Eastwood's Conscience

[LissaLou92]

Hello BritMovie people,



I'm doing a research project for film studies so I'm going to start a discussion group on my Chosen films. The idea is Revenge and Remorse in Clint Eastwood's films.



The main film i'm studying is Unforgiven, my supporting films are Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter.



Any opinions or ideas you have on the subject would be greatly appreciated and an integral part of my research



Thanks for your help

[AdrianTurner]

name='LissaLou92' timestamp='1287598336' post='484621']

Hello BritMovie people,



I'm doing a research project for film studies so I'm going to start a discussion group on my Chosen films. The idea is Revenge and Remorse in Clint Eastwood's films.



The main film i'm studying is Unforgiven, my supporting films are Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter.



Any opinions or ideas you have on the subject would be greatly appreciated and an integral part of my research



Thanks for your help

Is that the Unforgiven that's set in Surrey?

[Marky B]

name='LissaLou92' timestamp='1287598336' post='484621']

Hello BritMovie people,



I'm doing a research project for film studies so I'm going to start a discussion group on my Chosen films. The idea is Revenge and Remorse in Clint Eastwood's films.



The main film i'm studying is Unforgiven, my supporting films are Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter.



Any opinions or ideas you have on the subject would be greatly appreciated and an integral part of my research



Thanks for your help

Good luck with your project,Lissa. I am a big fan of Clint Eastwood and Unforgiven is simply one of the finest westerns ever,which is probably the best film to go into for your subject. Have you tried looking up the film on IMDB and read some of the viewers' comments about the film?

Ta Ta

Marky B

[m35541]

The idea is Revenge and Remorse in Clint Eastwood's films.

What about The Outlaw Josey Wells?



Or even Sondra Locke in Sudden Impact (if its the films he directed as opposed to his own roles in the films he directed).

[Moor Larkin]

name='LissaLou92' timestamp='1287598336' post='484621'] The idea is Revenge and Remorse in Clint Eastwood's films.

I seem to recall a lot of the former but very little of the latter.......



Revenge movies call out to our need for simple answers to complex problems and their main appeal is as an allegory for the ability of the individual to exert power over his or her world. To display remorse at the end would be to suggest failure, so that is probably why there is usually very little of it at the end; Unforgiven seems to start with lots of remorse but then the hero pulls himself together and kills everyone but I lost interest in it and cannot recall that much really. Wasn't it a bit like a remake of Shane?

[TomDaws]

I think Pale Rider was more of a Shane re-make.

[jimw1]

Hello Lissa..........Good luck with the Project.........



I remember reading somewhere and Watching the Clip in Unforgiven where Gene Hackman (Little Bill Daggett) Kicks the hell out of English Bob (Richard Harris) after the beating He has a look of remorse and Almost embarrassment.......

Unfortunately the Clip isnt on Youtube but I Just thought it might be worth studying for your Project

[GRAEME]

Unforgiven has the key remorse scene when Eastwood shames the Schofield Kid for his mindless gunslinging ways - "when you kill a man you take awy all he is and all he ever will be..." something like that.



it's an ambiguous film. Munny lives with the guilt of what he was but taps into that killer again at the end and unleashes a storm of violence.



Note how nobody shows any remorse over the violation of the prostitutes at the beginning. It is a property crime pure and simple.

[sippog]

You don't say what level you're studying at - A Level, BTEC, undergraduate? My guess is FE.



But, anyway, if you did want to score some serious academic brownie points, I'd suggest looking at the influence of Italian and Japanese culture on the kind of westerns Eastwood appeared in and eventually made.



The Spaghetti westerns, for example, were remakes of Japanese films filtered through Leone's very Italian sense of gothic melodrama; the equivalent, in reverse, to the English Jabobean dramatists (Webster, Ford, Middleton et al) stealing Italian plots and characters for their bloody tales of revenge.



There are definite connections to explore. The town in "High Plains Drifter" that gets painted red and renamed "Hell" could be straight out of a Jacobean play, while there are parts of "Pale Rider" that have a definite giallo feel

[penfold]

While Sippog is right, you must also give equal weight to the US film tradition that Eastwood is heir to; going all the way back to WS Hart in the '10's, the persona of the lone, drifting, taciturn horseman in search of revenge, redemption, or both has been a staple of a certain type of Western star....from WS Hart, to Harry Carey Sr., late-period John Wayne - think The Searchers - and Randolph Scott. From this viewpoint Eastwood is the latest - perhaps the last - embodiment of this persona, handed down like a baton from generation to generation in the last century. This may help.. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fStoP9XofGM[/media]

[TimR]

This is an interesting theme.



Clint Eastwood's Westerns represent a sharp break with the Westerns that came before. There are superficial resemblances, but the spirit is gone and replaced by a void.



His conscience is not developed, and the level of violence is much higher in his films. But the changes are even deeper than that. Any romantic idealism is parodied and the cynicism is taken to extremes. Eastwood was icy, controlled, and almost inhuman. But he also represented a supposed force for good.



You might want to look at comparing High Noon, which is an outstanding film, with High Plains Drifter, which is not - but has a similar theme. Gary Cooper's character has a complex inner life that is the focus of the film. Eastwood's character is not complex and has little inner life. He is a man of action. Any feelings of remorse he may have are limited because he is limited by his undeveloped conscience.



Clint Eastwood's films reflected a change in American life that is, in my opinion, entirely negative. From my perspective it isn't possible to think of them apart from that.

[GRAEME]

name='TimR' timestamp='1287981796' post='485779']

This is an interesting theme.



Clint Eastwood's Westerns represent a sharp break with the Westerns that came before. There are superficial resemblances, but the spirit is gone and replaced by a void.



His conscience is not developed, and the level of violence is much higher in his films. But the changes are even deeper than that. Any romantic idealism is parodied and the cynicism is taken to extremes. Eastwood was icy, controlled, and almost inhuman. But he also represented a supposed force for good.



You might want to look at comparing High Noon, which is an outstanding film, with High Plains Drifter, which is not - but has a similar theme. Gary Cooper's character has a complex inner life that is the focus of the film. Eastwood's character is not complex and has little inner life. He is a man of action. Any feelings of remorse he may have are limited because he is limited by his undeveloped conscience.



Clint Eastwood's films reflected a change in American life that is, in my opinion, entirely negative. From my perspective it isn't possible to think of them apart from that.

This is a limited veiw that fails to take into account Eastwood's later films. It is true that his first American westerns are too heavily influenced by Leone and lack the satiric subtleties that made the Italian films superior.



However, a look at The Outlaw Josey Wales will reward the viewer with a far richer text full of moral shades. The character literally and metaphorically undertakes a journey - comes out of his locked in revenge focus and rejoins humanity again. It is genuinely redemptive. He ends up regarding peace a possiblity and forgiveness an alternative to revenge - finding a bond of life with the native Americans, and allowing a hated traitor to live.



It is a mature work and Clint's best western IMHO.



Not a western - but relevant to this discussion, is the delightful Bronco Billy - that references the work of Howard Hawkes and Frank Capra - and works as a serio-comic commentry on the themes of many of Eastwood's earlier films.

[batman]

There are some interesting comments/views on 'spaghetti westerns' and Eastwood's involvement in them within this thread ....



link: http://www.britmovie.co.uk/forums/to...ti+%2Bwesterns

[TimR]

name='GRAEME' timestamp='1288018533' post='485991']

This is a limited veiw that fails to take into account Eastwood's later films. It is true that his first American westerns are too heavily influenced by Leone and lack the satiric subtleties that made the Italian films superior.



However, a look at The Outlaw Josey Wales will reward the viewer with a far richer text full of moral shades. The character literally and metaphorically undertakes a journey - comes out of his locked in revenge focus and rejoins humanity again. It is genuinely redemptive. He ends up regarding peace a possiblity and forgiveness an alternative to revenge - finding a bond of life with the native Americans, and allowing a hated traitor to live.



It is a mature work and Clint's best western IMHO....

I agree that it is more complex than his other films; that is a fair point. There are moments of human warmth and ordinary interaction with other people that are presented well.



I do think you are too generous with your praise, but I think Clint Eastwood is an extremely limited actor, and he does not transcend those limits even here. His films introduced a post-verbal ideal that is a parody of the old silent American man. I dislike that development.

[GRAEME]

name='TimR' timestamp='1288068609' post='486173']

I agree that it is more complex than his other films; that is a fair point. There are moments of human warmth and ordinary interaction with other people that are presented well.



I do think you are too generous with your praise, but I think Clint Eastwood is an extremely limited actor, and he does not transcend those limits even here. His films introduced a post-verbal ideal that is a parody of the old silent American man. I dislike that development.

I think there is room for Eastwood's more action orientated films. The western is big enough to absorb all sorts of treatments.



His version of the west suited the more cynical times of the late 60s, early 70s - and their popularity gave the western genre a lease of life. They were certainly exciting - even if they did lack the depth of tradition, community and historicity that makes the best films in the genre so interesting.



I agree that the action orientated films were limited and shallow in comparison to the greats of the traditional western. These days, I'd rather watch a well made 50's B than High Plains Drifter. They, along with the spaghettis that spawned them, were a brief action-packed, nasty dead-end. But then the whole genre was about to more or less die anyway.



I wish Clint had made more westerns like Unforgiven and Josey Wales - I think they are amongst the greatest films in the genre (we'll have to agree to disagree there ). But, too often he settled for rather empty crowd-pleasers - westerns for young audiences who didn't really like westerns.



Maybe he'll return to the genre in his late golden days as director - I hope so. I still hope he'll come out of acting retirement - I think he has at least one last hard-bitten old codger of the plains inside him.

[Moor Larkin]

name='GRAEME' timestamp='1288083634' post='486223'] I think he has at least one last hard-bitten old codger of the plains inside him.

Maybe you're right......



“My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.�



“We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody’s become used to saying, “Well, how do we handle it psychologically?� In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you’d be left alone from then on.�



“I don’t know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life.�





http://screenrant.com/clint-eastwood...ally-vic-4839/

[GRAEME]

name='Moor Larkin' timestamp='1288093244' post='486281']

Maybe you're right......



“I don’t know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life.�

So, that would be in ancient Greece then...



Philosophy ain't his strong suit obviously.

[TimR]

name='Moor Larkin' timestamp='1288093244' post='486281']



.........“My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.�



“We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody’s become used to saying, “Well, how do we handle it psychologically?� In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you’d be left alone from then on.�



“I don’t know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life.�........

Oh brother...



That Depression generation didn't check their souls and their brains at the door in order to survive the Depression and WWII. They didn't question the meaning of life because most of them didn't doubt it.



They also hated the nihilism of the 60s that Eastwood represented. They went to see Clark Gable and Rogers and Astaire. Clint Eastwood is like Clark Gable's evil twin. Even when he smiles that weird, mirthless grin it is like a stick of petrified wood snapping.



The idea that he is a hardscrabble man of the people is getting a little old after all these years of international fame and California affluence.

[moonfleet]

Those are very interresting comments gents

[Moor Larkin]

Just watching the start of Unforgiven again tonight and I've remembered why I stopped taking it very seriously. The *whore* who is at the root of the plot is supposed to be all sliced and diced - she is supposed to be so hideously cut that no customer will ever want to pay for her again (as if her looks have much to do with it.. ), in fact some lines of dialogue clearly refer to her nose being cut and her ears being sliced off !! Eastwood's character says they even cut her fingers off........... But, when you see her recovered, she has just a few delicate red marks as if she had fallen into a bramble patch, and she is definitely still sporting two delicate ears and ten fingers I think. I cannot comment about her *teats*, but... enough with the anatomy.

I'm not sure if I'm just demanding some unimaginative Texas Chainsaw effects, but given that this horrendous disfiguring crime is supposed to be the motivation behind the entire plot, I just became incredulous at the very start and the rest of it probably washed over me. I kind of remember the rest of the plot and obviously it all comes to be about Little Bill really, but to be honest, I'm still not impressed. The whole thing just doesn't work as a set-up and how could Eastwood have missed these huge script/plot errors?

Strangely the goof list at imdb doesn't mention this, although it has quite a few arcane guns & ammo queries. However there is a conversation in the comments where people propose that the exaggeration of the injuries is part of the plot, in that everyone is out for revenge and the truth has nothing to do with the reason for all the killing. However this seems such an obtuse approach and doesn't seem backed up by the events on film that I'm struggling to believe it is such a subtle and deliberate plot device, as opposed to a goof.

Am I being too superficial? Or did Eastwood really mean this as some part of his *message*?