Sheriff Little Bill: “I don’t deserve this.” With four Oscars, dozens of other national and international awards, and high praise from film critics of various stripes, one can safely write that Unforgiven is one of the most, if not the most successful western to date, with the possible exception of High Noon (1952 and also won four Academy Awards). The consensus among critics is that Unforgiven is simultaneously a tribute to its predecessors, particularly the films of Clint Eastwood’s mentors, Sergei Leone and Don Siegel, and also a questioning of the western genre and its central figure, the outlaw. In some ways Unforgiven is a typical western. The time is the 1880's (precisely the period in which the criminal spree of Jesse James and his gang was coming to an end). The majority of the action takes place in and around the imaginary town of Big Whiskey, located somewhere in the vast, largely unpopulated high country on the American frontier (though it is worth noting that almost all of the shooting was done in Canada). This space, the American frontier, is itself a familiar topos, functioning as a liminal space in which two competing ideals clash: On the one hand there is a local authority, usually an extension of an increasingly centralized government, whose job is to establish a fixed form of law and order as a means of consolidating authority. On the other hand there is an older, more popular notion of justice that functions on a local, eye-for-an-eye basis. Classic westerns are at their best when they operate within this space, often pitting a rugged individual, usually in the form of an outlaw, against the representatives of an encroaching industrialized society at the turn of the nineteenth century, the marshal or sheriff. Viewed in this way, westerns are a negotiation of authority in which varying notions of justice surface.
Dr. Paul Begin is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Pepperdine University, where he teaches Spanish language, literature, and cinema. He has most recently published academic articles on subjects such as the transnational character of contemporary Spanish youth culture and theoretical writings of Luis Buñuel. Panelists: Jerry L. Jackson, Jeffery Overstreet
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Essay by Dr. Paul Begin 
Unforgiven is set up within this contested ideological space. The film’s first complication arises with a visit to the local brothel of Big Whiskey. The spectator enters the scene just as one girl’s poorly timed giggle enrages her visitor so that he proceeds to cut up her face. Sheriff “Little” Bill Daggett’s deals with the situation as if he were an arbiter in a legal transaction: because the proprietor of the brother, Skinny (Anthony James), has recently purchased the “rights” to Delilah (Anna Devine) and will no longer profit from his investment because her face is so badly sliced, Little Bill orders the offenders to give Skinny some horses and washes his hands of the situation. Delilah’s is not offered any sort of personal justice because she is considered no more than “damaged property.” As is the case in many westerns, the official law, perhaps symbolically, has nothing to offer the marginalized and disempowered. This affront leads the other women of the brothel to maneuver outside the official law and place by themselves a $1,000 bounty on the heads of the two men who are responsible for Delilah’s scars. The bounty and the rumor of a wrongly cut up woman then set in motion a chain of events that form the plot of the film.
The bounty attracts an aspiring outlaw who has already given himself a nickname, The Schofield Kid. The Schofield Kid, perhaps because of his vision impairment, seeks the help of a known veteran, William Munny (Clint Eastwood), to help make the kill and collect. Munny’s reputation precedes him, as a former gun-slinging outlaw who, admittedly, “killed women and children, killed just about everything that has walked or crawled at on time or another.” Munny, however, claims to be reformed as a promise to his (now deceased) wife, and has given up “drinkin’ whiskey and all,” in order to down and raise his two children. Unfortunately, he is less successful at separating swine than killing men. So when this young, wannabe pistol fighter shows up looking for a partner and offers to split the bounty, Munny cannot pass up the opportunity to earn some easy cash doing something with which he has more knack and experience. Once Munny taps his best friend and former partner, Ned (Morgan Freeman), the posse is set and the three go out on their mission.
But Munny’s quest is already built on questionable premises. First, is murdering a person for cutting up someone’s face a just punishment? The question is doubly relevant when thinking about the offender’s partner, who did nothing but try to diffuse the situation, show contrition, and offer a form of personal penance (his best horse). Does it matter that their executioner, Munny, has done far worse on a much larger scale? Furthermore, would it be necessary for Munny to take vengeance for Ned’s life had he not coaxed Ned into coming along on the kill in the first place? Delilah is certainly taken with Munny because of his willingness to take up her cause, his encouraging words, and his faithfulness to his dead wife, nevertheless, his rationale is still purely monetary. And Little Bill is certainly crooked (just like his house), but he is not nearly as evil as some other lawmen that we have seen in this genre. One again wonders if his punishment is completely warranted. But, as Munny points out to Little Bill, “deserves got nothin’ to do with it.”
This is, at least for me, what makes Unforgiven such a remarkable film. I find myself completely fascinated with character of William Munny. The constant disavowal of his formerly violent self only serves to pique my interest. By the end, when he shows up at Skinny’s for the final showdown, I find myself feeling a little like Little Bill’s biographer – I want to get a good glimpse of this mythical gunman while at the same time questioning whether or not we should be in the same room for too long. Many westerns eventually fall on one side or the other of justice: the good-bad man prevails and the corrupt authorities are exposed and emasculated, or, the violent outlaw is finally brought to justice. However, the narrative structure of Unforgiven is circular, with Munny once again back at his wife’s grave, and we wonder if anything is better than it was before.