What filmmaking techniques does Unforgiven use?

CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Unforgiven (1992): Revisionist Genre Argument, Chiaroscuro Lighting, Triangulated Moral Ambiguity and Observational Restraint.

Who directed Unforgiven?

Clint Eastwood directed Unforgiven, released in 1992. CineCode also covers Mystic River (2003), Million Dollar Baby (2004), Gran Torino (2008), Changeling (2008), Invictus (2009), American Sniper (2014).

What films are similar to Unforgiven?

Films that share techniques with Unforgiven include Hell or High Water (2016), The Elephant Man (1980), L.A. Confidential (1997), True Grit (2010).

Western · Drama

Unforgiven

Clint Eastwood, 1992

A retired outlaw turned pig farmer reluctantly takes one last bounty job after 2 cowboys mutilate a prostitute. The violence that follows keeps escalating until the myths of the Old West are stripped away entirely. Eastwood pretty much turns the Western genre against itself.

3 Narrative 1 Cinematography

At a glance

Unforgiven is a 1992 western and drama film directed by Clint Eastwood. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (3 narrative and 1 cinematography), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Hell or High Water uses several of the same techniques.

Narrative

Revisionist Genre Argument

Using a genre's familiar rules, like its heroes and its violence, to take those rules apart. The film turns your expectations into a political point the genre usually avoids.

How this film uses it

Eastwood sets up every element of a classic Western (the retired gunslinger, the frontier town, the cold sheriff). Then he takes the glamour out of each one, step by step. What is left is violence that is ugly, trauma that is permanent and heroism that is a myth.

Where to see it

William Munny's drunken final rampage through the saloon. You recognize it as the big gunfight at the end. It is shot like a horror scene, and there is no triumph in it.

Cinematography

Chiaroscuro Lighting

Lighting a scene with strong contrast between bright light and deep shadow, a style borrowed from old paintings called chiaroscuro. How lit a character is hints at their moral or mental state.

How this film uses it

Jack N. Green's photography drains the romantic golden light out of the West. In its place, you get flat grey skies, lamplit interiors and a darkness that hides more than it shows.

Where to see it

Little Bill's public beating of English Bob in the street. The scene is stripped of all honor, and Bob is humiliated in front of the town before he is sent away.

Narrative

Triangulated Moral Ambiguity

Spreading good and bad qualities across 3 or more characters, where most stories use 2 sides. Nobody is purely the hero or the villain, so you can't easily pick who to root for.

How this film uses it

Munny is the reluctant killer. Little Bill is the lawman who is worse than the criminals he controls. Beauchamp is the writer who turns violence into legend. Each one exposes the hypocrisy of the others, and none of them offers a better way.

Where to see it

Beauchamp switching his loyalty from English Bob to Little Bill. He does it after seeing that Little Bill is the more violent man. The scene is about who gets to write the legend.

Narrative

Observational Restraint

Watching events from a measured distance with no swelling music, tear-jerking close-ups or showy camera moves. The film trusts what happens to carry the weight on its own.

How this film uses it

Eastwood won't put heroic music over the killings or justify them morally. The camera watches the results of violence with the same flat attention it gives to pigs and mud.

Where to see it

The death of Davey the cowboy. It is slow, painful and without dignity. You don't get the clean death that Westerns usually provide.

Questions

Unforgiven: quick answers

What filmmaking techniques does Unforgiven use?: CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Unforgiven (1992): Revisionist Genre Argument, Chiaroscuro Lighting, Triangulated Moral Ambiguity and Observational Restraint.
Who directed Unforgiven?: Clint Eastwood directed Unforgiven, released in 1992. CineCode also covers Mystic River (2003), Million Dollar Baby (2004), Gran Torino (2008), Changeling (2008), Invictus (2009), American Sniper (2014).
What films are similar to Unforgiven?: Films that share techniques with Unforgiven include Hell or High Water (2016), The Elephant Man (1980), L.A. Confidential (1997), True Grit (2010).

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