Unforgiven’s Legacy and the Evolution Of The Western | CINEMA GREATS
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- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
- Unforgiven (staring, directed, and produced by Clint Eastwood,) looks like just another old-school Western, a nostalgic genre throwback. But upon closer inspection, Unforgiven reveals itself to be a much more interesting film, with a much more meaningful legacy. While the film has the feel of a classic western, it also challenges the genre of the Western and the black-and-white idea of a Western hero. It revisited the myth of the American West in ways that future Revisionist Westerns would continue to build on and take further. So even if you haven’t seen the movie, you’ve probably seen modern neo-Westerns that stand on the shoulders of the revival this movie kicked off.
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CHAPTERS
00:00 How Unforgiven won the Oscar
01:42 Unforgiven's storytelling and deconstruction of Westerns
06:12 A new context for the brutality of the old west
08:49 How Westerns followed Unforgiven's lead
CREDITS
Executive Producers: Debra Minoff & Susannah McCullough
Chief Creative Director: Susannah McCullough
Associate Producer: Tyler Browner
Writer: Harry Harris & Jackie Ferro
Narrator: Charly Bivona
Video Editor: John Clark - Zábava
WATCH MORE - If Unforgiven provides a poignant take of the old west, then Forrest Gump provides a truthful tale of modern America. Here's our TAKE on the classic's most profound messages: czcams.com/video/2Aactzo5myg/video.html
You create excellent commentary and analysis. One thing I have thought about, and if you wanted to continue delving into westerns would you mind analyzing if there is a correlation to conflicts America is engaged in and westerns in film. It seems to me that after every major conflict, there is a rise in interest in westerns, but they reflect the feeling of the conflict. For example, westerns of the 30s often focused on American Exceptionalism mirroring America's exhuberance from WWI, westerns of the 50s and early 60s saw the good vs bad shown on the diver screen showing the American ideal triumphing over evil (WWII), And as America became conflicted over the muddy morals of the Vietnam war, the anti hero rose. The protagonist being dirty, morally ambiguous. Now, many westerns focus on the broken nature of the individual as veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq start question8ng what it was all worth, whether the injuries they suffered matter (look at the remake of 3:10 to Yuma).As most westerns usually occur following the civil war, it's easy to project veterans feelings of the conflict onto characters dealing with the aftermath of that conflict. I'm summary, the western as a mirror to explain the warriors journey to war, through it and reflection back again. Just like Lord of the Rings dealt with those issues to an English veteran, Westerns digest what veterans of any given era are feeling. Maybe. I could be wrong.
@@jasonflay8818 I like what you say. We may be using Westerns as metaphors or allegories for what we as a country are currently going through. It would be interesting to see how the Trump/MAGA era is reflected in Hollywood Westerns.
Now this is "The Take" we want😍
Before Clint Eastwood, cowboys were clean-shaven, wore white hats for the heroes and black hats for the villains, and gun wounds rarely showed blood. After Clint Eastwood, the Wild West became a dangerous unforgiving place, and the heroes were dirty.
Id argue The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was a major influence on Eastwood
@@tsp1999 how so?
@@randywhite3947 It was the first western to really deconstruct everything about the genre, a couple years before A Fistful of Dollars
@@tsp1999 It wasn't as much of a deconstruction. The true hero of Valance is Jimmy Stewart's meek lawyer/politician which was of course was different and a change. But John Wayne is still John Wayne. The infallible clean cut fastest gun in the west. Before Liberty Valance was High Noon, which had Gary Cooper crying. It was also a parable for the hollywood blacklists of the 50's. That's probably where the genre started it's deconstruction. It was Leone riffing on Kurosawa in the western genre where the genre really changed. Once upon a time in the west, where leone had Henry Fonda as the villain, that was ground breaking. Henry Fonda playing a cold blooded killer would be like Tom Hanks today playing a serial killer. That and the outlaw josey wales showing first nations people as well... complicated people not just Indians. Chief Dan George changed westerns as much as anyone.
FYI for those who don't know John Wayne despised what Leone and Eastwood did to the western genre, going as far as refusing to work with Eastwood.
John Wayne wears the black hat in The Searchers.
The Take should do a video on Buck And The Preacher which was Sidney Poitier's directorial debut and he also stars in with Harry Belafonte. It gives a Black perspective on the classic Western.
Speaking of Sidney, would love for them to one on his acting debut, no way out. Its a really progressive and subversive movie, even today, but its sadly not very talked about
Love this video! Would love to see more in this series!
This is the sort of video I subscribed for.
Beautiful return to form, The Take! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I’d love to see some videos about musicals! Rocky horror would be so fun or more “girly” marketed movies 🤗
*'Unforgiven'* is the only movie I've ever seen where KILLING has consequences. It's not just an action, it's an act that digs deep at your soul and makes you live with the guilt for the REST of your life.
I loved this movie. An emotional movie about tough guys. The irony
There was a mini-series on TNT that had a realistic view of the old west called Into the West.
For those that keep saying that Western Anti-Heroes didn't exist before Sergio Leone & Clint Eastwood, I highly recommend you watch these masterpieces:
.Red River (1948), Directed By Howard Hawks, Starring John Wayne
.The Searchers (1956), Directed By John Ford, Starring John Wayne
.The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Directed By John Ford, Starring John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin
.Vera Cruz (1954), Directed by Robert Aldrich, Starring Gary Cooper & Burt Lancaster
.Man Of The West (1958), Directed by Anthony Mann, Starring Gary Cooper
.Winchester '73 (1950), Directed by Anthony Mann, Starring Jimmy Stewart
.The Naked Spur (1953), Directed By Anthony Mann, Starring Jimmy Stewart
I love the Westerns of Leone and Eastwood, but to say they invented the concept of anti-hero is not exactly accurate. Westerns got increasingly darker post-WW2 and these Westerns I've listed highlight that perfectly. All of these Westerns show a much more cynical side of the Old West, and no, the heroes are not exactly White Hat wearers in these movies, either. Yes, the Revisionist Westerns of the 60s and 70s took it up another notch but it didn't happen out of nowhere, Westerns were already getting progressively darker as the decades rolled on. Making a blanket statement and saying that all classic Westerns had absolutely no nuance shows more of a lack of knowledge on the history of the genre and shows you've probably only ever watched Leone's films and The Wild Bunch(which are masterpieces, but weren't the only ones ever made). It's one thing to listen to a video essay of someone telling you that Westerns had no substance before Leone without actually watching them, it's another thing when you've actually seen some of the most acclaimed Westerns before Leone and realize they were more nuanced than those video essays led you to believe. I'd encourage you all to watch the movies listed above to get an understanding of that, as they're all great pieces of cinema, and if you like the Western genre at all, you're more than likely going to like these movies. They're well worth your time!
The legacy of Unforgiven stands on its powerful theme of anti-violence.
Is a bad man with a gun still bad when his gun is taken away?
@@equusquaggaquagga536 Unfortunately, in today's America, the bad man will just go get another gun.
Unforgiven is a stone cold masterpiece… Almost all BP winners of he early 90’s are incredible
Right. It feels like the 90s were the golden age of cinema.
Most compelling video by @TheTake in a while.
I would really like to get your take on these older movies individually. great work.
Surprised to see The Take do this but happy for it!
Tremendous essay! One of my favorite films. These deep dives are lovely.
Loved this new topic, ty!
The patreon user who suggested this is the real MVP.
if i had the money to sponser a video I'd ask for a 13 part series on Harry and Megan just to piss off veiwers lol
I think Heavens Gate by Cimino Is such a great Western... It Is so unfortunate that ir has been so vilified over the years. The portrayal of the power moves by the elite Is so accurate!
It's boring and unoriginal
It's The Deer Hunter but more expensive
@@equusquaggaquagga536 on the contrary, the cinematography is extremely beautiful.
@@augustosolari7721 But the story should be exciting and engaging
cimino never learned to write screenplays and it shows
Unforgiven is a great fucking movie. Arguably Clint Eastwood's best film
Please do a video on The English. I think it was one of the best pieces of TV in the last decade and absolutely snubbed for an Emmy (or two). Would love to hear what you all have to say1
Or Deadwood of they want real ambiguous shit.
%100!!! Excellent, watched The English twice & will again!
Given the rampant obnoxious click-bait on CZcams, I had low expectations for this here video.
I was most pleasantly surprised
This video had a clearly stated premise, then went about intelligently and thoroughly presenting its argument
I rate this video ★★★★ out of 5
You are finally reviewing classics again ❤❤❤❤
Ultimately, this may be “The Last Western.”
If you think of it, no Western since has advanced the genre like this. There are good ones. Remakes like “ 3:10 To Yuma” and others like “Sisters Brothers” are excellent. But Unforgiven is above them all. It’s my favorite of the genre, and it’s impossible to see how anyone is going to top it.
The Take is back!
I liked the previous episode but it's to see the show go back to basics.
Dances with Wolves came first. One probably didn't have much to do with the other, it's not like Unforgiven wouldn't have been greenlit without Wolves being a hit and best picture. But Dances With Wolves was what probably got stuff like tombstone greenlit.
I miss these types of videos
Perfectly decent essay, altough it's not exactly revealing anything new for those who - you know - actually have seen Unforgiven when it was released.
Added to that, Clint Eastwood, often perceived as a reactionary, is a far more complex filmmaker, who deals in a very intelligent and nuanced way with subjects like violence, masculinity and the gap between myth and truth.
The Confederate with the Heart of Golf, sensitive to inmigrants in Great Torino, AND to the foe in letters from Iwo Jima...
the take i wanted
I think you may be exaggerating the boom of Westerns that you mention at the end of the video. There was a brief boom in the 90’s but it definitely faded from the film landscape with a few outliers but it has been doing well in television and streaming.
receipts? it is fine to have an opinion, but is it supported by the facts?
@@sms4077 I mean, how many successful Western movies from the 2000's can you name? Probably not many. How many successful Western tv series can you name from the same period? Yellowstone, Deadwood, Godless. Western movies might do well critically but they aren't box office draws and that's just a fact. A big traditional Western has never done well overseas which is why Hollywood mostly gave up on them at a certain budget level. Django Unchained, 3:10 to Yuma and Hostiles might be the exceptions.
Why was Nope shown in the picture when it wasn't even mentioned?
Now if only Clint Eastwood applied this same philosophy when making American Sniper (2014) about modern War films... sigh what could've been
Bone Tomahawk is a great western as well as a thriller with horror elements.
I love how diverse westerns have gotten, with more people of colour involved, as opposed to an all White cast.
The majority of cowboys in back in the day actually were black and/or hispanic. Yet another thing history and old movies whitewashed.
Now that HBO's Barry is coming to an end. Please do a take on the show.
The Strong, Silent type
Yeah those old westerns that I used to watch with my mom growing up you would have never known that there were black people in the West or Chinese. Or Native Americans that were actually Native Americans and not whitewashed. Those movies made the wild west look like it was 100% white.
are there really people out there who didnt think unforgiven was a worthy best picture winner?
This doesn't have anything to do with le sserafim, does it??
I miss when movies left legacies. There isn't a Best Picture from past 10 years (maybe more) that will be remembered the way films like Unforgiven were
I’m happy that you exposed the terrible mistreatment of indigenous people and debunked the myth of settling the west by white settlers.
And then Clint Eastwood interviewed a chair.
I tend to like alternative Westerns like Blazing Saddles, Cat Ballou, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Oklahoma!, or Dances with Wolves, or Westerns centered on families, like The Big Country or How the West Was Won. For TV shows, I enjoy Bonanza, The Big Valley, Wagon Train, and Little House on the Prairie. Lately I've been enjoying on cable TV The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, and early 1960s western starring a preteen Kurt Russell, about a boy and his physician father traveling on a small wagon train toward the 1849 California gold rush. It's based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
I can't stand John Wayne, and I can't stand what he stands for. I find Clint Eastwood a little more tolerable.
Some thirty years ago, I wrote a screenplay--unproduced, of course--about a half-Lakota, half-Irish runaway teenage girl who befriends a White family in 1870s Wyoming. (Of course, I've never been to Wyoming.) Some people think of the original Star Wars as a space Western; I think of it as a fairy tale--but then, you could say that the Western is the American fairy tale.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Pistole Pete Dumbledore.
In terms of deconstructions of wild-west movies, I vastly prefer Blazing Saddles. Unforgiven shows these western-heroes to be broken men, Blazing Saddles asks "What if a black-man were the hero?" and answers "The townspeople would be extremely racist, because the wild-west was extremely racist. It's also uproariously funny, but never in a smarmy cynical way.
Not so fun fact. The original title of this screenplay was….”Whore’s Gold.” 🙄 Yes, really.
🙄 Slow, overextended, depressing movie that still comes up with a traditionally just resolution while implicitly embracing a nihilistic journey.
Good vid until the wokeism in the end