I don’t have a favorite movie. Just a short list of one’s I think are perfect. By perfect I don’t mean everyone should love them. I mean that they are perfect representations of what they were meant to be. Clint Eastwood’s 1992 Unforgiven is one of them. But probably not for the reasons most might think.
Unforgiven isn’t a western in a classic sense. It’s a story about the nature of violence disguised as a western.
Will Munny was a killer. In his words: “I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another.”
He’d changed though. He married. Left that life. Found God. Became a father. And moved on. The movie is about his return to a world of violence. And his descent back into his murderous ways. It leaves a question that rattles around the lonely thoughts of voluntary vets though
For those of us that found it, was it in our nature to seek violent work? Or was it the violent work that made our nature? And more importantly…could it be changed?
Will Munny couldn’t do murderous work without becoming a murderer. He stood on Little Bill’s chest as Bill confessed his innocent hope for the future.
“I don't deserve this... to die like this. I was building a house.”
Munny acknowledges. Then they agree to meet again in hell. Then he shoots him in the face and rides off into the dark night in the rain.
It is intentionally brutal.
Little Bill was a killer too. But he was building a house. Somewhere to sip his coffee and watch the sunset. But Munny took it from him. The film puts weight on killing the way others don’t. Killing leaves a mark.
The Schofield Kid: It don't seem real. How he ain't gonna never breathe again, ever. How he's dead. And the other one, too. All on account of pulling a trigger.
William Munny: It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.
The Schofield Kid: Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.
William Munny: We all have it coming, Kid.
It’s heavy stuff. But it doesn’t answer the question.
Is it in our code?
Are we the Ed Harris’ Man in Black from Westworld. Who, no matter how much good he did and how he behaved outside the park, the model that the god of technology could build of him by observing his base desires told the truth. He was evil; down to his source code. And the people he loved would pay the price.
Are we the Man in Black? Or are we something different. Are we configurable?
My experience, or my hope, is for the latter. I raised my hand and volunteered for violence. And I was good at it. But I left that life. And I never went back.
My faith celebrates its holiest weekend this weekend. And despite all that’s wrong with the institutions that have sprung up from Christianity, I take great comfort from it’s core message.
We are forgiven. That which is hard coded into us is quite basic. And that which makes us the magnificent things that we are is configurable. And we need to see others the same way. And if we really struggle to see them, see their hopes.
For those of you who celebrate, Happy Easter. for those that don’t I hope you see a better version of it from the outside then most of it deserves.