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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, April 17, 2000
Clint Eastwood, Sensitive Guy? Does this scan?
A while back, I got around to watching "Unforgiven." You know: the flick that finally got Clint Eastwood his Oscar, albeit for directing rather than acting. "The Unforgiven."
I still don't get it. And I really don't get what it says about ol' Clint's trajectory.
The old Clint Eastwood was easy to figure out. Remember those great old spaghetti westerns - "A Fistful of Dollars," "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"? The Man With No Name didn't gotta show you no stinkin' nuances. Eastwood created a tough-guy archetype (excuse the fancy-pants lingo) by perfecting the Five S's: A Squint, a Serape, Stubble, a Stogie and a Six-shooter.
Then we had the Dirty Harry movies, which slapped snappier duds on The Man With No Name, reined him in just a tad, and appended a penchant for phrase-making: "Do you feel lucky . . . punk?" "Go ahead: Make my day."
"Dirty Harry," the first movie in the cycle, prompted cries of dismay from artsy critics and civil libertarians who denounced it as "fascist," citing Harry's indifference toward the rights of the accused. And they had a point.
But you know what? Sure as countless millions of Americans cried when Old Yeller bought the farm, at least as many silently rejoiced as Harry pumped that final round into the psycho killer at movie's end. It was so simple.
Inspector Callahan probably would have welcomed the "fascist" label, but Eastwood in the remaining Dirty Harry flicks made a few cursory concessions to constitutional rights and such. And if that was the price we had to pay for the beautifully choreographed head-banging and firefights, we were OK with it.
But "Unforgiven"? Released in '92, this was trumpeted by the people in a position to know about such things as Eastwood's breakthrough film - the one in which he finally attained enlightenment and a social conscience.
Well, maybe.
Here's the scenario: Eastwood is William Munny, a reformed-desperado-turned-pig-farmer struggling to raise a couple of adorable kids out in the middle of nowhere. Along comes a desperado wannabe who wants to enlist pig farmer Clint in a quest for bucks.
Seems a prostitute in a little podunk town has been slashed within an inch of her life by a out-of-control cowpoke enraged at her involuntary giggle when exposed to his, shall we say, masculine equipment. Her colleagues, with the mandatory hearts of gold, raise a thousand bucks as a bounty for the slasher and his sidekick. Sisterhood is powerful!
Wouldn't Munny recoil from the boodle, having been cured of his evil ways by his dear departed spouse? Nope. He takes up the offer and rides off, leaving the kids, and the pigs, to fend for themselves. Father of the year? I think not.
After picking up a pal from the bad old days, Morgan Freeman, Eastwood makes his way to the town in question, run by sadistic sheriff Gene Hackman.
Then it gets really confusing. The three track down the bad guys, and set up a sniper-style ambush. Except . . . Morgan Freeman, the designated sniper, can't bring himself to pull the trigger. So the reformed, touchy-feely Clint takes over and calmly blows away the slasher's sidekick. Later, the wannabe gunslinger knocks off the slasher himself, only to experience a serious attack of conscience.
And then . . . after Hackman has Morgan Freeman killed, Eastwood rides back into town and wipes out darn near everybody. Except for his clients.
Does all of this scan? Does any of it scan? "Unforgiven" is chock full of odd swerves and unanswered questions.
Why is Gene Hackman building his own house by hand? Why does it leak in the rain? How did the kids get along in Eastwood's absence? Why does the wannabe desperado turn out to be near-sighted? Thoroughly perplexed viewers want to know.
Go ahead, Clint: Make our day. Make this thing make some sense.
Brooks Peterson
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