Unforgiven Movie Review

My chosen film is Unforgiven, directed by Clint Eastwood. My three actors from this film that I will classify are, Clint Eastwood (William Munny), Gene Hackman (Sheriff Little Bill Daggett, and Morgan Freeman (Ned Logan).

Clint Eastwood as William Munny falls under the Personality category. Personality actors are, at some level, playing themselves (or at least that is the perception) (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014, sec. 5.5). Eastwood has been in numerous movies dating back to the 1950’s. He has developed a western cowboy persona from all of the western genre films he has starred in. For most viewers that have seen the movie Unforgiven they have a hard time differentiating between his character and his real name. In Unforgiven, the viewer feels Eastwood’s impact by his realistic portrayal of the character he is playing. The mise en scene shows how the camera captures the tall slender build of Eastwood as well as his slow methodical movements as shown in the clip from the bar scene. Eastwood has a natural stare that when he squints his eyes the viewer automatically knows something is about to happen based off of his previous films where he made the same expressions.

Gene Hackman’s role as the Sheriff Little Bill Daggett falls under the personality category. Hackman has established himself throughout the years as a no no-nonsense actor. This has made him a personality actor. He has played in roles such as Lex Luther in Superman where he was a villain and now in Unforgiven where he is made out to be a villain. His role in Unforgiven is a realistic role. His ability to naturally look like a tough and mean Sheriff comes across in the opening scene where he “horse whips” the men responsible for cutting a brothel babe. Again, when he beats down English Bob for trying to come to his town looking to kill the men responsible for cutting the brothel babe. Hackman doesn’t really have to rely on any of his acting skills other than his personality.

Morgan Freeman’s (Ned Logan) role is that of personality acting. Freeman is consistent and never fails to have the same monotone part in all of his films. Freeman has one of the most recognizable voices of all times. When he speaks, people listen. His realistic role showed a man that was remorseful for his past actions, and his role helped to bring to light a different side of the cowboy role in western genre films. From these three actors we can see that Eastwood would most commonly be placed in the same category. The reason he would always be in the same category is due to his personality acting that he brings to the movies that he has played in. As an actor he has a distinctive personality that he upholds on and off stage. He is recognized by his one-liners and his distinctive facial expressions that he carries over to all of his films. His “Dirty Harry” role is similar to his western genre roles with him making the same facial expressions and similar dialogue.

Reference

Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P. (2014).

Film: From watching to seeing (2nd ed.) [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/