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Unforgiven (1992) - Turner Classic Movies

Unforgiven


2h 10m 1992
Unforgiven

Brief Synopsis

A retired gunslinger straps on the six-guns one more time to battle a corrupt town boss.

Film Details

Also Known As
Impitoyable, Los imperdonables, Os Imperdoaveis, Sin perdón, William Munny Killings, The, skoningslösa
MPAA Rating
Genre
Western
Action
Drama
Period
Release Date
1992
Distribution Company
WARNER BROS. PICTURES DISTRIBUTION (WBPD)
Location
Sonora, California, USA; Brooks, Alberta, Canada; Longview, Alberta, Canada; Drumheller, Alberta, Canada; Stettler, Alberta, Canada

Technical Specs

Duration
2h 10m

Synopsis

In the Old West, retired gunslinger William Munny is in need of money and reluctantly takes on one last job. A group of prostitutes have offered a $1,000 reward for killing the two cowboys who disfigured one of their girls. Joined by his former partner and an eager young sharp-shooter, Munny travels from Kansas to Wyoming for the killing, and along the way he is forced to confront his violent past.

Crew

Stuart Aikins

Casting

Edward Aiona

Property Master

Bob Akester

Photography

Dick Alexander

Sound Re-Recording Mixer

Diane Anderson

Medic

Mark Anderson

Assistant Camera

Sheila Aquiline

Assistant Production Accountant

Bill Bannerman

Assistant Director

Donah Bassett

Negative Cutter

Lynne Bespflug

Unit Manager

Tom Bews

Wrangler

Janice Blackie-goodine

Set Decorator

Ray Breckenridge

Transportation Captain

Henry Bumstead

Production Designer

Neil Burrow

Sound Editor

Marco Ciccone

Assistant Camera

Michael Cipriano

Assistant Editor

Joel Cox

Editor

Doug Craik

Assistant Camera

Devon Curry

Adr Supervisor

Gordon Davidson

Sound Editor

Gordon Davidson

Sound Editor

Keith Dillin

Transportation Coordinator

Phil Downey

Color Timer

Clint Eastwood

Producer

Stan Edmonds

Makeup Artist

Tom Eirikson

Wrangler

Lynn Elston

Production Accountant

Michael Evje

Sound Mixer

Robert Fernandez

Music Scoring Mixer

Iloe Flewelling

Hair Stylist

John Frazier

Special Effects Coordinator

Les Fresholtz

Sound Re-Recording Mixer

Penny Gibbs

Production Coordinator

Tom Glass

Wrangler

Dean Goodine

Assistant Property Master

Adrian Gorton

Art Director

Bob Gray

Production Manager

Jack N Green

Director Of Photography

Jack N Green

Dp/Cinematographer

Peter Green

Loader

Jim Gregor

Chief Lighting Technician

George Griffiths

Painter

Robert J. Groff

Craft Service

Bill Haines

Casting Assistant

Michael Hancock

Makeup Artist

Joanne Hansen

Wardrobe Supervisor

Donald Harris

Music Editor

Dan Heather

Assistant Camera

Carla Hetland

Wardrobe Supervisor

Phyllis Huffman

Casting

James J Issacs

Dialogue Editor

Rose Johnson

Craft Service

Rose Johnson

Medic

Nadene Katz

Casting Assistant

Jeffrey Kloss

Production Accountant

Jan Kobylka

Construction Coordinator

Anisa Lalani

Assistant Production Coordinator

John Lind

Production Associate

Grant Lucibello

Assistant Director

Julian Ludwig

Associate Producer

Randy Luna

Transportation Co-Captain

Scott Maitland

Assistant Director

Cindy Marty

Sound Editor

Michael Maurer

Production Auditor

Chuck Mcsorley

Assistant Property Master

Michael Mirkovich

Assistant Sound Editor

James J Murakami

Set Designer

Alan Robert Murray

Supervising Sound Editor

Hal Nelson

Best Boy Grip

Lloyd Nelson

Script Supervisor

Walter Newman

Supervising Sound Editor

Lennie Niehaus

Music

Kimberly Nolan

Assistant Sound Editor

Valerie O'brien

Set Costumer

Rino Pace

Location Manager

Matt Palmer

Production Associate

David Peoples

Screenplay

Victor Perez

Chief Lighting Technician

Carol Pershing

Hair Stylist

Vern Poore

Sound Re-Recording Mixer

Gary C Ripley

Painter

Tony Rivetti

Assistant Camera

Rick Roberts

Art Director

Bruce Robinson

Foreman

Melissa Rooker

Assistant

Tom Rooker

Assistant Director

Maurice Routely

Special Effects Foreman

Michael Ruiz

Assistant Sound Editor

Charlie Saldana

Key Grip

T. Daniel Scaringi

Dolly Grip

John Scott

Wrangler

Hal Selig

Special Effects

Mike Sexton

Assistant Property Master

Karen Spangenberg

Dialogue Editor

Stephen St John

Camera Operator

Tom Stern

Chief Lighting Technician

Randy Swanson

Best Boy Grip

Carey Toner

Dolly Grip

Carol Trost

Production Coordinator

Ron Trost

Construction Coordinator

Loranne Turgeon

Production Secretary

David Valdes

Executive Producer

David Valdes

Production Manager

Buddy Van Horn

Consultant

Roger J. Vernon

Camera Operator

Jeffrey Wetzel

Assistant Director

Doug Wilson

Painter

Karen Wilson

Dialogue Editor

Marshall Winn

Sound Editor

Butch Wolf

Sound Editor

Glenn Wright

Wardrobe

Cathy Yost

Assistant Production Coordinator

Rob Young

Sound Mixer

Kelly Zombor

Boom Operator

Film Details

Also Known As
Impitoyable, Los imperdonables, Os Imperdoaveis, Sin perdón, William Munny Killings, The, skoningslösa
MPAA Rating
Genre
Western
Action
Drama
Period
Release Date
1992
Distribution Company
WARNER BROS. PICTURES DISTRIBUTION (WBPD)
Location
Sonora, California, USA; Brooks, Alberta, Canada; Longview, Alberta, Canada; Drumheller, Alberta, Canada; Stettler, Alberta, Canada

Technical Specs

Duration
2h 10m

Award Wins

Best Director

1992
Clint Eastwood

Best Editing

1992
Joel Cox

Best Picture

1992

Best Supporting Actor

1992
Gene Hackman

Award Nominations

Best Actor

1992
Clint Eastwood

Best Art Direction

1992
Henry Bumstead

Best Cinematography

1992

Best Original Screenplay

1992

Best Sound

1992

Articles

Unforgiven


In the early 1990s, Clint Eastwood experienced a rare lull in his career so he elected to dust off a previously optioned Western script from years before and prepare it for what might be his last venture as both director and lead. Between its crisp narrative and willingness to subvert both the image of its star and the conventions of its genre, the resulting product not only re-energized Eastwood's marketability with a $100 million-plus domestic box-office take, it granted him validation as a serious filmmaker. The critical response to Unforgiven (1992) culminated with a string of awards, including the Oscars® for Best Picture and Best Director.

The narrative is set in the 1880s, and opens in a brothel in the dusty Wyoming cow town of Big Whiskey. One of the working girls has just had her face slashed by a cowpoke client, all for the transgression of giggling at the man's endowment. The slasher and his partner are dragged before the town's despotic sheriff, Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), whose notion of sufficient punishment is to have the men make good on the whore-master's expenses in bringing his now "damaged goods" to town. The miscarriage of justice so inflames the prostitute Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher) that she pools her colleagues' savings, some $1000, and offers it up as a bounty on the offenders.

The story shifts to a ramshackle Kansas homestead, where aging widower William Munny (Eastwood) is struggling to care for his two young children. While tending to his hogs he is visited by a cocky youngster (Jaimz Woolvett) with visions of himself as a mythic gunslinger with the moniker "The Schofield Kid". News of the hookers' gold has spurred him to find a partner to help him collect, and he can barely conceal his disappointment in finding this broken-down pig farmer in the place of the legendary gunfighter he came to recruit. As it turns out, Munny's late wife had steered him into a honest, pious life; with his family's fortunes fading, however, the temptation provided by the bounty is irresistible. Over the Kid's objections, Munny rouses his old accomplice Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) from his similar domestic retirement for backup.

The legend of the bounty, however, has also reached an incensed Little Bill, who rouses his deputies to disarm any stranger entering Big Whisky. The brutal lawman makes a public example of the first such gunslinger who arrives to collect the prize, a big-hat, no-cattle British dandy known as English Bob (Richard Harris). The unfolding of the fates of the Munny party as they ride into certain disaster take Unforgiven to a jarringly violent conclusion.

Screenwriter David Webb Peoples had authored his script (originally titled The Cut-Whore Killings) on spec all the way back in 1976; Francis Ford Coppola picked up the option, and held onto it through the Zoetrope Studios' collapse in the early '80s. Soon afterwards, Eastwood was handed a copy as an example of Peoples' work, and immediately sought the rights. As recounted in Richard Schickel's Clint Eastwood, the star's rapt interest appalled his story editor, Sonia Chernius. "We would have been far better off not to have accepted trash like this piece of inferior work," she stated in a memo. "I can't think of one good thing to say about it. Except maybe, get rid of it FAST."

In a 1992 interview for Cahiers du Cinema, Eastwood expounded on what separated Unforgiven from his previous Westerns. "[T]he film deals with violence and its consequences a lot more than those I've done before," the star stated. "In the past, there were a lot of people killed gratuitously in my pictures, and what I liked about this story was that people aren't killed, and acts of violence aren't perpetrated, without there being certain consequences. That's a problem I thought was important to talk about today, it takes on proportions it didn't have in the past, even if it's always been present through the ages."

There's actually quite a bit that separates Unforgiven from the rest of Clint's sagebrush oeuvre. Consider the feminist subtext spurring the plot, his willingness to play a bounty hunter whose skills had eroded and his handing of the supporting roles to actors with the gravitas of Hackman, Freeman and Harris. As a result, these elements make the film seem fresh and elegiac at the same time. (Eastwood dedicated the film to the two directors that most profoundly affected his early career and own behind-the-camera aspirations, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel.) In August 1992, after the studios had rolled out their big-budget, special effects extravaganzas of that summer, Unforgiven made its way into theaters with relatively little fanfare, and audiences and critics that were hungry for more adult fare flocked to it eagerly.

The film received an aggregate eight Oscar® nominations, and ultimately also captured the prizes for Joel Cox's editing and Hackman's supporting performance. Hackman, whose characterization was at least partially inspired by former LAPD police chief Darryl Gates, gave his usual flavorful effort as the autocratic lawman with carpentry skills as suspect as his moral code. He had initially passed on the script as too violent, and ostensibly has no regrets about having reconsidered.

Producer: Clint Eastwood, Julian Ludwig, David Valdes
Director: Clint Eastwood
Screenplay: David Webb Peoples
Cinematography: Jack N. Green
Film Editing: Joel Cox
Art Direction: Adrian Gorton, Rick Roberts
Music: Lennie Niehaus
Cast: Clint Eastwood (William `Bill¿ Munny), Gene Hackman (Little Bill Daggett), Morgan Freeman (Ned Logan), Richard Harris (English Bob), Jaimz Woolvett (the Schofield Kid), Saul Rubinek (W.W. Beauchamp).
C-135m. Letterboxed.

by Jay S. Steinberg
Unforgiven

Unforgiven

In the early 1990s, Clint Eastwood experienced a rare lull in his career so he elected to dust off a previously optioned Western script from years before and prepare it for what might be his last venture as both director and lead. Between its crisp narrative and willingness to subvert both the image of its star and the conventions of its genre, the resulting product not only re-energized Eastwood's marketability with a $100 million-plus domestic box-office take, it granted him validation as a serious filmmaker. The critical response to Unforgiven (1992) culminated with a string of awards, including the Oscars® for Best Picture and Best Director. The narrative is set in the 1880s, and opens in a brothel in the dusty Wyoming cow town of Big Whiskey. One of the working girls has just had her face slashed by a cowpoke client, all for the transgression of giggling at the man's endowment. The slasher and his partner are dragged before the town's despotic sheriff, Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), whose notion of sufficient punishment is to have the men make good on the whore-master's expenses in bringing his now "damaged goods" to town. The miscarriage of justice so inflames the prostitute Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher) that she pools her colleagues' savings, some $1000, and offers it up as a bounty on the offenders. The story shifts to a ramshackle Kansas homestead, where aging widower William Munny (Eastwood) is struggling to care for his two young children. While tending to his hogs he is visited by a cocky youngster (Jaimz Woolvett) with visions of himself as a mythic gunslinger with the moniker "The Schofield Kid". News of the hookers' gold has spurred him to find a partner to help him collect, and he can barely conceal his disappointment in finding this broken-down pig farmer in the place of the legendary gunfighter he came to recruit. As it turns out, Munny's late wife had steered him into a honest, pious life; with his family's fortunes fading, however, the temptation provided by the bounty is irresistible. Over the Kid's objections, Munny rouses his old accomplice Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) from his similar domestic retirement for backup. The legend of the bounty, however, has also reached an incensed Little Bill, who rouses his deputies to disarm any stranger entering Big Whisky. The brutal lawman makes a public example of the first such gunslinger who arrives to collect the prize, a big-hat, no-cattle British dandy known as English Bob (Richard Harris). The unfolding of the fates of the Munny party as they ride into certain disaster take Unforgiven to a jarringly violent conclusion. Screenwriter David Webb Peoples had authored his script (originally titled The Cut-Whore Killings) on spec all the way back in 1976; Francis Ford Coppola picked up the option, and held onto it through the Zoetrope Studios' collapse in the early '80s. Soon afterwards, Eastwood was handed a copy as an example of Peoples' work, and immediately sought the rights. As recounted in Richard Schickel's Clint Eastwood, the star's rapt interest appalled his story editor, Sonia Chernius. "We would have been far better off not to have accepted trash like this piece of inferior work," she stated in a memo. "I can't think of one good thing to say about it. Except maybe, get rid of it FAST." In a 1992 interview for Cahiers du Cinema, Eastwood expounded on what separated Unforgiven from his previous Westerns. "[T]he film deals with violence and its consequences a lot more than those I've done before," the star stated. "In the past, there were a lot of people killed gratuitously in my pictures, and what I liked about this story was that people aren't killed, and acts of violence aren't perpetrated, without there being certain consequences. That's a problem I thought was important to talk about today, it takes on proportions it didn't have in the past, even if it's always been present through the ages." There's actually quite a bit that separates Unforgiven from the rest of Clint's sagebrush oeuvre. Consider the feminist subtext spurring the plot, his willingness to play a bounty hunter whose skills had eroded and his handing of the supporting roles to actors with the gravitas of Hackman, Freeman and Harris. As a result, these elements make the film seem fresh and elegiac at the same time. (Eastwood dedicated the film to the two directors that most profoundly affected his early career and own behind-the-camera aspirations, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel.) In August 1992, after the studios had rolled out their big-budget, special effects extravaganzas of that summer, Unforgiven made its way into theaters with relatively little fanfare, and audiences and critics that were hungry for more adult fare flocked to it eagerly. The film received an aggregate eight Oscar® nominations, and ultimately also captured the prizes for Joel Cox's editing and Hackman's supporting performance. Hackman, whose characterization was at least partially inspired by former LAPD police chief Darryl Gates, gave his usual flavorful effort as the autocratic lawman with carpentry skills as suspect as his moral code. He had initially passed on the script as too violent, and ostensibly has no regrets about having reconsidered. Producer: Clint Eastwood, Julian Ludwig, David Valdes Director: Clint Eastwood Screenplay: David Webb Peoples Cinematography: Jack N. Green Film Editing: Joel Cox Art Direction: Adrian Gorton, Rick Roberts Music: Lennie Niehaus Cast: Clint Eastwood (William `Bill¿ Munny), Gene Hackman (Little Bill Daggett), Morgan Freeman (Ned Logan), Richard Harris (English Bob), Jaimz Woolvett (the Schofield Kid), Saul Rubinek (W.W. Beauchamp). C-135m. Letterboxed. by Jay S. Steinberg

Quotes

Trivia

Miscellaneous Notes

Voted best picture of the year by the Boston Society of Film Critics (1992). Also cited for best supporting actor (Gene Hackman) and best cinematography.

Voted Best Picture of the Year (1992) by the National Society of Film Critics. Also cited for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman).

Voted Best Picture of the Year (1992) by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Also cited for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Clint Eastwood) and Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman).

Named best film of the year (1992) by the London Film Critics Circle.

Gene Hackman was named best supporting actor by the New York Film Critics Circle (1992).

Clint Eastwood won the Directors Guild of America's 1992 Outstanding Directorial Achievement Award.

Clint Eastwood was honored as director of the year (1992) by NATO/Showest.

Clint Eastwood and David Valdes were nominated for the 1992 Golden Laurel Award by the Producers Guild of America.

Released in United States Summer August 7, 1992

Limited re-release in United States January 15, 1993

Released in United States on Video July 7, 1993

Screenwriter David Webb Peoples wrote the screenplay for "Unforgiven," originally known as "The Cut-Whore Killings," in 1976; it was optioned by Clint Eastwood in the mid-1980s.

Began shooting August 26, 1991.

Completed November 12, 1991.

Wide re-release in USA February 19, 1993.

Released in United States Summer August 7, 1992

Limited re-release in United States January 15, 1993

Released in United States on Video July 7, 1993

Selected in 2004 for inclusion in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry.