As the most American of genres, it is interesting to look back on the last 25 years and to see, that in that period only three great Westerns were made: Walter Hill’s ”The Long Riders” (1980), Kevin Costner’s ”Dances with Wolves” (1990) and Clint Eastwood’s ”Unforgiven” from 1992. All three revisionist approaches to the genre, all three key works of the genre. As the action and adventurous side of the genre has been overtaken by other genres in today’s cinema, the “thinking man’s” side still is left, but is rarely used, as stories who can carry the setting are rare.

Considered Eastwood’s second masterpiece, as it was the only film who could challenge his 1976 neo-classic “The Outlaw Josey Wales”, “Unforgiven” is an elegy, revisiting a dying West, where those who shaped it now have retired. Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) is now a sheriff, English Bob (Richard Harris) is now a dime-novel hero named “The Duke of Death” and William Munny is a hog-farmer, the lowest of all.

When a whore is cut up and disfigured by a drunken cowboy, because she laughed at his small “member”, sheriff Daggett interprets the law in favour of their pimp, as the whore is a piece of property. Enraged the women pool together $500 and offer them to anyone who will kill the cowboys. Nobody accepts the contract, except William Munny, a once gunfighter, now a widower hog-farmer with two small children. Before claiming the reward, Munny has to come face to face with his past.

The greatness of the story lies in how it revisits the mythology of the West and its frontier justice. At no point in the film is justice present. “I don’t deserve this”, says Daggett when Munny is about to kill him, to which Munny says, “Deserving has nothing to do with it”. As such, “Unforgiven” suggests, that violence begets more violence, and justice is in the eye of the beholder. The irony is, that while Munny changed into a loving Christian husband and father when he married, his mother in law will never know this and will continue to believe that Munny killed her daughter, even though she died of small pox. He will forever remain unforgiven.

Winner of four Oscars, amongst them best director and best picture, “Unforgiven” stands today as one of the greatest Westerns ever made, perhaps the best revisionist Western ever made, and everything notes on personal best, especially from Hackman. A masterpiece.

Henrik Sylow