Unforgiven's Birthday

There are several films titled "Unforgiven". In this case, we will focus on the Clint Eastwood's film which premiered on August 3, 1992 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

The background to the creation of this film is curious. A certain David Webb Peoples, a professional editor who provided services to small film companies that produced low-budget films of the lower than average level, at the age of 35, decided to create something significant and to write an entertaining film script, without a single murder. But it had to happen that it was at this moment that Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" was released on the screens of American cinemas. The film made such a strong impression on Peoples that no trace of his intention remained. Rather, the intention to write the script remained, but there was a deep conviction that it was the violence on the screen that contributed to the film's success.

As a result, a script was born, which had two working titles: “The Murders of William Manny” and “The Killing of a Cut Whore.” But, perhaps it was precisely because of such names that initially no one undertook to shoot a film based on this scenario.

In the early 80s, Francis Ford Coppola acquired the rights to this scenario. But even he, who at that time had both fame and honor and respect after two parts of "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Today", could not find anyone who wanted to finance the film in a script with such working names. As a result, in 1985, Coppola renounced the rights to this scenario. And then Clint Eastwood acquired them.

It’s hard to say which of the two titles Clint Eastwood got the script, but he handed it over to Sonia Chernus, who wrote the script for one of Eastwood’s previous films, “The Outlaw Josey Wales”. Sonia Chernus, who at that time was about 80 years old, was shocked by the abundance of profanity in the Peoples script, and she wrote to Eastwood: "We should refrain from this garbage, from this pure trash ... In my vocabulary one good word that I could apply to this scenario. I can only advise one thing: get rid of it as soon as possible." Eastwood, having read this advice, did not read the script.

But you won’t escape fate: Eastwood got hold of the same script, but under a different name. After reading it, Eastwood instantly decided to make a film on it. Without even suspecting that this is the same script that Chernus wrote to him about.Eastwood made the decision to make the film, but delayed the implementation of this decision for several years. He himself explained this by the fact that he allegedly wanted to play the main role in the film, for which he would have to look older and more handsome. Eastwood, for a minute, in '85 was 55 years old, and he still believed that he looked like a young man :-) Oh, that male coquetry!

Be that as it may, but in 1992 Eastwood's film was released on screens almost all over the world. The success of the film has been impressive in every respect. In total, the film received 50 film awards and was nominated for another 46 awards. In more detail, the main festival achievements of the "Unforgiven" are as follows.

In 1993, the film received 4 Golden Globe nominations, of which it won 2, including the most important one for Best Director. However, the nomination for Best Picture the "Unforgiven" lost to the "Scent of a Woman" by Martin Brest. In the same 1993, Eastwood's film received 9 Oscar nominations. And it won 4 of them, including the most important: Best Film and Best Director.

In the same 1993 "Unforgiven" received 6 nominations for the British BAFTA award. However, in the most important nominations, Eastwood's film fell short of other films: the Best Picture went to James Ivory's "Howards End", and the Best Director went to Robert Altman for "The Player".

In 1994, the "Unforgiven" received a Japan Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, but that award went to Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park".

However, all these relative failures for Clint Eastwood did not really matter. For him, the main thing was that he finally received an Oscar, and, moreover, in 2 copies at once. The fact is that none of the 15 Eastwood films that preceded the "Unforgiven" received even an Oscar nomination in the most important categories (Best Film and Best Director). And Eastwood even came up with an excuse for the public for this circumstance: "First, I'm not Jewish. Secondly, I make too much money. Thirdly, and most importantly, because I don't give a fuck." But everyone understood how important it was for Eastwood to get an Oscar. Since, if up to this point he was considered just a good director, but nothing more, then after the "Unforgiven" he literally burst into the ranks of the leading figures of American and world cinema.

The financial performance of the film is also more than impressive: with a budget of $ 14.4 million, box office worldwide amounted to about $ 160 million. That is, revenue is 11 times higher than the cost of producing the film.

The film also received hundreds of praise from film critics. Roger Ebert initially slightly criticized the film, mainly for the presence of absolutely passing images, from which the plot is of no use. But in the end, he assigned the film 4 stars out of 4 possible and included it in his list of "Great Movies". The most typical estimation of the film was given by Vincent Canby in a review titled "Unforgiven; A Western Without Good Guys": "Unforgiven" is a most entertaining western that pays homage to the great tradition of movie westerns while surreptitiously expressing a certain amount of skepticism."

The "Unforgiven" also received very flattering ratings from Russian film critics. So, Sergei Kudryavtsev wrote in his review: "In this principled, programmatic and stage-wise work, Clint Eastwood demonstrates not only a noticeably increased mastery of the stage director, but also in the best sense of the word, the anthological nature of genre techniques and thematic motives."

Film audiences all over the world also highly appreciated the "Unforgiven", and, not only in dollars, but also in the ratings. 74% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave "Unforgiven" ratings from 8 to 10. Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of the film according to FilmGourmand's version was 8.943, making it 173rd in the Golden Thousand.