Ep. 130 – Unforgiven Is A Hell Of A Thing

Episode art showing the movie poster for Unforgiven the 130th episode of the Dodge Movie Podcast

It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man

Source: IMDB.com

Unforgiven

Unforgiven from 1992 was directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Blade Runner screenwriter David Webb Peoples. It is about a retired Old West gunslinger, Eastwood’s William Munny who takes on one last job to support his children, aided by his old partner, Ned Logan played by Morgan Freeman and a young man, The “Schofield Kid.”

Timecodes

  • 00:00 – Introduction
  • :17- The Film stats
  • 3:04 – The Pickup Line
  • 6:54 – The violence of Little Bill’s character
  • 10:50 – Revisionist of Westerns
  • 14:07 – The importance of Morality
  • 22:25 – Clint Eastwood’s boots
  • 25:45 – Filming westerns
  • 29:03 – Head Trauma
  • 29:39 – Smoochie, Smoochie, Smoochie
  • 30:06 – Driving Review
  • 32:36 – To the Numbers

Photo from the episode

To guess the theme of this month’s films you can call or text us at 971-245-4148 or email to christi@dodgemediaproductions.com You can guess as many times as you would like. Guess the Monthly Theme for 2023 Contest – More Info Here

Next week’s film will be Firefly (2002)

Subscribe, Rate & Share Your Favorite Episodes!

Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Dodge Movie Podcast with your host, Mike and Christi Dodge. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe and leave a rating and review. Special thanks to Melissa Villagrana our social media posts.

Don’t forget to visit our website, connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes across social media. Email at christi@dodgemediaproductions.com

Episode Transcript

Brennan  0:00  

You’re listening to Dodge Movie Podcast. Your hosts are Christi and Mike Dodge the founders of Dodge Media Productions. We produce films and podcasts. So this is podcast about films. Join them as they share their passion for filmmaking.

Christi Dodge  0:18  

Welcome back, everybody to the Dodge Movie Podcast where we are talking about our 130th episode, the film Unforgiven from 1992 starring Clint Eastwood Gene Hackman Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris and Frances Fisher. The film was directed by Clint Eastwood. The DP is Jack Green, who also worked with Eastwood on Bridges of Madison County and 13 other films. Coincidentally, he also was the DP on serenity that we’ll be talking about next week. And the film was written by David Webb Peoples, who also coincidentally wrote Blade Runner in 82 that we talked about last week. And then in 1995, he wrote 12 Monkeys. 

The synopsis for this film is a retired old west gunslinger William Mani reluctantly takes on one last job with the help of his partner, Ned Logan, and a young man named the Scofield kid, the tagline for this film is, it’s a hell of a thing killing a man. Great tagline.

Mike Dodge  1:39  

It’s a line of dialogue from the film, and it’s one of the most iconic, so I like. 

Christi Dodge  1:45  

And it really is, upon my research. It very much falls in your theory, because it does describe kind of like the big question for this film. Yeah. We’re going to talk about westerns and the themes found in westerns. And traditionally, it’s very much if the bad guys kill somebody, that’s what makes them bad guys, I guess. And the good guys, if they kill, it’s only to protect people. But doesn’t really, most Westerns don’t put very much emphasis on what happens to a person when they kill somebody. And that is what this film is kind of wrestling with. And in the scene, the Scofield kid even, I mean, both him and William money, kind of discuss the psychological effects on them after since since, you know, once they kill a person.

Mike Dodge  2:47  

Yeah, I think that theme of it’s a hell of a thing to kill them in, also establishes, as we see in this film, how very few people are actually capable of that, right? Because it’s a hell of a thing.

Christi Dodge  3:04  

Why don’t you kick us off with your pickup line, and then we’ll talk about the film a little bit more.

Mike Dodge  3:11  

“Jesus”. So I had a hard time getting a clear pickup line. Because the opening scene where I have dialogue, strawberry Ellis, who is a sex worker, is doing her job with a cowboy. And the sound isn’t the best. And as you might imagine, they are not delivering clear dialogue they are otherwise occupied.

Christi Dodge  3:35  

Oh. So let me go over so that as we continue our conversation, it kind of fits within. One of the very first classes I took at film school was a genre class where we talked about all the different genres and, and Westerns was one of them. And so typically, in a western, you see cowboys, and you see gunslingers. They’re portrayed, they’re often iconic characters in the West, with the new frontier. And they’re portrayed as rugged and tough and independent. Individuals who embody the values of that was Western American frontier. Like I said, it’s the frontier setting with the open landscapes and wide open spaces. There’s often saloons where gambling is occurring, and they can drink and they often get into fights in the saloon, as well as you know, there’s then the female companionship is often found in the saloon. 

They’re often on horseback because that was a common mode of transportation in the Westerns. And so, and that also gives the sense of freedom and independence. There, shootouts and showdowns gunfights between the good and the bad and there’s very much this clear, you’re either a good guy or A bad guy, you’re either with the law or against the law. There are marshals and sheriffs and other law men trying to bring justice. But then there’s the lawless the, you know, the bad element that they were trying to keep out of the town. There’s a common theme of revenge, sometimes in westerns. 

And then very much like I mentioned before, kind of the morality of it, the and the honor of what the good guys are fighting for is, and then there’s always the lone hero, the one who stands up and fights for justice, even in the face of great danger. So these are all things that commonly happen in westerns. And Unforgiven has kind of checks a lot of those boxes. But the one thing that it did do was kind of look at the killing aspect. And ironically, Gene Hackman did not want to take this part because he felt like he had been in quite a few movies that glorified violence, and he just was getting a bad taste in his mouth with it. 

And this was in 92. So there was some things politically, maybe that was going on, was in that right about the time of Rodney King and, and kind of the abuses, I think, yeah, that makes that sounds about right. Yeah. Oh, in fact, it was because when Jean finally click, ask him read it, read the script one more time, I think we can actually make a statement against the violence. And so then Jean agreed, and Clint told him to model little bill Daggett his character on then Los Angeles police chief, Daryl gates, and the Rodney King beatings were Yeah, the March previous to this film coming out. So probably, they were on the heels of that when they film this.

Mike Dodge  6:54  

Huh. Yeah. It’s interesting that you mentioned that because I feel like the character of little bill played by Hackman is one of the more violent characters in the film.

Christi Dodge  7:05  

Right. It’s interesting, because in, you know, when I do my research, Clint said, that Hackman’s character just wanted to kind of finish building his house, and he kind of wanted to retire. He didn’t want to get involved in all of the violence yet, like you said, his character is pretty violent. It’s almost like, he would rather just stay at his cabin along the river. But when he comes to the town and has to do his Sheriff duties, it’s almost like another personality shows up.

Mike Dodge  7:38  

Which is probably a good lesson on people in power, right? They’re just people, but then they have this persona. But we have to be careful what that persona is, because it can get away from who they are as a person. But you mentioned earlier when talking about westerns, kind of the honor and morality and justice, they established that through line of dialogue, I think that English Bob shoots Chinese folk. Like that’s his, I couldn’t tell if it is his vocation or a hobby, right. But that’s not necessarily a good guy. No. So when Little Bill says, give me your gun and beat Sullivan crap out of him, you know, yeah, we’re not to cut up about it. Because English Bob is a pretty bad dude. 

We’ve kind of established that. So they they show the Little Bill is kind of maybe someone say, like Daryl Gates. Not entirely good. Not entirely bad, right? Because him whipping English, Bob and sending him out of town certainly made the Chinese folk happy. But that’s a bad dude, getting him out of town is kind of, you know, worth it. But then you see his behavior later, when he refuses to apply kind of the same effort to when the poor prostitute gets cut up. And he’s like, Okay, well, you know, give some horses to the pimp, and we’ll call it even, that is so far from justice, right to show in that one character and, and I do do recall, reading that the script was unmade for many, many years. 

And I think it’s fascinating. Is it possible that it it needed that kind of time and place for Eastwood to have the right perspective on the screenplay, and for everybody involved to be where they needed to be to make this film?

Christi Dodge  9:40  

It’s possible. Eastwood bought the rights for this. I don’t know when but early enough that he felt like I’m too young to play this part, which honestly, I felt like he kind of was maybe a little bit too old because it at his age, I didn’t buy that. I can Those two kids seemed awfully young to be for him to be dad.

Mike Dodge  10:05  

And his wife died at 29, according to the gravestone, and it wasn’t too long before we saw him. So he would have been significantly older than her. Maybe that was reasonable at that time, right?

Christi Dodge  10:18  

So basically, he threw it in a drawer and kind of forgot about it. And then somebody approached him, I can’t remember who and said, maybe it was oh, I think it was the the ray. I don’t think it was the writer. I think it was Jack green, maybe. But somebody approached him and said, Hey, you had to make that movie that you bought a while back. And he I think he kind of forgot about it. And then he was like, oh, yeah, it was almost like now I really better hurry.

Mike Dodge  10:48  

 Yeah. How much should I pay for that? Oops.

Christi Dodge  10:50  

Yeah, this definitely has, you know, it’s got the horses got the wide open spaces. We’ve got cowboy hats. We have a town. That, you know, a lot of westerns are centered around a town and creating law and order in that town. Which is funny, because the minute you put up a saloon, I feel like you’re going to have trouble with law and order.

Mike Dodge  11:11  

Right. And I’m pretty confident that at that time, prostitution was not legal. So you know, having law and order with a publicly visible, right wide open brothel is kind of an interesting perspective.

Christi Dodge  11:29  

So it says from Wikipedia, it says like other revisionist Westerns Unforgiven is primarily concerned with deconstructing the morality, black and white vision of the American West that it was established by traditional Westerns within the genre. And then David Webb Peoples says the script is saturated with an unnerving reminders of money’s own horrific paths as a murderer and a gunfight are haunted by the lives he’s taken. And I would say at the very end there when he is dying himself, and and kind of, I think, is probably fearing what they believed at the time would happen, you know, the, the, the reckoning. I think he was nervous about that. And, and scared, quite honestly, when he was talking to Ned, his buddy.

Mike Dodge  12:19  

Yeah, it’s interesting to call it revisionist. I mean, I guess it’s revisionist, in the sense of it’s not Gene Autrey, with the white hat. You know, the pretty girl that he gets at the end of the film, because I actually think this is probably more representative of what it really was like in the West. I don’t want to get too far into the philosophy of this, but I believe that the vast majority of people in the West were probably pretty peace loving good people. Of course, there were some remarkably bad dudes, but my guess is they were few and far between, simply because society couldn’t function if every town was continuously getting shot up by people. 

So to me showing that this bill money this guy, or Well, money, I’m sorry, who, who is a notorious and prolific killer, right, he would have been really fairly solitary and unique. There wouldn’t have been many like him. And I think this film represents that that even like a guy like an English Bob, who did kill people, he was not in the class of eastwards will money as far as the danger, right? Um, that guy was like pretty singularity in his deadliness. And that, to me makes sense. I don’t consider that revisionist of actual history. But certainly for the genre, it’s a take a different take.

Christi Dodge  13:51  

I think it says that, Clint and the screenwriter didn’t set out to make an anti violence movie. It says he was more interested in deconstructing the myth of the Old West, with its clear distinction of heroes and villains, kind of like what you were saying. He wanted to show an inglorious depiction of death. So especially when we first meet money, and he’s proposed by the Scofield kid to come, he sees he needs to provide for his kids. I think, you know, he kind of is like, he justifies it because he needs this is a way he knows how to make money, and then he’s able to provide for his kids. So it’s almost like he justifies it in his mind that it’s worth it this one last time.

Mike Dodge  14:40  

Right! Definitely. Also, as I saw it, the way it was shot, one of the deciding factors was the description of the damage done to the prostitute, which of course is exaggerated, like we all know happens. But and then he would tell Ned and the other people like this is what they did to her. or, and so that sense of morality does come into play as another factor. But you’re right the the money was kind of a thing. It’s all he had going for him it. And they really liked Eastwood’s choice to show him falling on his face in the mud chasing pigs, because it’s so humbling, right? They don’t, again, we don’t see him as candidate John Wayne character who’s in charge everything. He’s just this guy rolling around in the mud with these pigs.

Christi Dodge  15:32  

And then at the very beginning, he can’t get on his horse. It’s like something that every cowboy in every Western, they just, they put their foot in that stirrup, and they just throw that leg over and they make it look so easy. I think anybody who has tried to get on a horse, you realize how difficult it is. And when he can’t even get that horse to stand still. So he can stand up and throw his leg over it really, it’s embarrassing. We’re all like, kind of embarrassed for him.

Mike Dodge  16:03  

And it comes back later to put him at risk. But you’re right, kind of taking those parts of the cowboy myth and evaporating them. But then kind of the other part that I thought was where we see they’re gonna get one of the Cowboys, you harm the girl. And Ned can’t pull the trigger. Because even though they did some bad things when they’re younger, he doesn’t have it in him anymore. Right?

Christi Dodge  16:38  

Yeah, it’s interesting, because later, the Scofield kid shoots a guy, and I don’t think he kills him right away. Clint says, shoot him again, shoot him again. The kid can’t do it. So Clint picks up his rifle, and he shoots him really fast. And there’s something about it that made me feel like it’s almost kind of like, the honor is to do it in a way that is quick and painless. Like, okay, we have to kill this guy, but right, do it humanely. 

I had this feeling when I was watching it, and I was later, my, my feeling was correct, Clint said like, you know, a reference that kind of like the time when, you know, he had to kill the guy, it was almost like killing livestock or, or, you know, putting an animal down to put it out of its misery. So I very much my reading was correct. I thought that was an interesting kind of take, also.

Mike Dodge  17:38  

And there’s the bit at the end, where he talks throughout the film about how all these other killings, he didn’t remember most of them because he was drunk at the time. So as a viewer, when we see Well, money, start drinking again, we know all it’s on, right, because he’s going back into that place. And then also, as a commentary, though, from what Eastwood is saying is that killing is less about the physical skill, and more about the psychological mindset. Even the character talks about that, right, he has a line in there about something like shoot as fast as you can without missing basically, that the key isn’t so much the Quick Draw, which is another, you know, common trope, or these other things, but it was the ability to, in that situation, think calmly and shoot straight. Very people have that. 

So that was his kind of power where he was in, you know, this, this saloon with all these people who are armed. And you would think, well, this is a matter of a few seconds, and he’s going to be shot up. But we know from military combat, and police shootings that most people miss with all of their shots, right?

Christi Dodge  19:01  

So is there anything else about either the writing of the cinematography in this that you want to talk about?

Mike Dodge  19:08  

But the writing, this is not a funny movie, but it had a couple of funny kind of bits about it. And one that I really enjoyed was the Duck of death, where the very stereotypical nerdy writer and dare I say Jewish he looked to be, that’s where they’re going. He wrote a book about English Bob, and he called him the Duke of death, and Gene Hackman kept Browning as the Duck of death. So that was funny on several levels. One, it reminded me of a certain president who kept referring to him as satem. Right? the schoolyard like nine year old taunt of mispronouncing someone’s name, but then also to me the Duck of death. 

Just just like an Aflac callback. I thought it was kind of funny. So what little bits of humor there are, are are somewhat dark right? And we see the other line that I thought was unintentionally hilarious is little bill says tool money you just shot an unarmed man and we’ll money replays immediately. He should armed himself. Right. And that was, it was kind of a fun. Yeah, I noticed there’s a lot that that Eastwood and the DP played with lighting a lot. As far as like it’s almost somewhat more the sets as well, but the whorehouse was so tight, the hallways and with all the people and the doors, it was very tight. And any place in that saloon, right was probably realistically but it was poorly lit. 

And we saw when the Scofield kid comes to well, money’s house, I thought it was fascinating that the kid was was lit really well. But money was just silhouetted. Right. So I thought that was an interesting thing to show that he was almost kind of a shadow of himself. This other kid was the one who was real and three dimensional. There was a fair amount of silhouettes in there, and some pretty high contrast shots. But you mentioned the open expanses, and they had several shots, but one of them that really stuck out to me, was after they, the school kid shoots the guy in the latrine, which again, is deflating the myth of these like, you know, larger than life. Like this guy was literally caught with his pants down.

Christi Dodge  21:30  

And isn’t it for the Scofield kid? It’s not that honorable because it was, you know, it’s like punching a guy from behind. Right?

Mike Dodge  21:38  

Yeah. And so after that, there’s a wide shot where the Scofield kid is, is sitting down at the base of a tree. Well, money is standing and talking to him. They’re all in silhouette. It’s such kind of a classic Western looking shot. And then they cut to the Scofield kid, really, he may have been crying at that time he’s struggling with with the impact of what he’s done. And I think that’s where we’ll money gives the line. It’s a hell of a thing to kill a man you take all he’s ever had, and all they’ll ever have, you know, it’s it’s, so I thought that was the way they shot. It was really, it called back to those tropes, but kind of inverted them a little bit.

Christi Dodge  22:25  

Yep. So a couple bits of trivia, the boots that Clint Eastwood wore the same ones he wore in rawhide and 59. They’re part of his personal collection. And in 2005, they were loaned to the Sergio Leone exhibit at the Gene Autry Museum. And Clint was basically book ended his career in westerns. He was a huge Sergio Leone fan. In fact, one of the tombstones, says S. Leone, in the cemetery as kind of a nod because he worked with him and all the spaghetti westerns.

Mike Dodge  23:07  

I’m thinking, Fistful of Dollars. And the good, the bad, the ugly, and I’m curious, that’s kind of the first things I remember Eastwood from. So did that kind of break his career, is he did this spaghetti westerns. And then he came back to Hollywood had enough juice to do the things we know him for after that.

Christi Dodge  23:25  

Yeah, he did a couple of things. But yeah, it was mostly the Westerns that, and he credits Sergio Leone, not only for teaching him kind of good direction, like being a good director, but also hit for his career. To maintain this, the feel on the set, no motor vehicles were allowed. And so everything had to be brought everything from equipment to people. Food was brought in by a horse and wagon. Because they wanted, Clint wanted everyone to feel the primitiveness of the of the set of the town.

Mike Dodge  24:04  

Right. I wondered if trains counted. Could they put like, the camera equipment on a train car and bring it in that way?

Christi Dodge  24:12  

It was only six miles.

Mike Dodge  24:16  

What about Star wagons? Were they allowed to be on set if they were towed in bed? Horses?

Christi Dodge  24:20  

I don’t believe so. When I saw the behind the scenes, it looked primitave. I think that star wagon would take away from the environment.

Mike Dodge  24:32  

Like did was hair and makeup and a tent then? Fascinating. I love this idea.

Christi Dodge  24:36  

The town was built from scratch in 32 days up in Alberta, Canada. Clint was in Alberta earlier on a film and he was like, you know, if I ever make a Western this would be a beautiful part of the, you know, country to make one.

Mike Dodge  24:51  

I wonder if the carpenters really miss Westerns because they always have to build the town when they shoot a Western, right? They get lots of work. And maybe it’s fun because you get to build different things. You build the saloon, or barber place,  the sheriff’s office with the jail. Like, it just seems like maybe a church at the end of the street. So here’s another question. Maybe one of our super fans can help us out. There is very much a standard floor plan to Western towns and movies. But how accurate was that? Like? I mean, as we’ve established before, Hollywood is not necessarily accurate. They could, you know, cheat in 1000 different ways to make the movie easier or cheaper to shoot. So I’m just curious, was there kind of a standard floor plan? 

Or was it just No, we in westerns, we’ve decided that, you know, the church goes at the end of the street and the saloons here and the stables there, you know, that kind of thing? 

Christi Dodge  25:45  

That’s a great question. And I don’t know the answer, although I believe that some of so there’s a set in Tucson, Arizona, where they filmed many westerns, in fact, that’s where they filmed tombstone. 

Mike Dodge  26:01  

That might explain it right is if they use the same set over and over again, I was wondering if maybe on the Warner Brothers backlot and Burbank there is a common like a street they use for it or what have you. They if you recall, in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, they are shooting a Western at one point, and I thought that was on the studio lot.

Christi Dodge  26:22  

Yeah, I know. I think it’s Warner Brothers has a studio is a lot where there’s a Western set. And then I know outside of LA north, I believe there’s ranches that they commonly would film Western that. 

Mike Dodge  26:40  

And I think there’s even one down near Eugene, Oregon, where they filmed a couple of Westerns back in the day.

Christi Dodge  26:48  

I know there’s occasions, but I don’t know if there’s like a standing set. Is that what you mean?

Mike Dodge  26:52  

I thought it was standing there as a ranch, but I could be wrong. 

Christi Dodge  26:56  

Oh, interesting. So one fun thing that I thought you would enjoy. And I will include the photo in our show notes because it’s just funny. But so there’s a scene where Clint Ned, I should say, William money, Ned, and the Schofield kid are all on horses, and they’re talking to one another, and they’re fighting about, like, kind of what should be done next. Have you ever thought, How do they keep the horses still while they have this argument and and fight? I have never thought of that. But that’s a very good question. Because the horse is going to kind of move around and then you’re in focus and out of focus, right? Yeah. So what they do is they shoot some scenes on horseback. And then they put the actors, they straddle ladders.

Mike Dodge  27:51  

Not even saddles. Oh, that’s hilarious.

Christi Dodge  27:55  

Morgan. And the Scofield kid and Clint are all sitting and like I said, I’ll include this picture. Oh, that’s price. They’re all sitting on ladders in the field with the camera so that they can have this argument and the right height. And just Yeah, but just imagine because horses don’t stand perfectly still. So I wonder if they have to, like, kind of gesticulate with their torso to mimic. Okay, a horse kind of moving around.

Mike Dodge  28:23  

So now I’m immediately thinking of when they put them in a car and they’re not really driving and make all the ridiculous hand motions on the wheel. And okay, I will never be able to watch a horse back argument again, without thinking of this. 

Christi Dodge  28:37  

Right looking for. Just above the head of the horse.

Mike Dodge  28:45  

Then like an overact or like me within like, wave away a horse fly or something really over the top. Cut. Okay. Dodge none of the horse fly action. Okay, back to one.

Christi Dodge  29:00  

Was there any head trauma in this film?

Mike Dodge  29:03  

Yeah, there’s a little bit well, okay, so the kind of opening inciting incident there is some knife trauma to the poor prostitutes face, which is a head related thing very sad. Prostitutes throw horse apples at the Cowboys head when he tries to buy them off with a horse later, little bill punches English Bob in the face before kicking the crap out of him. A little bill pistol whips will and then kicks the crap out of him. And then there’s lots of shooting which very little I think is in the head. I think most of it’s in the torso.

Christi Dodge  29:35  

And I don’t believe we have a romance in this film.

Mike Dodge  29:39  

Smoochy, smoochy, smoochy! We do not have any romance Smoochie there’s a line just because we let the smelly fools right just like horses don’t mean we got to let them Brandis like horses that kind of establishes there’s not auto romance and yeah, the ladies didn’t fare so well. They didn’t you know maybe that’s realistic, but it made me sad nonetheless.

Christi Dodge  30:02  

Very much so. And no driving.

Mike Dodge  30:06  

No driving, there are no vehicles on the set, even, I don’t know enough about horseback riding to give a horseback riding review. Although I did read that in order to get the horse to not let him on, Clint would pull back on the left rein alone to get it to turn instead of letting him stand up in the cell.

Christi Dodge  30:25  

So I do know, a listener named Adrienne that if she wanted to, could probably comment on the horseback riding.

Mike Dodge  30:34  

Yeah, I was seeking you do this while watching another film recently, that actors in Westerns must be fairly skilled horsemen. And horsewomen. Because we see them in the wide shot so much, it would be hard to fake that I think. And that’s probably not a skill that’s very common anymore.

Christi Dodge  30:57  

Right. I agree with you. I think, Clint, and in some of the other films that we’re talking about this month, I think they I saw behind the scenes, and Val Kilmer was, you know, they had to go back to one. And it was a scene where him and Kurt Russell are, are, are, you know, riding the horses? And, and watching Val go, you know, go back to one go back to the starting place. He looked very comfortable on that horse. And I was like, Oh, wow, I bet that’s kind of fun. It’s you know, I know it’s hard to work with animals. And sometimes they don’t cooperate. But you know, you know, just mosey back to one you get to ride your horse back to one is that, like, That looks fun.

Mike Dodge  31:40  

Now, I don’t know the very specifics of this. But I am aware that cavalry people who would fight on horseback, were able to direct the horse with just their, their knees in their weight because they needed their hands for the fighting parts, which is a level of horsemanship that I think would be very difficult to. I mean, it would take, I would think 1000s of hours of practice to get there. And so credit to Mr. Kilmer in any of these other actors who are able to to the layperson or not to the layperson to experience person like listener Adrian, to pull it off, right, because I don’t feel like I have enough knowledge to distinguish whether somebody’s really doing it right. 

But I bet if you’re an accomplished equestrian, you look at the screen, you’re like, ah, they know what they’re doing, or That guy’s an idiot.

Christi Dodge  32:29  

 Right. Great. Yeah, like you do with all the driving scenes, etc. Yeah. Alright, so we go to the numbers. 

Mike Dodge  32:36  

Let’s go to the numbers. 

Christi Dodge  32:37  

All right. Just before we do, I want to tell you that Unforgiven ranked number four on the American Film Institute’s list of the greatest films in the genre of Western in June of 2008. So we picked a winner. So let’s see if audiences agreed the budget for this film was 14 point 4 million. And domestically it brought in 101 Point 1 million so that is 7x. Yeah. And then worldwide, 159 million, which that’s an 11x. Adjusted for today. That would be like 223 point 6 million. So I would say it did quite well. It scores very high on IMDb. 8.2 out of 10. Critics love this movie at 96%. And audiences aren’t that far behind at 93%.

It’s a little long, so you might need a pee break at two hours in minutes. It’s rated R and it is classified as a drama Western. It won many awards. It’s a Warner Brothers picture. It won 50 awards and got 47 nominations among them. It won the Oscar for the Best Picture, Gene Hackman won for the Best Supporting Actor and Clint Eastwood one for the best director. This movie laid to rest Clint Eastwood’s long standing statement why he would never win an Oscar. He said he reckon that he would never be in the running first because he’s not Jewish, and second because he makes too much money. And thirdly, because he doesn’t really give a bleep. So since his double Oscar win for this movie, he has gone on to win two more as well as the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award. 

And it’s been nominated an additional six times. We watched this on Apple for $3.99 So I don’t think it was available anywhere else. Okay, that just about does it for this second week of August films. Please send in your guests as to what you think we did Blade Runner last week Unforgiven this week. Next week we’re doing serenity followed up by tombstone. So it you can make a guess in the email, Christi at Dodge media productions.com. And never forget…

Mike Dodge  35:08  

Dodges never stopped and neither do the movies.

Brennan  35:11  

Thanks for listening to Dodge Movie Podcast with Christi and Mike Dodge of Dodge Media Productions. To find out more about this podcast and what we do, go to dodgemediaproductions.com. Subscribe, share, leave a comment and tell us what we should watch next. dodges never stop, and neither do the movies.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *