Paul Dechant on Unforgiven

come on. Maybe maybe by the end of this episode, I will that right, And you know we've spoken since then, obviously, but I'm everyone should know that you're doing well. You've got a great place, you're happy, you're living with with your lady friend now finally after quite a while apart. So congratulations, thanks man. Yeah, I appreciate it. I'm enjoying New York. It's hot though, and I'm getting used to having window air conditioners instead of central a C. Yeah.

Those windows they can pump it out sometimes though, if they're good, they can. But it's just it's just an adjustment, for sure. Yeah, sometimes you have to wait wait to get cool, just than having it right away. New York Hut is different too. It's pretty steamy. The concrete makes it very unpleasant. Yes, agreed, But enough about New York City, because we're here to talk about a Western. We haven't

done then many westerns on this show. And when you threw out a short list of movies, Unforgiven was on there, and it had been a while since I've seen it, so I jumped all over this one. I'm glad man, I'm a I'm a Western fan and um I in fact Unforgiven though I didn't see this for the first

time until a couple of months ago. I've kind of been going on in Clint Eastwood kick and uh, mostly like the films he's directed himself, and Unforgiven has always has always kind of been considered one of his top movies, and so I don't know, just like a couple of months ago, I watched it and I was just like blown away by how great it was and really excited to talk about it today. Dude, that's great. I didn't know that this was new to you. Clint Eastwood is

a legend. He uh, he is someone who's politics I don't agree with, but I just I love the guy even so you know it's I forget about all that stuff. He um this. I believe his movie coming out this year will be either his thirty ninth or film as director, which is just crazy. Man, he's not. I don't feel like he's on the short list for a lot of people for best directors, and he should be. At the tender age of ninety one. I think, uh, he's pumping

out movies one one every year at this rate. Uh, And it's just it's honestly, it's pretty inspiring to like watch at this point because um uh, you know, some of them are hit and miss, but I like a lot of them, especially his recent work and just the

way he works. And like, like you mentioned, I I tend to disagree with his politics as well, but I think that that will make this conversation richer because despite his politics, I personally find a lot more ambivalence and uh nuance in his movies then you might think from somebody who too sort of character tries him, you might think of as like a crotchety old conservative guy telling young people to get off my lawn. You know. Yeah, I mean he's really not doing a lot of that

in his movie. He's I guess Grand Torino had had a bit of that element to it, but Great Arena was fucking great. I love that movie. Yeah, I actually just watched it on a plane a couple of weeks

ago for the first time. Yeah. Man, it's good, and it's it's so fun to dive into like sort of his psyche because again, he has these like surprisingly like progressive views or things he shows in his movies despite him sort of being like a sort of old fashioned guy who believes in like say, you know, strong men and and you know, uh, he thinks, you know, America has become a nation of pussies and stuff like that,

you know. But uh, and I think and Unforgiven is is a great example of sort of how he sort of deconstructs a genre that is known for sort of the strong silent man, you know. Yeah, and this is a movie that was I think everyone kind of thought this was his his goodbye to westerns uh, and it kind of had been. Although his new movie coming out is sort of a Western um not quite like this, I think it's said in the seventies, but it definitely

is a is a bit of a Western um. But this definitely is is his last sort of Hurrah to the the pale writer character. This the Josie Whale's strong silent type, and um, I remember when it came out, it was it seemed very much a sort of a statement movie, like this is it, This is gonna be my my swan song for this kind of movie, And what a statement it is. First of all, the fact that it won four Oscars, including Best Picture, surprises me

just because how great it is. And um, meaning like I feel like a lot of the times, the Best Picture often goes to a film that might be good in my opinion, but not the best of that year, and I forget what else would have been nominated that year.

But when I look at like the I looked recently at the list of like all the Best Picture winners for the past forty years, Like I can think of a handful of them that I consider like canon movies that like people still talk about and I would still go back to, and movies that just have stood the test of time, and I think Unforgiven as one of them for sure. Yeah, so this one best pure huh yeah, best Picture, and I've got it somewhere here. Best Director.

I meant to look that up. Okay, Best Editing and Best Supporting Actor for Gene Hackman, and then He's Good, and then Eastwood himself was nominated for Best Actor but lost to al Pacino for Scent of a Woman. Wow, a movie I still haven't seen. I saw it ages ago, but I need to need to revisit it. I think, Yeah, it's funny the a couple of comments on that one best Editing. I love that this one best editing because it is such a thoughtfully edited and paced movie, and

I think that they don't get recognized as much. Uh, there's no thing flashy about this movie. It is a very very simple story. Was that a fly? There's a gigantic fly in my closet here? Yeah? Uh? And then the with with Hackman. It's funny you mentioned Pacino because I was thinking when I was watching this, how people make such hay out of like when de Niro and Pacino finally got together in Heat and they shared the screen and and it was great, and they've done that

I think since then. But like, why isn't even anyone talking about Eastwood and Hackman sharing the screen? And then throw in a Morgan Freeman like a third legend on top of it. It's like to me, that was seeing those two guys go toe to toe is just as big a deal to me. Gene Hackman is one of my favorite of all time. I'm like, I miss him

so so much. I know, I know, yeah, he's he's so good in it, and uh, the role he plays, it's easy to sort of say, like, oh, you can't imagine this role being played by anybody else, but I really feel that with this owl. And and like you said, I don't have they worked him and him and Eastwood work together on any other films, not that I can think of. I can't. I mean, there's probably some obvious one that everyone is like going to make fun of us for forgetting, but I can't really think of anything.

And then Richard Harris is in it too. It's like, good lord, yeah, it's it's funny because like I or what I most know Richard Harris for is playing Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter movies. Get out right now, get out of that closet and leave before he passed away. He was Dumbledore for two movies, and so he's like, you know, this wise and old gentle soul in Harry Potter. And then seeing him I and I i've since I know he has had a long and illustrious career aside

from Harry Potter. But seeing him in that another role, he really sort of choose up the scenery in a great way. Yeah. I love English Bob. He's he's pretty great. It's funny. I thought it was funny, how in another great role from Saul Rubenek as but Champ the writer, Um, the writer who has no stomach for this stuff. He wants to record the Old West. He wants to be the biographer of these guys that I think he feels

like he admires. But I think he admired Bob because Bob was this sort of winning, fun, jovial Englishman when the tables are turned and then he is the back for a little bill uh, He's he's in over his head and he knows it, and that he's a sadist in a and a genuinely evil person, and that's not who English Bob was. The boat Champ character. Yeah, he

fascinates me for for a lot of reasons. And I think you hit on it, Um when you're talking about like the myth of the Old West and how I feel like the Western compared to some other genres as kind of very much a genre of cinema, right, that cinema really created the Western, and so we have this sort of archetypes, the archetypes of Westerns, you know, the good gun slinger staring down out gunned out man, staring down a room of bad guys and taking them all

out against the odds. Uh. And bow Champ is writing these basically very much fictitious stories, as we learn with English Bob when little Bill sort of corrects him on the story he was writing about. Okay, here's what actually happened. It was not heroic at all. Bob was drunk, and the story about Parky that was pretty funny. Yeah. And the duck, the Duck of Death really the Duke, the

Duke of Death. Yeah, the Duck of Death really just uh kind of got lucky and took his time and shot the guy sort of unarmed and without any honor in quotation marks. And then though the sort of bow Champ switches allegiances and he stays with Hackman because he's enamored with hearing Hackman stories. And then you see them sort of uh in in Hackman's Leaky House with the roof leaking water, and he's telling more stories and you can tell that he's embellishing them himself, right, that's yea.

And then finally, so what I think is interesting is during the final shootout when when Eastwood shows up and he you know, he kills the room of quote unquote bad guys and and bow Champ is in the back. And you see though his face like light up when he enters the room, and once he starts taking out guys, he's like he's he's sort of twisted lee fascinated by it, and he's almost like, oh, this is this is the best one of them all. This is the king of

gun slingers. And he immediately says, Okay, who did you shoot first? And uh, it's usually traditionally the the fastest gun you want to take out of the most lethal and Eastwood just like, oh, I just got lucky, you know. But he's clearly like still fascinated by this, and even though he's witnessed this horrific violence, he still wants to

sort of embellish it and write more books about it. Yeah, and Eastwood, I mean that scene is so key because they're they're all like Bill, Little Bill is kind of poopooing the whole biographer thing until he is his biographer, and then he's way into it and he's embellishing, like you said, and adding to the mystifying of these of himself and people like him. But but Money just will Money doesn't care about any of that stuff like that.

His chance, his entry point is to go right, like he has the chance the doors open, to start telling his story to this guy, and he just doesn't give a ship. He didn't want to, he didn't want to kill people anymore. He doesn't want to glorify killing people anymore. I mean, that's what this whole movie is about, is about the the guilt that this man feels about the horrible things he's done in his past and how he feels he is a bad guy, and he was a

bad guy. He killed women and children and was a drunk. Yeah. I think that's sort of late in the film Revelation where I think one of the prostitutes says, oh, you're the guy. Little Bill said, You're the I who dynamited

so and so's place and killed women and children. And suddenly, as a viewer, you immediately it's suddenly like your worldview is rocked because you wanted to think of Eastwood's character as this like stoic guy who probably killed for good reasons in his past, and yeah, things got a little dirty, but he always did maybe not the right thing, but the thing that needed to be done. And suddenly you're like, wait a minute, this guy is not nearly as heroic

and worth admiration as I might have thought. It makes you make a choice, m you know, like, because you know something was up, because he's a man clearly haunted from his past. They sort of lead you to believe that it's only because of his wife who had passed away. Um, but you could tell that there's something more. He's not

drinking anymore. Alcoholism is different back then because annoyed me how much Morgan Freeman kept trying to get him to drink again, and I was like, stop, you're not supposed to do that. Don't enable them, Like I don't think enabling was a word back then. Uh, but boy, that makes it so powerful when he takes that bottle at the end and finally starts drinking. You know. Yeah, so

I'm very curious that that sort of ending. We've been talking about a little bit where he finally shows up to the saloon and he basically he's outmanned, out gunned, and yet he takes out I don't know, six guys, let's say, who knows, maybe more without a scratch on him. Like, when you're watching that, what is your reaction to it? I was into it because I like a good revenge killing in a movie. Uh, little Bill was a bad guy. I think they set it up such that you would

definitely root for that because of the um. The beginning was so brutal when they cut that woman up. Uh, that was a brutal scene to see, and so you really want those fucking guys to to get theirs. Um, but those guys had already gotten There's so interesting, like he kills the bar, the saloon owner. Uh, in cold blood. It just for you know, having Morgan Freeman's body displayed out in front, which he didn't really have a choice of. I imagine Little Bill was you know, he's calling all

the shots in that town. So, I mean that's kind of one of the things I like about this movie is that there it's not so clear cut and they are a little ambiguous with who you should be rooting for. But he one of the best parts of that whole scene is when he's like, you know, any any any man that doesn't want to get shot and just go on out in the back and all those fucking guys just get the hell out of there, and they have a chance to kill him too, and they're just there,

you know, they're scared. Yeah, And it kind of goes back to to what Little Bob was saying to to bow Champ earlier about how it's not the who who's the fastest gun, it's who stays the coolest under pressure. I think, God, that scene. Can we talk about that scene? Yeah? Absolutely, that scene. Yeah, when he Little Bob gives him the gun basically, and I mean that whole scene is great because that's when he sort of reveals that Bob English

Bob had been stretching the truth. It's a really long scene and then he gives him that gun and he's just he tells him to cock it and he points it right at his chest and all that guy's gotta do is squeeze the trigger and he knows he won't, and then he tells him the hand of English Bob and it's just such a power play, you know, in my mind it links up to the Schofield kid character, who who has actually never killed anybody, but sees himself

or tells everybody he's this this bad man killer. And ultimately, though, like very I think it shows with the boat champ taking the gun, it's like very few of us would actually have the nerve or have the whatever you call it to be able to do that, you know, And it takes a certain kind of person to be able to do that, and even back then, and you know, I I don't think there's much of a moral judgment

placed on what type of person that is. Is it somebody who like because all the guys we see who are able to kill are kind of psychopaths a little bit, you know, or they have like they're they're not the best people. So it's like the ability to kill people, what, you know, do you lose your soul in the process or something like that? You know? Yeah, I mean that's again that's sort of the central premise of this movie is what does it take to do this? What does

it do to you? Like, how does it change you as a person in this case as a man to do it? Ah, I mean, it's one of the classic lines in movie history. You know, is is Clint at that one point when and this is that's what I texted you immediately when he said unforgiven, it's a hell of a thing killing a man. Take away, you take away everything he's gotten, everything he's ever going to have.

And I think you just see on the kid's face like he never even considered what it would feel like because he was drawn in by the by Billy the Kid and all these stories. You know, he wanted all the all the notoriety and stuff until it actually happened, and then it just wrecked him. Yeah, and the stories that somebody like bow Champ probably makes money off of writing, you know. And yeah, the performance, So the actor I had to look him up, James Wolvett, who plays the

Schofield kid, I haven't. Yeah, he's great and I love that he's so grading and annoying for like most of the movie intentionally, and then the performance he gives in that scene where he breaks down after killing one of the guys, like it's just hard. It's it's a great performance and it's just heartbreaking because you see you can literally see the psyche shift in that scene. And then you know the moment where he says, you know, I'm not I'm not picking up a gun again, and I'm

never killing anyone again. If there's any sort of hope to be found in a movie like this, it's the fact that somebody like him takes that view and and sort of decides to leave this life behind, you know, Yeah, And you get the feeling that that's gonna hide him for the rest of his life, even though that guy really deserved what he had come and h which leads me to another one of my favorite lines about you know, the guy kind of deserving It is when little Bill

is dying on the floor of the saloon and he says that, you know, I don't deserve to die like this, and uh, Money just says deserves got nothing to do with it. This is such a good line, And that's a close as close as this movie comes to, like a not pithy, but just sort of because he plays it so straight. You know, there are a lot of times this would have been a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger or something is the retired old guy would have just been chock full of corny lines. But that's as close

as it comes. And I thought it was a good line. Yeah, and and it's sort of a metal line, right. It's like we like to think of our our Westerns, especially having clear cut good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys deserve what's coming to them, and Eastwood just says, you know, deserves, got nothing to do with it. It's just a matter of doing it, you know. Yeah, we should talk a little bit about just how beautiful of

a film this is. Those gorgeous shots at dusk and dawn, the silhouette of he and uh ned when they're riding those horses at sunset, it's just he pulls out all the stops of kind of the beautiful old Western. Um like that. That's what you want to see when you see a movie like this, if you want to see horses silhouetted against a red setting sun, shout out to let's see. The DP was Jack Green who uh I looked him up. He's he's deep. Had a lot of

Eastwood stuff, especially his stuff in the nineties. But yeah, beautiful film. Um. I love the opening and closing shots of the sun setting with the tree and Eastwood at the the grave of his wife. Yeah, it's it's a very sort of classical looking frame like something you'd see in a movie from the fifties or something, and um, I had to look it up. They shot it mostly in Alberta, Canada, which is where a lot of westerns are shot, like Days of Heaven was shot there. I think,

Oh yeah, planes, big open planes. Um, I will say that. Uh. A fun tidbit is that they say William Money lives in and it's mentioned he lives in Hodgman County, Kansas, which is literally two counties away from where I grew up in no Way. Yeah, yeah, it's a real county. Um. Just a fun little thing. But yeah, they didn't shoot it in Kansas as far as I can tell. You think they came all the way from Kansas just to fuck us. That was a great line, um, I was.

It was a little like disconcerting and and really hammers home like how sexual assault his uh sometimes not even changed that much. Like the the excuse that Sheriff Bill uses after the assault is like these are pretty good guys, like you know, what's what good is it gonna do to go after for them than and ruin their lives? And I heard that. I was just like, God, do

you hear that same ship today? When it's like, you know that I can't remember was that the duke student from the from the Good Family behind the dumpster And you hear that same thing trotted out, like well, why ruin his life now for this one mistake? And it's just so maddening. It's crazy because like you expect to hear and a ligne like that echoed in a movie

that's coming out. Maybe it's like hitting the pulse of what's you know, current in the culture, and you have to hear it in a movie from which is you know? And it's basically a word for word of what, like you said, these these lines that get trotted out in cases today. It's it's a very smart script. Uh, Violet's see David Webb Peoples who also wrote Blade Runner and Yeah, man, the role of the women in this film is really fascinating.

I think, you know because after after the cuting happens at the beginning of the film, they first of all say, a little bill, you're only going to whip them, And then once they agree to bring the ponies, he's like, oh, we don't even need to whip him. Yeah, And like you said, they're good boys who don't want to ruin their lives and the fact that um, during that scene, Skinny the bartender says, Oh, I've got a contract here. These women are property. They are an investment of capital.

You know. All the men here see them as less than human, as the equivalent of horses. Right, And the fact that the women really have no recourse through quote unquote legal means is ultimately why they turned to pooling their money and trying to get somebody to come and uh and kill these two guys. Yeah, like all the money they have, it feels like, and you know, they

do love that they gave them some agency. There is a you know, a very brief albeit feminist message in this and that they're not going to take it anymore, like this was one step too far and they're not gonna sit down and take this lightly and let these guys go. Like, you know, at any point they could have called this off, because things really go sideways. You know, once Bill learns that they have put out money to to get some assassins in there and they're there, they

stick to their guns. What I really would have liked to have seen was one of them ended up sort of doing one of the killings themselves. I think that would have Um, I would have liked to have seen that, but you know that wasn't this movie. Yeah. And by the end of it though, you know, at the very end, once once Eastwood's kind of killed all these guys and starts to leave town, you see all the women watching him right away, and they all kind of have this

look of like, shit, was this really worth it? You know, even though justice was achieved, Like, look at the violence that was perpetuated. And I don't know if if you saw it this way, but the woman who has the the assault committed against her, I think her name is Lilah. She there's a shot of her at the very end when Eastwoods riding away, and she almost has this like smile on her face, like she's and it's very haunting because it's like, I don't quite know what to make

of it. They got justice, she and she's the one who's almost seemed the most ambiguous about whether she actually wants this or not. You know, even though she's the one who had it done to her, it's all the other women who immediately said, Okay, we need to we need to have these guys killed. She's silent for most of the movie. You always kind of wonder what she's thinking, right, Yeah,

Francis Fisher really leads the charge as the eldest. Yeah, and rightfully so, like you said, but it does kind of call into question the idea just of like violence be getting violence, you know what I mean. Yeah, and Bill even has that one line like, you know, haven't we seen enough killing for one day? And it's interesting because that's the line. I mean, I think that shows the depth of this movie and that it's not so clear cut because that message is one that the guy

should say, you know, like this, that's enough killing. And and this is coming from the sadest of the movie, you know who, who clearly delights and like humiliating and beating up these other guys just to sort of fill his own ego because he can't build a house, right. Yeah, A lot of this movie seems to stem from like the fragility of the male ego. Totally. Yeah, I mean, even the fact that what leads to the sexual assault is the prostitute laughing because the guy had a small

penis Yeah, totally. I forgot about that line. That's key. He said he had a small pecker and she giggled or something. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I looked down and saw a small pecker and started giggling. That's what started this whole thing. Yeah, that's a very key piece of information. Actually, mm hmm. Um, Clint Eastwood has the number one best face in movie history. I think, uh, this Clint, I call it medium old Clint. I thought it was super old Clint. But who knew that, you know, he was

going to keep doing this into his nineties. But I really loved this version of Clint, this medium old Clint when he's I went to look up how old he was, which I do a lot now, and it's always a little bit unnerving once you turned fifty, where you're like, oh ship, they were like a year older than me. And I was looking up. I was like, oh my god, please tell me Clinty Sowood wasn't like fifty three. He was in the sixties. He was sixty two or sixty

three when he made it. Thank god. Um. But I love that era of Clint to play a character like this and sort of like in Grand Torino. Now he's he's clearly working out his own mortality and uh, leaving these sort of statement films behind him. Uh, like I guess alone kind of did it too with the Final Rockies and the Final Rambos. Even though heard that Rainbow movie was terrible. UM like their their legacy is sort of they're they're controlling their own legacy and what they

leave behind. I think with movies like this, I read some where that um so, first of all, I read that the concept for the movie started sometime in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, it was from a book, I think, right, maybe I don't know, it could be yeah, but I guess Eastwood came across the script sometime in the eighties, but apparently he didn't want to do it right away until he felt like he had aged enough to play

the part. Which is funny because, like this movie comes out, I'm sure a lot of people are thinking, Oh, this is his swan song, and then thirty years later he's pumping him out one a year. Um, it's really But I I do really want to talk a little bit about this idea of Eastwood as as actor but as also as icon, you know, because I feel like anytime Eastwood is in a movie, he's not just playing the character, but he's bringing his whole history of characters he's played

in the past. Right, And so Clint Eastwood like somebody is Somebody is a lot like somebody like John Wayne, who like they're always linked to their characters in the westerns, right, And Clint, you think of you know, the side the man with no name, the guy who comes into town, sets things right and leaves on a horse, and I think, here he does He technically does do all of those things, but it's a movie where he sort of interrogates his own Like you said, it's sort of a self inquiry

and interrogating his own persona as that icon and what it means to sort of have been like the quote unquote badass guy who goes and just kills a bunch of people. But now we're seeing again the exact same things happening sort of on paper. And yet my reaction to it is very different. It's not one of like

raw raw cheering him on. It's one of like kind of being horrified and chilling, you know, And I think, um, nothing, there's no there's no more chilling shot in the movie for me is when he leaves the saloon and there's like a low shot looking up to him and there's the American flag draped in the background. And the rains falling, and he says like, or I'll come back here and kill every one of you sons of bitches. Yeah, and then your wives, and I'll burn your house down. Yeah.

First of all, the fact that the American flag is behind it. It's like linking the idea of violence in American history with sort of the myth of the West, you know. And to me, like, I don't know how other people read it, but to me, I find it like very chilling and not necessarily like, oh, this is awesome, badass guy taking him out again, Clint got you know, Clint got it on him over again. You know. It's sort of an anti violence, anti gun movie. It's weird.

It's I mean, he's he's really making a big statement about like you said, I mean, not even within the context of this film, but his whole career. And I don't think it I would go so far as to say it serves as an apology for serving up all these movies. I think it's just more of a re examination of of this stuff and what does it mean to to have this kind of violence in movies and then in a character's life on screen? Really pretty heavy stuff, you know, like it's there's a lot more going on

for such a simple story than meets the eye. And like you said, yeah, I would agree. I wouldn't say apology, but it's yeah, re examination and and and inquiry into his own role in sort of creating that icon and asking what what does it mean? What is this leaving behind? You know? Yeah, he definitely did not do anything to glorify any of this or to make him seem like

this uh great character like he makes. He takes great pains to to make sure this character isn't put on any pedestal, even with I mean, I guess the one scene where it shows him the most sympathetic is when he's having that really sweet talk with the woman who was assaulted and she offers him the freebee and he says no and then feels bad because she takes it as like that. You know, she's ugly now because her face was cut up, and it was just such a

sweet scene. He's like, you know, if I was to want a freeb I guess it would be with you because you're beautiful and we both have scars, and that line we both have scars was like just just fantastic. I love that scene. Like you said, it's so tender, and yet it's before the information has been revealed that Clint Eastwood is somebody who's killed women and children. And so again it's it's such a smart, subtle script in

the way it sort of reverses our expectations. I guess, you know, because he is capable of tenderness, and he is somebody who apparently when he got married and quote unquote settled down, he didn't pick up a gun for a decade, and his wife, he says, cured him of of drink and wickedness. And and the movie maybe the movie is saying, like what it really takes as a good woman to to sort of stem the tide of this violence or something. I don't know. Yeah, And you

know we even see it with Ned. I mean, the whole uh message of this movie is just all over the place because Ned, I can't kill that guy. And Ned is a great shot, and he can't bring himself to kill this guy who was laying there sort of helpless under his horse. And I think that scene is the peak of annoyance from the Schofield kid, when you know he can't see what's going on, so he's like, did you kill him? Did you kill him? Weren't you killing him? Aren't you shoot him? What's going on? What's

he doing? Why aren't you gonna kill him? Didn't you kill him? And I was just I wanted somebody just said, shut the funk up for a second, like you have no idea what you're talking about right now, kid. The annoyance of the Schofield kid juxtapose against sort of Morgan Freeman's face where, without almost saying anything, you see him sort of working through like, oh god, I can't do this anymore. Yes, I'm not the face acting in that scene. It's just phenomenal. Yeah, it's so good. And also I

love that scene. We're talking about sort of the idea of of movies glorifying violence. You know this they this is where they're killing the first guy who's sort of the the accomplice to the crime. Really yeah, who in my mind, Like I'm not saying he's a good guy, but he's far less you know, he's far less deserving of death in my opinion than the guy who actually

did the crime. And yet when they kill him, it's another it's another one of those scenes where you're kind of like you expect to get some sort of satisfactory killing, and yet what happens is they kind of he falls on his horse, and then it's this long, agonizing scene of him trying to crawl to safety and they finally shoot him in the gut and then he takes like five more minutes to die, and it's like unglamorous and

just really kind of pitiful. Uh. It actually bizarrely reminded me of do you remember that scene in Austin Powers, the first one I swear I'm going somewhere with us, where Will Ferrell's character gets Yeah, he pushes the button, he gets like attacked. They're fed to the sharks or something, and then you think he's dead and you keep caring go, oh,

I'm badly burned but not dead yet. It's kind of like the drama version of that where it sort of plays up the idea of like movie killings and violence in films, and it's like, this doesn't play out like that in real life. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm going back to that question you asked earlier about how I felt at the end there there really isn't a satisfying death in this movie. Uh, they really take all that away from the viewer, and I guess Bill came as close

as possible because he was a truly evil guy. And when he died at the end, I was kind of like, yeah, you know, like you deserve this, but that's kind of it. Like even even when they kill the guy in the outhouse, the really bad guy who did the assault, like you want to see him dead, but they don't let you sit there and enjoy that as a viewer, you know, because the kid is immediately horrified with what he had done, and and Clint is just so cool about it all.

He doesn't like he didn't play into any of his kid's bravado or even even give him a lot of like, uh, he doesn't laud him at all for what he'd done, like good job or anything like something simple as that he didn't even really do. Again, this killing of the guy who if anybody does deserve it, it's him, and it's it's literally he's sitting on the toilet like the most vulnerable position a man can be in, so to speak, and he's like terrified when you know Schofield kids got

the gun on him. I think he says, please don't and then it's not satisfying because you can see the Schofield kid just like taking everything he has just to pull that trigger. And then immediately afterwards, when they're talking about it by the tree, I think the Schofield kids says something like he went for his gun, but I got him first. And you can already see him sort of changing the facts to build his own myth up because when we see the scene, as far as you

can tell, the guy wasn't going for his gun. He I think had his hands up. I think it was hanging on the door, even I don't think he could like could get to it. Even Yeah, it's just no satisfying deaths in this movie really, except Gene Hagman a little bit. It's interesting you say that because, like I agree with you on how I view his character as like the sadist who's clearly like drunk with power over

these people. And yet to me, I still find Eastwood's character the most chilling by the end, By the end, you know, um, And I just think it goes to show how there are no clear cut answers in this film and how different folks can sort of see different things in it, you know. Yeah, And and Bill is uh I thought it was interesting that he didn't allow the retribution against the cowboys for what they had done. Like from the very beginning, he steps in almost like

a peacemaker. Again he says, there's been enough bloodshed. Uh, he's really intent on not allowing this to take place. And I guess it's a power move, is the only thing I could figure out, because it seems like the old West, eye for an eye, he would have let that happen, let it die with these two cowboys getting killed. There end up being way more people killed than that because he didn't allow it. And then you know, taking everyone's guns when they came into town like that doesn't

happen in westerns either. So this this movie just it's a it's I don't know about mixed messages, but it's sort of an anti Western in some ways too, as much as as it is a Western, yeah, or or a revisionist Western, yeah you know. Um, But I think you know that that scene at the beginning where he talks about where you mentioned, you know, um, settling the piece, Like I think it's also because again little Bill doesn't see the prostitutes as equal to the men who committed

this crime. Yea He equates them with again property, much like the horses. So in his mind he's made a square deal, you know, trade a couple of horses for taking away the skinnies chance to make more money. Right. Yeah, I didn't think he was gonna kill Skinny. I think I forgot that when I was watching it this morning. Um, and I was a little surprised when he killed Skinny, but he he went, you know, he broke bad. He

went right back to the old guy. As soon as he you know, everything's turned and you know, and that that great set up for the third act. As soon as that the woman tells him that Ned was dead, He's like, no, no, no, Ned went south, and she's like, no, he's dead. He beat him to death, and he's displayed outside of Greeley's and you just see that switch get flicked and Clint starts drinking again, and you know it's just gonna be bloodshed from there on out. And it's

so complicated because Ned is in air quotes. I'm using this innocent in the sense that he didn't kill any of the folks he was arrested for. It was done by money and the school field kid. So he's sort of like Eastwood in a sense is justified to come take revenge on that, and yet there's nothing satisfying about it.

I also, I think it is worth mentioning sort of Morgan Freeman's role in how race plays a part in this film, and I think it's it's super interesting because the film never explicitly comments on race, at least not verbally, but I do think it's very consciously through its imagery

evoking racial issues. And I think the obvious one is when you see Ned getting whipped by Gene Hackman, it like immediately makes you think of like lynching, you know, and the fact that the black man is whipped for something he didn't do, and then he's he's proudly displayed the way like you know, a lynching would hang somebody and then show it off, you know. And again the film never really mentions it, and it's script, but it's very much there. Obviously, Ned was a killer in his past,

just like Eastwood was. Yeah, but he's retired to you know, he's retired too. And as far as the characters in this in this Town, no, they probably don't know anything about that, you know, And so in that sense, he is sort of an innocent, wrongly killed. Yeah. Absolutely. Um. You know I mentioned earlier about Clinton, there were so many opportunities, I think for him to have these tough guy lines that like Arnold would have, and he just he never does it. And I started to think that, like,

that's that's sort of Clint Eastwood period. Like he's an actor who has built a career out of, uh, not a lot of dialogue. I bet if you like had some algorithm that ran like total total words spoken by major actors, he would be at the well, I guess, at the bottom of the list of few as words spoken. And that's just sort of one of the hallmarks of him as an actor, I think is I can't think of many movies where he's had a monologue you know you've and like it's always these sort of clipped lines

and clipped answers. He says so much with that fucking face of his and the one at the end where he says, you know, I'll see you in hell, you know that I mentioned earlier from Hackman, and he just goes yeah, and that's it. Like any other movie, they would write some super cool thing or something tough or a great comeback or whatever, and you just you don't need that stuff. He strips all that away. I really

love it. That's how how expressive his face is, and yet it's like it's a it's a face that's not really expressive at all in the traditional sense. It's very stoic. Yeah yeah, but it also I think it's you know, it's the baggage he carries as a sort of that icon of of Western masculinity. You know, like every line or line he doesn't say it is imbued with all

the movies he's been in before. It's it's imbued with the go ahead, make my Day's imbued with all the sort of classic you know, one liners he said in Films of the Past. Yeah, he did have some pretty great one liners back then, but they were still pretty short but pretty sure. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Um. I don't think that our boss will mind if I tell this story. But our boss Connell that everyone's probably heard

us mentioned. He's the one that founded and started stuff you should know in all of the shows many many years ago, and now he's our boss again. At I heart great guy, good friend. He is good friends with Bradley Cooper and I've mentioned that on the show, and he told me a story a couple of years ago about going to a barbecue at the house Clint east it was renting. They were shooting what movie would it have been? They were shooting something here in Atlanta. I

know they shot a um was it the Mule or um? Uh, maybe it was part of Yeah. Bradley Cooper was in there, right, Yeah, yeah, okay, I know they shot that in Atlanta. Yeah, they were shooting The Mule here. And he had a little you know, they a lot of the actors have rented houses here in Atlanta when they work, and Clint had one rented and had an afternoon barbecue on like a Sunday, and

brad invited Connal to come in his family. So Connal is there barbecuing with Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper and Krasinski and Emily Blunt are there with their kids, and uh, a couple of other actors. The other guy from the meal that I love so much, I can never think of his name, and uh, he said, man, it's crazy, and he's been to stuff like this before, now through Bradley, Um, but he's still he's like, you know, you still don't

get used to it. And he said I look over at one point and and eighty eight year old or eighty seven year old Clint Eastwood at the time. It's just standing there having a conversation with Connell's like six year old daughter, and it's the cutest thing in the world. And I'm just like, this is nuts man that like you get to peek in on these scenes like that. Uh. And he just he was a really good guy. And you know, I'm sure you've heard the legend of his

movie sets and what they're like to work on. But for the benefit of the listener, Clint Eastwood movie sets are very calm, very meticulously planned out, so there's no drama. Uh, he doesn't. I think all the Walkees either have to be off or turn really low. No one's yelling and screaming,

no one's rushing. He's just legendarily known for for running a really friendly, calm, humane set where you work, like, you know, eight or nine hours and get it done quickly and efficiently and just kind of move on with your life. And that kind of says it all I think about the guy. And he's also known for not doing a lot of takes. Yeah, he'll knock a shot out in two or three takes and say Okay, we

got it. Sure, he started thirty movies like you don't want to, and he said, like, part of that comes from his experiences as an actor, sort of the things he learned, like, Okay, I like being directed this way, I don't like being directed this way. And that's fascinating to me as as also somebody who directs and has directed, Like I would love the idea to be able to knock out a scene a shot in just two or

three takes. And I would love to do that. But it's so hard to do that, you know, because you like to have a lot of confidence in what you're doing, you know, and that comes with doing it a lot.

So I wouldn't feel too bad, I know. But but and the fact that he gets such great performances out of whether he is the one acting, or it's Bradley Cooper or Paul Walter Houser and Richard Jewel or just these wonderful performances, And I'm like, man, how do you do and he's yeah, he's known for not doing a lot of takes, uh, like normal ish work hours and

usually finishing a film on time and under budget. Yeah, I mean, I know he's gotten like the Lifetime a Chief and award as director and stuff like that now, But I just think for a lot of years he just everyone sort of thought as I thought of him as an actor, and I think maybe some people maybe not didn't even realize he directed Play Misty for Me and Outlaw Josie Wales and uh, just some of his like all time classics. He was behind the camera for

those movies, kind of quietly behind the camera. He's not a a chess thumper when it comes to pumping himself up in his movies or you know, in the press after he's made his movies. So I have a ton of respect for the guy. Uh. I wish he was one of these great old grizzled liberal Democrats. Yeah, like

the old hippie fantastic. I think part of that is why I think his movies continue to fascinate me, Because to see somebody who has almost polar opposite politics as myself, to find things to really love and admire in somebody who inherently sort of disagrees with me, probably on a lot of fundamental things, I think shows a lot of maturity as a as a director, as an actor. To you know, question the traditional you know, conservative pillars of

what conservativism stands for. Yeah, he's not. I don't feel like he has an agenda as a filmmaker, and that kind of sums it up best. You know, he um because he very much could anytime someone is so upfront about their politics and and held public office for God's sake. He was the mayor of Carmel at the Sea, Mayor of Carmel. Yeah, Carmel's lovely, lovely area out there. I'll have to check it out. I love the couple of

bits of humor. There's two running jokes in this movie which are kind of fun and a pretty bleak movie. Is him and that horse trying to get up on the horse was kind of fun. And then in Jane and then Bill's Poor Carpentry, they get a few good chuckles out of that, uh that stuff as well. Oh and also the duck of death. Yeah, that's right, that's right.

There were three jokes that they played in this movie, because they did hit that one a couple of times, but just so low five, very little fanfare, almost like a trope of a plot. You know, grizzled old veterans come out of retirement to do one last job. It's

like The Ocean's eleven, the Anti Oceans eleven. You know. Yeah, but he just he gets away with it without feeling like a trope, because it's just there's more subtext and there's more under the surface, and the pacing of it is so languid and just really lets you as a viewer. He I feel like he always sort of gives a lot of credit to the viewers to make up their own mind about stuff. He doesn't. He's not Oliver Stone hammering your over the head with like you should feel

this way about this. Yeah. Man, just a very conscientious filmmaker. I think you know when you said he he's not showing about his politics or like at least in his films, or like what he believes. I think he's just very much like a humanist in a sense of like he rarely, despite showing terrible characters, sometimes he rarely will outwardly judge a character in his films, and he'll often just show what they did and maybe show how they view themselves

in the world. Yeah. And I think if you ask Clint Eastwood, he he was well known for playing vigilantees, whether they were out West or dirty Harry style guys. And I think he probably became a champion of some of these, you know, sort of gun toting, good guy with a gun out on the street dudes. I don't think Clint would endorse that in real life, even though he is, you know, a strong conservative, I don't think.

I don't think he really thinks people should go out and take the law into their own hands and do that stuff. He's not beating his chest about vigilanteism, you know, even though we play those roles. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just I don't see him as as that guy, no man, and just to see him sort of question that violence in a film like Unforgiven, in a film like Some people might disagree with me, but I think

American Sniper also questions that violence. Yeah. Now some people, I know a lot of people are divided on that film, but I think it actually does question sort of that idea of that violence wrapped up in sort of American culture. Yeah,

I mean, no other think of it. There's a lot of ambiguity of feeling and in a lot of his films, I think, uh, and that's to me the mark of a really confident filmmaker, because I feel like so so many times a filmmaker has a point of view they really want to get across and try so hard to make it super clear, and I feel like he's he's more comfortable waiting into ambiguous waters, which is what you do in your in your eighties and nineties and you've

directed thirty nine movies. There's someone who said some I think director somebody famous who ages ago, said like, the more something along the lines of the more important of a theme or a point you want to make in a movie, the less obvious it should be. Like you should have an inverse correlation where the more important the theme, the more hidden it should be. So speak, And I think Eastwood is a great example of that, totally. Man, that's a good yeah for anyone out there trying to

write stuff. That's a very good lesson, uh, Because I think the instinct is to is to want people to see things like you see things as a writer or filmmaker, whether it's you should fall in love with this person or you should want to kill this person. Yeah, it's really hard to sort of do convincing ambiguity or convincing ambivalence where it's not telling the viewer how they should feel or think. Yeah, good stuff. Uh well, my docket is empty. Do you have anything any other notes you

want to hit? Um? Let me see here. I think that about does it for me. Uh great movie, great movie. I Actually Eastwood's birthday was just a couple of weeks ago. I think he's yeah, he just turned one, and there was some Twitter Twitter thing going around where it was like hashtag four favorite Eastwoods or something, so people were posting their four favorite Clint Eastwood movies. So there's a

lot I've seen of his. There's a lot I haven't seen of his, I know, But as of now, my four favorites are this, Bridges of Madison County, j Edgar I never saw that. It's good. Leo Leonardo DiCaprio great, And it's another one where it's about like j Edgar, this like very complicated man, and it's another sort of ambiguous film. And then a movie called White Hunter Black Heart. Heard that we've seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was

great again. I just that's another one I just watched for the first time a few weeks ago and just loved it. And I'm like excited to just keep going through his filmography, because there's like probably twenty I still haven't seen. Yeah, boy, I don't know if I could. That would be very hard for me because I grew up with those dirty Harry movies and I love the ship out of him. Uh, Pale Rider is awesome. Play Misty for me is great. I haven't seen those, so

that I got something to look forward to. Have you seen Million Dollar Baby? Yes, I have a great movie. Okay, that's a tear jerker. No spoilers that movie jerk the Rug out from under me? Did not see this coming? Uh? Well, awesome man, that's so good to see you again and good to get you back in here. Uh. Maybe we should start doing Ah. I don't know about a full Eastwood series, but I'd be game for doing another one.

Adcent man, I'm so glad we got to talk about east Wood today, and I would be more than happy to talk about another film by him. Yeah. He's one of those where when he passes, I will put him in the category of like the Willie Nelson's and he's sort of icons of culture that kept doing great things, you know, and inspiring people to do great things because I think there's so much ages um in in culture and music and entertainment that like, I love seeing these

olds up there still killing it. It's great, yeah, man. And the fact that, like I think you mentioned, he's he got a Lifetime Achievement Award at the OSCARS. I want to say he got that in like the nineties. Probably give him another one. Gave him another one, because that's twenty five years later and he's still out there killing it. Man. All right, good stuff, Paul, And thanks

to everyone for listening. Go check out Unforgiven if you have not, or any Clinties Wood movie for that matter, even every which Way but Loose and any Which Great again, those are kind of fun too, in a seventies way. Uh. And we'll see you guys next week. Movie Crash is produced and written by Charles Bryant and Meel Brown, edited and engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, scored by Noel Brown. Here in our home student you at Punksy Market, Atlanta,

Georgia for I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.