Unforgiven 4K UHD (1992)

[JPK]

Originally Posted by ThePreacher

Completely disagree. He said a bunch of racist shit. He hated gay people too.

Let's superimpose today's set of social norms over a far less 'liberal' period in history. Or not.

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

If you are talking about stuff like Django, The Big Gundown, or Once Upon A Time In The West then the spaghetti westerns are right up there with the best. But once you start digging a little deeper, there are a lot of tragically bad spaghetti westerns.

Let's go with higher peaks and lower valleys.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by brainofj72

You don’t see any value in Henry Hathaway’s sturdy craftsmanship, great performances from Wayne, Darby, and Duvall, sparkling dialogue from Charles Portis and Marguerite Roberts, and gorgeous, autumnal Colorado scenery photographed by Lucien Ballard? I love the Coens, but I really don’t know if I can agree that the remake has a stronger creative pedigree. (And I’m 31, by the way.)

I haven't watched it since I was a kid, to be fair. But I remember it being cheesy with horrible acting, and clips I've seen more recently back that up. Maybe I'll watch it in full again at some point.

Worth mentioning I'm not a fan of pre-Eastwood Westerns in general, really.

[Scottishguy]

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amusing when John (with his raptor avatar) is responding to MechaGodzilla?

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by ThePreacher

Completely disagree. He said a bunch of racist shit. He hated gay people too.

Be careful how far you want to pull back that band-aid. John Wayne is an easy target because he’s the poster boy for right wing machismo but many, if not most people (not just movie stars), from that era said shit that would be considered racist today and hating gays would be de rigueur for an era where it was both illegal and considered a sexual deviancy. There was a reason Rock Hudson stayed in the closet and it had nothing to do with John Wayne’s views, and yet after working together on The Undefeated, Hudson considered Wayne to be a good friend.

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amusing when John (with his raptor avatar) is responding to MechaGodzilla?

Because we're Johnzilla and MechaGodzilla?

[Scottishguy]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

Because we're Johnzilla and MechaGodzilla?

If you want lol

[MechaGodzilla]

Originally Posted by Scottishguy

If you want lol

I was just wondering what made him replying to me specifically amusing.

[brainofj72]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

I haven't watched it since I was a kid, to be fair. But I remember it being cheesy with horrible acting, and clips I've seen more recently back that up. Maybe I'll watch it in full again at some point.

Worth mentioning I'm not a fan of pre-Eastwood Westerns in general, really.

Fair enough. Classic westerns are maybe my favorite kind of movie, so it’s right in my wheelhouse.

[LegacyCosts]

I prefer the original but I also find the Cohens style a bit smug and annoying. Bridges drunken babbling was grating as well. I enjoyed both though.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

Be careful how far you want to pull back that band-aid. John Wayne is an easy target because he’s the poster boy for right wing machismo but many, if not most people (not just movie stars), from that era said shit that would be considered racist today and hating gays would be de rigueur for an era where it was both illegal and considered a sexual deviancy. There was a reason Rock Hudson stayed in the closet and it had nothing to do with John Wayne’s views, and yet after working together on The Undefeated, Hudson considered Wayne to be a good friend.

I get this defense and it's why I can still have a relationship with my horribly racist father, but it only goes so far. There were abolitionists in the heart of the slavery era. You CAN rise above the environment you're surrounded by and do better.

[MassiveMovieBuff]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Worth mentioning I'm not a fan of pre-Eastwood Westerns in general, really.

Same here. I don't know whether it had to do with Eastwood himself or if the genre was just ready to go in a different direction but the western genre got A LOT better once Eastwood came around IMHO. It got darker, grittier, more serious. I was never a John Wayne fan personally and all of the westerns I enjoy are the ones after Eastwood got on board.

[brainofj72]

The ‘50s were the peak of the genre, IMO. Plenty of darkness and seriousness to be found - Winchester ‘73, The Gunfighter, Gunman’s Walk, The Bravados, Man of the West, so many more (and even creeping into the early ‘60s with great films like Comanche Station and Sergeant Rutledge). Just an incredibly rich area of American cinema.

[MechaGodzilla]

I'd go with the '60s. You've got the Macaronis, with the cream of the crop including A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. Then there's films like The Magnificent Seven, How the West Was Won, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (probably my favorite American Western), The Wild Bunch... c'est magnifique.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by MassiveMovieBuff

Same here. I don't know whether it had to do with Eastwood himself or if the genre was just ready to go in a different direction but the western genre got A LOT better once Eastwood came around IMHO. It got darker, grittier, more serious. I was never a John Wayne fan personally and all of the westerns I enjoy are the ones after Eastwood got on board.

Yeah I've watched the biggies from before then... True Grit, Rio Bravo, etc... Only one I ever liked at all was The Searchers. I don't know why but they always come across as cheesy to me. Maybe I need to give them another shot someday, who knows.

Worth pointing out I'm not a huge pre-60s cinema guy in general. I like WW2 and Cold War spy movies because they're super interesting, and some of the early or pre-code stuff is cool like the early Frankensteins, but overall I'm definitely a 60s and up guy. Even with my favorite genre, sci-fi, I barely own any from before 2001: A Space Odyssey, just because that 50s cheeseball sci-fi vibe is... oof.

[Scottishguy]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

I was just wondering what made him replying to me specifically amusing.

The fact you are both giant lizards

Looks like two sentient having a chat.

[Johnzilla2179]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Yeah I've watched the biggies from before then... True Grit, Rio Bravo, etc... Only one I ever liked at all was The Searchers. I don't know why but they always come across as cheesy to me. Maybe I need to give them another shot someday, who knows.

Worth pointing out I'm not a huge pre-60s cinema guy in general. I like WW2 and Cold War spy movies because they're super interesting, and some of the early or pre-code stuff is cool like the early Frankensteins, but overall I'm definitely a 60s and up guy. Even with my favorite genre, sci-fi, I barely own any from before 2001: A Space Odyssey, just because that 50s cheeseball sci-fi vibe is... oof.

I mean, they ARE cheesy in their own way. Just like films from other eras have a certain amount of datedness that one has to deal with. For instance, though I like many films from the '80s, the ones that lean the hardest into the excesses of the era -- like Top Gun or The Breakfast Club, etc. -- I find almost unbearably hokey. Which is not to say they're bad films, they're just not really to my preference. The Golden Age of Hollywood style is just that: a style. It's just a difference of how drama and violence were portrayed, and many films of the Old Hollywood style are excessively melodramatic and have almost none of the cynicism that has come to define filmmaking since the 1970s. But you know this, of course. Do I roll my eyes during some scenes in classic films, even ones I like? You betcha. Romance scenes are generally the worst, with schmaltzy dialogue and some of the most awkward "courting" I've ever seen in my life. But part of the reason different filmmaking eras are interesting is they reflect how society viewed itself in different periods. Most classic westerns are reflective of a general positivity about America and the world that has since fallen by the wayside in the last few decades, for better or worse. But I'm rambling, here.

Example: The Searchers is one of my favorite films, any genre. But the love story between Martin and Laurie can wear on the nerves. It's not so much the angle itself as the "aw shucks" execution, but that's endemic to the period. You either accept it or you don't, similarly to how one has to come to terms with almost every film under the sun being 65% (or more) CGI these days.

[ThePreacher]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

Be careful how far you want to pull back that band-aid. John Wayne is an easy target because he’s the poster boy for right wing machismo but many, if not most people (not just movie stars), from that era said shit that would be considered racist today and hating gays would be de rigueur for an era where it was both illegal and considered a sexual deviancy. There was a reason Rock Hudson stayed in the closet and it had nothing to do with John Wayne’s views, and yet after working together on The Undefeated, Hudson considered Wayne to be a good friend.

Ah yes...let’s make evil subjective. That defense can only be used so long. Racism sticks around because we continue to excuse it.

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by MechaGodzilla

I'd go with the '60s. You've got the Macaronis, with the cream of the crop including A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. Then there's films like The Magnificent Seven, How the West Was Won, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (probably my favorite American Western), The Wild Bunch... c'est magnifique.

I'd go with the 60s as well. There are plenty of great westerns before that, but I'm not really into the simplistic "cowboys and indians" type of westerns that proliferated during the 30s-50s time period.

Originally Posted by ThePreacher

Ah yes...let’s make evil subjective. That defense can only be used so long. Racism sticks around because we continue to excuse it.

There are such things as context and perspective. Maybe you should learn them. There is a difference between malign racism and someone saying stupid ignorant shit, particularly if they are a product of their time. Go ahead and call someone out on the latter if the situation arises but referring to someone as a horrible human being on that basis when the individual in question was by all accounts very well liked by the people who knew him and worked with him (including many people with very liberal political beliefs) is ignorance in and of itself, on your part.

And FWIW, I lean to the left of the political spectrum myself lest you think I am some sort of right-wing American nut angrily defending one of my heroes.

[Cholly]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

I'd go with the 60s as well. There are plenty of great westerns before that, but I'm not really into the simplistic "cowboys and indians" type of westerns that proliferated during the 30s-50s time period.



There are such things as context and perspective. Maybe you should learn them. There is a difference between malign racism and someone saying stupid ignorant shit, particularly if they are a product of their time. Go ahead and call someone out on the latter if the situation arises but referring to someone as a horrible human being on that basis when the individual in question was by all accounts very well liked by the people who knew him and worked with him (including many people with very liberal political beliefs) is ignorance in and of itself, on your part.

And FWIW, I lean to the left of the political spectrum myself lest you think I am some sort of right-wing American nut angrily defending one of my heroes.

He was also willing to put aside his personal beliefs which goes towards something. He knew Montgomery Clift was gay (pretty much anyone in the business knew) but was willing to put politics aside and became friends with him after working on Red River. Was also friends with Woody Strode and others that were outside of his political ideals.
From what I've gathered I think the racist shit he said was more ignorance than hatred which is not surprising given his time and place, yes you could rise above that but you have to have the upbringing to have those ideals instilled in you which most people wouldn't have had back in that era, sometimes you just have to let that shit go.