The Western for People Who Don't Like Westerns

Well, I've finally finished watching the latest round of impulse-purchase DVDs I bought off the discount rack on my most recent trip to Wally-World. Tonight's feature was Unforgiven, and, I gotta say, it was probably one of the better impulse purchases I've made of late. Damn, but that's a good movie.

I remember going to see this one in the theater, actually. My then-boyfriend was a big fan of westerns in general and Clint Eastwood movies in particular, and he practically begged me to go and see it with him, even though I kept telling him I really didn't like westerns.[*] He tried very hard to convert me, though, describing with great enthusiasm how, among other things, the simple black-hat/white-hat morality of westerns appealed to him as an escape from the shades-of-gray complexities of real life. Now, I can understand how that might appeal, but, frankly, it's one of the things that always kind of turned me off about westerns. I generally prefer my drama to have those shades-of-gray complexities. (See earlier post about how the bad guy who thinks he's the good guy is always more interesting than they bad guy who's just bad for the sake of being bad.) There's also something about the way westerns tend to glorify both vigilante justice and what for lack of a better word I can only call "machismo" that... Well, that really fails to resonate for me, let's put it that way.

But I went to the movie, anyway. And afterwards, in the parking lot outside the theater, he turned to me and said, "I am so very, very sorry. That wasn't what I told you it would be at all." And I said, "Are you kidding? I loved it! Thank you so much for talking me into coming!"

Because, of course, Unforgiven very deliberately sets about subverting all those usual western-movie sensibilities that I felt so lukewarm towards. There are no clear-cut good guys and bad guys, no glorification of anything, no justice (vigilante or otherwise), no whitewashing to cover up the true ugliness of violence, no larger-than-life frontier mythos... Just flawed, believable people in tragic, violent circumstances.

It sort of does for cowboy movies what Watchmen did for superhero comics, and, believe me, that's a compliment of the highest order. (I think Watchmen got the only A+ I've ever given out on my book review page...)

[*] Note that that's not meant to be some sort of sweeping critical judgment on the quality of the entire western genre. Frankly, even if I were inclined to make sweeping critical judgments, I doubt I've really seen enough western movies to consider myself qualified to do so. Well, my mother's a huge fan of John Wayne, so I've probably seen at least part of every John Wayne movie ever made. Ditto for the aforementioned ex and his Eastwood movies, actually. But, aside from Unforgiven and (if you want to count it) Blazing Saddles, I've probably never actually seen an entire western start to finish. All I know is that what I have seen of them is enough to give me the distinct impression that it's not a movie genre that, generally speaking, holds a great deal appeal for me personally. Um, end of disclaimer!