Clint Eastwood Movie Review
Clint Eastwood has surprised the audience by shooting one of the best western films “Unforgiven” (1992) in the history of American cinematography. It is the award winning movie, which has attracted the attention of the audience by the features, which make it a distinctive work. The film might be considered truly mature and multifaceted, as it manages to render the characters from different perspectives. Clint Eastwood managed to humanize the movie’s protagonist, add a number of allusions to the film, and improve his style. However, his main contribution is the fact that he managed to create the western movie, which is deprived of traditional western-like stereotypes. His movie is fresh, intriguing, and interesting from the psychological perspective. It has to be admitted that movie is the great work, which enriched the American filmography with a brilliant scenes that attract the attention of the viewers by the amazing plot, masterful play of the actors, and beautiful music.
The movie touches the audience from its first moments. The thing is that views become the witnesses of an incident, where two cowboys slice the beautiful face of young prostitute, showing their pejorative treatment towards her and destroying her outer look. In such a way, Eastwood catches the audience, intrigues it, and makes it continue watching the movie. Moreover, he exhibits the viewers that violence and aggression will play the profound part in his work. The plot of the film is amazing, as it does not resemble thousands of other western movies. It preserves the unique western style, but equips it with new features, which make the movie astounding. Its main benefit is departure from the traditional good and evil division. The movie does not have noble cowboys, which save the Old West. Instead of it, Eastwood presented the audience the life experience story with a real man with real troubles and real fate. The emphasis is laid on the adjective ”real”, as it is one of the main features of this movie. It has to be assumed that it manages to attract the attention by the fact that it is not the traditional story of white hats, but the truthful representation of the violent past. Truth might be called one of the major features of this movie. Eastwood managed to create the atmosphere, which maximally resembles the real life. The movie is deprived of embellishments and unnecessary bravery; it is the representation of the life, as it is. This naked facticity creates the groundbreaking effect, it fascinates the viewer and makes him indulge in watching and analyzing the movie. Another benefit of the plot is absence of stereotypes, which often demolish the essence of the movies. This film does not have good and bad cowboys, and themes of good and evil. Its main these is how violence defines the frontier. The movie manifests how power is applied by the traditional American community, from the sheriff, who imposes law through force to a saloonkeeper, who was trading people. Romanowski emphasizes that the plot of the film takes a downward spiral effect. It portrays a series of incidents, where the characters refuse to forgive. The movie shows the violent test of its protagonist William Munny and his partners. The movie starts with a violent act and ends with a revenge scene.
While discussing the characters of the movie, it has to be stated that the main character is Bill Munny, who is a reformed killer and pig farmer. He is one of the most complex and simultaneously most catchy characters of the work. This role was performed by Clint Eastwood himself, and the character turned out to be vulgar, brutal, and extremely masculine. Despite the fact that he was not the totally positive individual, the audience experiences extreme sympathy towards this person. He is represented as a man with tough and difficult fate and strong character and stamina. This individual spends much of the movie determined to deny his personality. Eastwood masterfully represented the transformation of a quiet farmer into the inborn monster, whose actions are marked by extreme exhibition of violence. The life of this individual occupies the central place in the movie and attracts the audience by his naturalness. Munny performed the role of a person, who tried to repress his inner nature for years. The audience, watching his disastrous transformation is amazed by the inner dark charm, which is hidden inside this person. Despite the fact that he conducts evil deeds, he catches the attention by his masculine spirit. Munny does not resemble the stereotypical heroes, ready to save the world. He attracts the audience by his naturalness. He is not totally good or totally bad, he is alive individual with his positive and negative traits. The opening and closing frames are manifested through the application of acoustic guitar. The folk tunes exhibit the atmosphere of saloons, and makes the viewers start engaging into the environment of Old West. Moreover, the music masterfully makes setting for the episodes, like Will’s death. In general, the musical representation of the movie is not characteristic for the western film, as it is rather quiet and not actually rural. The thing is that the notion of western arouses the connotations of banjo and joyful folk songs. The movie includes some of the, but the music renders the dark atmosphere and lonely lament. It emphasizes the main ideas of the story, and accurately represents the ideas of the director.
It has to be emphasized that mise-en-scene of this movie plays the significant symbolic meaning. This scene is marked by the ambiguity, and includes both: the text and silhouettes of a man, burying his wife, tree, and nature. This scene was created in order to make the audience indulge in the considerations. It reflects the nature and its meaning for the individual. This scene is extremely painful, as the views perceive the grief of the man. In general, this scene hints to the views what it means to be a man. It also discusses the spiritual proximity of a human being with a nature, and life. After viewing it, the audience starts thinking about the life and its sense. Making the viewers think seems to be the main objective of the movie. It is particular feature of Eastwood’s movies. They show the reality from a new perspective and make the audience start evaluating the known issues from different angles.
Music in the film “Unforgiven” is a vital component, which attempters the viewers on the right way of perceiving the film’s gist.
In conclusion, it has to be stated that the movie “Unforgiven” has deserved all its awards. IT is a true cinematographic masterpiece, which manages to grade human opinion towards the issues of American history, love, friendship, and life. It reveals the genre of western from the new perspective. This movie attracts the audience by the reality of its scenes, and the true manifestation of human characters. Clint Eastwood is a cinematographic genius, who manages to show the life in a maximally truthful way. He has shown that cowboy life was not a fairy tale, but a story, full of violence, aggression, and hatred. He managed to exhibit the inner feelings of the individual and to reveal the issue of revenge to its fullest. The film is worth watching, as it enriches the life vision and makes the viewer indulge into the considerations of essence of living.
