Unforgiven

If you have wondered if the Wild West was really as glorious as the old movies have made you believe, then “Unforgiven” is one movie you must see. This award-winning movie created by the multi-talented Clint Eastwood - he acts as the producer, director, and star of this picture - will open your eyes to a world that creates a more believably real picture of what the Wild West looked like. Heroes get shot and feel the pain of their wounds. They grow old and weak. They stumble, fall and they suffer severely from hangovers. Best of all, the gunslingers even get short-sighted. As you can imagine, “Unforgiven” is not a standard Western. It is different, and it revived my passion for this genre, lost so many years.

After years of tracking down people, killing them in cold blood for reqard money, Munny is now a totally different person. Haunted by nightmares of the people he killed, widowed with two children to raise and a pig farm that barely produces enough money to survive, he is only a shadow of the hero he once was. Although totally his skills are rusty and he is plagued by his age, he eventually gives in to help the young hotshot - if only for the money - and sets out with him and his former partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to once again kill for money. Soon enough however, they collide with Sheriff Bragget, who not only serves the law but has a tendency to shape it his way.

As most of Eastwood’s movies, “Unforgiven” is not exactly dialogue driven. It is however an extremely character driven movie and every single line of dialogue contributes to the overall point, which makes them even more meaningful. Surprisingly this movie is quite the opposite from Eastwood’s earlier spaghetti Westerns where his personae tended to glorify death and problems were solved with a quick shot from the hip. “Unforgiven” is uncompromising in that respect, offering the point that violence does not solve anything, and, indeed, only furthers pain.

As a sidenote it is interesting that Eastwood picked up the rights to this movie in the late 70s and let it sit without touching it because he felt he was too young to play the part of William Munny and needed some maturing. A wise decision if you ask me, because Munny is portrayed in absolutely convincing perfection, as are all other characters in the movie; they come across as believable as actors in cinema can get.

The movies’s transfer to DVD is meticulous. Featuring quite a few dark interior scenes - no, the Wild West did not really have spotlights to lighten up your house - with difficult light settings, it is surprising how well this disc gets them all across. There is plenty of detail in the shadows and not a hint of chroma noise or compression artifacts to be seen anywhere in this movie. “Unforgiven” comes in a widescreen version with a pan&scan version on the flip side of the disc.

This disc has some of the best sound found on any DVD so far. It has been remastered for Dolby Digital 5.1 channels and its aggressive use of the surrounds, creates a totally immersive sound environment that is both wide and deep. Lennie Niehaus’s soundtrack is very nice and comes across with all it’s nuances and subtleties in this transfer.

November 1997

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