justice of its sheriff. So much, Eastwood seems to be saying, for the possibility of noble individual action establishing any sort of justice.

Eastwood drives this point home most directly, ironically enough, in the one light touch of the entire movie. An earlier, lesser assassin than Munny rides into town accompanied by a weakling eastern author to chronicle his exploits. The sheriff (a terrific Gene Hackman) makes quick work of the assassin, then delights in debunking the writer's old-west cartoon fantasies with "how it really works." Naturally, the writer senses another story, and Hackman is soon parading him around with equal ostentation.

Until, that is, Munny shows up and kills everyone but the writer, who seems perfectly willing to attach himself to this new strongman. Eastwood's point: The "hero" who gets his "achievements" praised is really only the most effective killer. Nobility doesn't enter into it.

Or so he seems to be -- and, in all likelihood, tries to be -- saying.

But you can't think too hard about the politics of Unforgiven without noticing something quite peculiar. Whereas almost every other western depicts some marker of civil society -- a schoolmistress love-interest, for instance, or Jimmy Stewart's law practice in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence -- even if only as a foil for its loner hero, Eastwood's movie has nothing. There's no church, nor even any mention of religion -- odd for a film that invokes the theme of forgiveness in its title. Indeed, the only civil institution whatsoever -- and the one that drives the plot -- is a whorehouse.

Much to the same effect, and even more jarring when you think about it, is that the prostitutes of High Whiskey are practically the only women in the entire film. This is certainly intentional on Eastwood's part. Hackman, in one loaded vignette, is shown futilely trying to build a house -- for himself and by himself. The woman whose absence is felt most acutely is Munny's late wife, whose presence, we are told, was what reformed the old gunslinger.

Still, one wonders what Eastwood is trying to say here. At the very least, it seems unfair to completely write off old-western virtue while denying one's protagonists the benefit of half of human society. Unfair, and possibly anachronistic, too: It was John Steinbeck's memorable observation that the church and the whorehouse arrived in each western town at roughly the same time, as men sought a broad range of options to soothe their primal restlessness.

In any event, it somewhat impeaches the credibility of Eastwood's quite-literally Godforsaken canvas when he denies his protagonists the cultural resources necessary to make a proper stand.

It could be, of course, that this is precisely Eastwood's point -- for it's obvious that the loner heroes of western lore aren't the ones to lay down the cultural foundations they seem to need. A world of John Waynes, in other words, is really no different than a world of Bill Munnys.

The thing is, the best western films already understand this. Take The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. The John Wayne character stands apart from civilization, but what sets him apart from brigands like Valence is his reliance upon it -- mainly in the form of his affection for the lovely Hallie Stoddard. Of course, it becomes just as clear how much civilization relies on John Wayne.

Navigating this relationship, especially in the wild early days -- or, say, upon the arrival of idealistic young lawyers from back east -- can be a messy thing and the source of great drama. But instead of the graceful treatment such tensions are given at the hands of someone like John Ford, Eastwood just rubs his audience's face in them.

Thus, his only conclusion is the nihilistic refrain, "we all got it coming, kid."

It's powerful, sure, but not especially true to life.