Clint Eastwood’s career became established thanks to parts in Westerns during the 1950s and 1960s, becoming a household name in the United States in the television classic Rawhide and a known figure in European cinema as “Man with No Name” in Sergio Leone’s iconic “Dollars Trilogy;” these Western roles aided in launching Eastwood’s career to the forefront of cinema and solidified him as the exemplary hyper-masculine character typically featured as protagonists in the Western genre.
However, Unforgiven and its subversions of the traditional Western allow Eastwood to question the legend of his machismo persona as one of Hollywood’s most notable men of many decades. Munny’s character detours from the virile, burly vision of men commonly portrayed in Westerns; the pigs he raises on his ranch drag him through the mud, he falls off his horse after many attempts to mount it, and opts to use a shotgun on his bounty hunt instead of a pistol, which requires much more precise handling and accuracy.
This “gone to seed” image of Eastwood in the role of Munny diverts drastically from his early performances in Westerns, shattering the ideas that audiences harbor for the actor before viewing Unforgiven. Munny’s character bears serious regrets for his past deeds, carrying the guilt from his violent history instead of using it to glorify his legendary position as a gunslinging outlaw.
Notably, storytelling and myth-making are significant themes throughout Unforgiven, with rumors of Munny’s past feats told through unconfirmed hearsay and even The Kid’s marveling mythology of Munny being based on second-hand accounts and gossip, far from the reality of truth.
As learned from the movie’s epilogue, Munny chooses to abandon his life as a farmer and relocates his family to San Francisco, where he becomes a business merchant. This rejection of a life in the Wild West that he once desired displays Munny’s understanding of the depravity of his former existence as an outlaw, a consideration that would never be accepted within romantic traditions of early Westerns.
Through Eastwood’s composition of Munny’s character, he can create an emotionally complex antihero, allowing viewers to revise their concepts of traditional heroes within the Western genre.