The Role Where Gene Hackman Was State Violence Personified
When Clint Eastwood tried to recruit Gene Hackman to co-star in what would be his last Western film, Hackman initially turned him down. The actor was tired of doing violent films, and the script Eastwood had shown him was indeed violent.
Eventually, Eastwood managed to change Hackman’s mind by insisting that his new project would ultimately have a pacifistic message.
“I think we can make a great statement against violence and killing if we do this right,” Eastwood recalls telling him in an interview posted to YouTube in 2009 by the American Film Institute.
Hackman, who was found dead along with his wife in their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home on Wednesday, was won over. The result was the 1992 film Unforgiven.
To say the film, which Eastwood directs and stars in, was “done right” is an understatement. Unforgiven has gone down as a revisionist Western masterpiece that unflinchingly depicts the toll that violence takes on both victim and perpetrator.
Key to delivering the film’s message is Hackman’s performance as lawman Bill “Little Bill” Daggett, for which he’d win an Academy Award for best supporting actor.
Hackman’s Daggett is the sheriff of Big Whiskey, Nebraska, who is obsessed with trying to stop two contract killers (played by Eastwood and co-star Morgan Freeman) from fulfilling a murder-for-hire contract taken out on two local cowboys by a group of vengeful prostitutes.
From that brief sketch, one might assume that Daggett would be the good guy—a frontier lawman trying to prevent a fresh cycle of bloody retribution from upending the town’s fragile order.
Instead, Hackman is the film’s violent and unstable antagonist, whose version of justice is just as warped and brutal as that of the gunslingers he’s squaring off against.
The reason that the prostitutes take out a hit on the two cowboys is because they viciously assaulted one of their own at the very beginning of the film.
Instead of hanging the two cowboys, Daggett agrees to let them off on the condition that they pay restitution in the form of a few horses to the broth
Article from Reason.com
The Reason Magazine website is a go-to destination for libertarians seeking cogent analysis, investigative reporting, and thought-provoking commentary. Championing the principles of individual freedom, limited government, and free markets, the site offers a diverse range of articles, videos, and podcasts that challenge conventional wisdom and advocate for libertarian solutions. Whether you’re interested in politics, culture, or technology, Reason provides a unique lens that prioritizes liberty and rational discourse. It’s an essential resource for those who value critical thinking and nuanced debate in the pursuit of a freer society.
