: Study Questions: Week Nine

Deconstructing the Eastwood Hero.

Unforgiven (1991)

In the Line of Fire (1993)

Pale Rider (1985)

1. What, exactly, does the title, Unforgiven, mean? Who is unforgiven and for what? In what way might it be a comment on the redeeming effect of his wife and marriage?

2. What prompts William Munny to take up his old career as bounty hunter? is it just money? Another question. What defined his sense of masculinity and set him on his way in the first place? The Eastwood hero, before A Perfect World, seldom has anything about his early life revealed, so your answer is bound to be speculative.

3. How is alcohol related to Munny's spiritual or psychic condition? is it a cause or a symptom (or, perhaps, a symbol) of his inner state?

4. What is the thematic significance of Beauchamp, the "biographer" of English Bob (not to be confused with Sideshow Bob)? How does the writer's presence tend to undermine the myths of frontier heroism? How does the Sheriff's story differ from English Bob's?

5. How might the Schofield Kid be compared and contrasted to Munny? Consider his appearance, his effectiveness, his conception of manly heroism.

6. Unforgiven has been described as Eastwood's deconstruction of the heroes he played early in his career Do you agree? What specific points would you mention to defend your point of view?

7. What parallels could you draw between Unforgiven and Pale Rider? Consider especially the attitudes toward the townspeople (including the Sheriff).

8. Why, in your estimation, does Eastwood favor scenes set in darkness and shadow? How are they thematically relevant?

9. Could Eastwood's film be seen as a comment on the levels of violence in contemporary Hollywood films (and in society generally for that matter)? How is violence linked to popular concepts of gender?

10. If marriage and domestic life once rescued Munny from his evil ways, why does Eastwood use a pig pen as the dominant image of that "better" life? Is there some ambivalence here?

11. In what ways does the opening of the film allude to Dirty Harry and equate the heroes of the two films?

12. When Frank Horrigan refers to Lily Raines as a new secretary, does he insult her or demean himself or both? How does the event tend to reveal his underlying insecurities and disappointments? Consider the entire scene, especially his relationship to the new generation of superiors he must deal with.

13. Why does the assassin, Mitch Leary, keep calling Horrigan? What is the significance of describing himself as "Booth" and "Oswald"? What are the political implications of his claim that "the world can be a cruel place to an honest man"?

14. How is the killer in this film more complex than those in Dirty Harry or Tightrope.?

15. In what ways might the film be seen as a refutation of the central theme of Bronco Billy: "I am whatever I want to be"? What forces seem to prevent this achievement in In the Line of Fire?

16. How do the repeated phone calls from Mitch tend to turn them into mirror images of one another? In what ways are they, as the killer says, "honest and capable men who were betrayed by the people we trusted?" How was Horrigan exploited? What did he do to protect a Kennedy secret?

17. In what ways might you argue that the film treats the death of President Kennedy as the end of a better America, a place that had room for "honest men"? Is it just the President's death that has been responsible, or is it symbolic of many other social and political forces?

18. How does the appearance of Horrigan ill with the flu or crying at the memory of the day in Dallas serve as a critique of the familiar Eastwood screen persona?

19. What, in your estimation, is the significance of the hero and villain clinging to one another on a rooftop? What do you make of the final phone call, the one made after the Leary is dead?

20. How would you interpret the final scene at the Lincoln Memorial? Does he have a future with Lily? Is the final scene, which is so lush and romantic, to be taken as a mark of redemption or only the dream of an aging man?

21. How is the opening of Pale Rider both similar to and different from Fistful of Dollars and High Plains Drifter? Consider the entrance of the hero, the problems facing the town he enters, and his reasons for taking sides in the community's conflicts.

22. Why, exactly, does the Preacher (Clint Eastwood) appear? Is it the answer to Megan Wheeler's prayer? Or is it out of a desire for vengeance? What makes you think so?

23. What is the significance of the name "Preacher"? What is the significance of the film's title? Who is the "Pale Rider"?

24. Why does the camera close in on the Preacher's back? What does the pattern of bullet wound scars suggest? How do the scars help explain Stockburn's comments on have known a man like the Preacher?

25. What explains the Eastwood hero's attraction to explosives? He uses them in three of the westerns. Could they be thematically important or just a way of referring to earlier films?

26. What is the importance of Spider Conway's character? What does his fate tell us about the LaHood gang and about true bravery?

27. What is the significance of Sarah Wheeler's (Carrie Snodgrass) -- and her daughter's attraction to the Preacher? Why is he unattainable? How does he represent both the salvation of the mining community and a serious threat to it?

28. How does the replacement of the LaHood family, who "opened the country" and represented "progress" a generation earlier, by the community of small miners and their communal values mark the advance of civilization in the West?

29. Why does the Preacher warn that the miners key to survival is "solidarity"? How does his advice differ from his actual behavior?

30. The film's climax is a peculiar variation on the "shootout" common to almost all westerns. What conclusions do you draw about the Preacher from the way he survives the killers' bullets?