Editing Unforgiven (section)

==Themes==
Like other [[revisionist Western]]s, ''Unforgiven'' is primarily concerned with deconstructing the morally black-and-white vision of the American West, which was established by traditional works in the genre, as the script is saturated with unnerving reminders of the now teetotaling Munny's own horrific past as a drunken murderer and gunfighter, who is haunted by the lives he has taken,<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=How Unforgiven laid the classic movie western to rest |url=https://lwlies.com/articles/unforgiven-clint-eastwood-revisionist-western/ |access-date=October 1, 2020 |website=Little White Lies |language=en |archive-date=August 12, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200812145238/https://lwlies.com/articles/unforgiven-clint-eastwood-revisionist-western/ |url-status=live}}</ref> while the film as a whole "reflects a reverse image of classical Western tropes"; the protagonists, rather than avenging a God-fearing innocent, are hired to collect a bounty offered by a group of prostitutes. Men who claim to be fearless killers are variously exposed as being either cowards, weaklings, or self-promoting liars, while others find that they no longer have it in them to take yet another life. A writer with no concept of the harshness and cruelty of frontier life publishes stories which glorify common criminals as infallible men of honor. The law is represented by a pitiless and cynical former gun-slinger whose idea of justice is often swift and without mercy, and while the main protagonist initially tries to resist his own violent impulses, the murder of his old friend drives him to become the same cold-blooded killer he once was, suggesting that a Western hero is not necessarily "the good guy", but is instead "just the one who survived".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Unforgiven (1992) |url=https://deepfocusreview.com/definitives/unforgiven/ |access-date=October 1, 2020 |website=Deep Focus Review |date=March 11, 2012 |archive-date=September 23, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200923003504/https://deepfocusreview.com/definitives/unforgiven/ |url-status=live}}</ref>{{self-published inline|date=April 2021}}

Film scholar Allen Redmon describes Munny's role as an antihero by stating he is "a virtuous or an injured hero [who] overcomes all obstacles to see that evil is eradicated, using whatever means necessary".<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1537-4726.2004.00139.x |title=Mechanisms of Violence in Clint Eastwood's 'Unforgiven' and 'Mystic River' |first=Allen |last=Redmon |date=October 7, 2004 |journal=The Journal of American Culture |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=315–328 |doi=10.1111/j.1537-4726.2004.00139.x |access-date=April 18, 2021 |archive-date=May 16, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516203525/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1537-4726.2004.00139.x |url-status=live}}</ref>

Critic Sven Mikulec called the film Eastwood's "eulogy to the [[Man with No Name]] character that made him immortal."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mikulec |first=Sven |date=2017-09-12 |title=‘Unforgiven’: Clint Eastwood’s Eulogy for the Man with No Name in His Anti-Western Masterpiece • Cinephilia & Beyond |url=https://cinephiliabeyond.org/unforgiven-clint-eastwoods-eulogy-man-no-name-anti-western-masterpiece/ |access-date=2025-02-18 |website=Cinephilia & Beyond |language=en-US}}</ref>