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I thought this was about the Clint Eastwood movie. Didn't realize there was another with the same name.
Well, it's quite simple, actually : one film is called THE UNFORGIVEN and the other film is called UNFORGIVEN. But of course, you didn't realise...
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For a western from 1960, THE UNFORGIVEN had a lot of provocative questions, not to mention issues. Hepburn is supposed to be Lancaster's sister, but is later discovered to not even be related, thus opening a whole floodtide of feelings.
And the racial element, as well as innate violence of the piece, still comes across as shocking. Check out Lillian Gish's reaction when a man about to be hanged for something else decides to share a secret from her past. Or Gish's later insistence on playing the piano outside.
Huston had a fondness for Audie Murphy, an underrated actor, who had starred in RED BADGE OF COURAGE, and plays one of Lancaster's brothers in this. Even Doug McLure put in some good work as another brother.
I still find the film itself fascinating, for all the levels it presents.
And I've always loved the Tiomkin score. But that was part of the period, I guess. Such music, as well as the amount of it, seems to fall on less interested ears nowadays.
Wish they'd release the complete tracks, or, better yet, a new complete recording, even though Tiomkin's music is tough to reproduce, I understand, chiefly because of his improvisatory approach when recording.
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Posted: |
Aug 25, 2014 - 9:52 PM
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By: |
Regie
(Member)
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John, some very thought-provoking comments there!!
Tiomkin was about to be sacked by Hawks for the "Hatari" score at around the time of "The Unforgiven" - and they had been 'friends'!!!
I dislike the score and couldn't make anything of it, just its unsuitability for the film's narrative and setting.
The same screenwriter worked on "The Searchers" with its theme of miscegenation. I was wondering, whilst watching "The Unforgiven", about the American racial narrative regarding indigenous peoples and why this arose specifically as an issue post WW2. This somewhat 'revisionist' approach may have been a consequence of McCarthy era politics and the idea that groups could be demonized. Miller explored this in "The Crucible", for the stage. There seems to be, well, a crucible in society upon which some of these darker cinematic themes seem to be forged. At the right place and time these ideas become popular as narrative, in much the same way that Spike Lee's films spoke about the black experience.
Has anybody got any further theories, beyond what I've suggested, about why race and indigenous culture was revisited, re-examined and portrayed so very very darkly at that time? John Ford had really been the first, unless I'm mistaken, in his patchy "The Searchers".
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