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NUFS to screen Oscar-winning “Unforgiven”

NEW ULM –The New Ulm Film Society will screen the 1992 film “Unforgiven” as part of the Clint Eastwood-directed film series.

“Unforgiven” is a landmark film in Clint Eastwood’s career, considered to be his best work as a director and is often cited as one of the greatest Westerns.

“Unforgiven,” tells the story of Will Munny (Clint Eastwood), a reformed outlaw who is forced to seek a $1,000 bounty put on the heads of a group of cowboys after one of them disfigured a prostitute.

Munny’s tasks are further complicated by a local sheriff “Little Bill” (Gene Hackman) who does allow bounty hunters to operate in his town.

“Unforgiven” is considered a “Revisionist Western”. The plot and themes are an attempt to deconstruct traditional Westerns, something that Eastwood has done throughout his career.

The early Western films tended to be simple stories versus good guys and bad guys. There was a clear dividing line between right and wrong. In Westerns, this theme was so common, that fans started referring to characters as white hats and black hats. The color of a character’s cowboy hat identified their moral status.

As the Western genre evolved, the line between right and wrong became blurred. Eastwood himself was heavily responsible for blurring the moral line in Westerns. Eastwood started out as a white hat character in the Rawhide TV series, but he became an international star for appearing as a morally ambiguous character in Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name trilogy.

In “Unforgiven,” Eastwood is once again playing a morally questionable cowboy, but unlike past characters, William Munny is aware of his past and regrets it. Munny admits to being a killer who did terrible things and only change after meeting his wife. He is reluctant to return to the life of a bounty hunter, but he needs the money to provide for his children.

The film also works to de-romanticize gunfights. In multiple scenes, Sheriff Little Bill debunks the myth of the skilled gunfighter. In one scene he exposes a legendary gunfighter as a liar and fraud.

Gun violence as a whole is not glorified in this movie. It is depicted as ugly and unfair. Even the toughest characters break down in the face of violence. Some critics have argued that “Unforgiven” is a commentary on Eastwood’s entire career. Will Munny is an aged version of all his past cowboy characters viewed through a more grounded and honest lens.

In making “Unforgiven,” Eastwood vowed to never make another Western because any other attempt to make a Western would be a rehash of previous work. “Unforgiven” was Eastwood’s final commentary on Westerns, the genre that started his career. It was also the film that made him an Oscar winner.

Eastwood won the Oscar for Best Director for the film. The movie also received Oscars for Best Picture, and Best Editing and Gene Hackman won an Oscar of Best Supporting Actor.

The screening begins 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 12, in the New Ulm Public Library meeting room. The film screening is free to the public.

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