What is the best picture of "clint",in his movies?

[Vahid]

 In person, I like "Pale rider"

[The Man With No Aim]

My favorite is the backlit shot of Josey Wales entering the cantina where he is trying to find a horse for Lone Watie.

[exit00]

Pretty impossible to pick the "best" out of hundreds of great scenes.  But I would probably choose the scene of William Munny standing under that big bare tree saying we all have it comin'.

[The Man With No Aim]

Pretty impossible to pick the "best" out of hundreds of great scenes.  But I would probably choose the scene of William Munny standing under that big bare tree saying we all have it comin'.

You have written about 2 scenes, I think, from Unforgiven, and combined them in your thoughts. They are both very powerful, emotion packed scenes.

One scene is where Munny and Kid are squatting or sitting, I think, and talking about Kid assassinating the cowboy in the $#!thouse behind the bunkhouse. That is where Kid says that "he sure had it comin". And Munny says that "We all got it comin, Kid." And I think I recall that they may be under or near a tree nearby Big Whisky, Montana.

And the other is the 2 scenes in the very beginning and the very end of the film, in which we see Munny burying his beloved dead wife, and see the site of her grave, in Missouri, as we hear a voiceover telling about the fate of Munny and his children after the explicit scenes in the film.

I sure agree that these are extremely powerful pictures and there are so many more, that is is a hard job to pick out a best picture in an Eastwood film.  There are just too many to pick over.

[KC]

Correct, Munny and the Kid are standing near a tree in the "We all have it coming, Kid" scene, but it is a pine tree, not a "bare tree." like the one we see at the beginning and the end of the film.







Or nearly correct: The Munny homestead is supposed to be in Hodgeman County, Kansas, not Missouri. And there is no voiceover at the end of the film, but an onscreen "crawl" that tells us:

Some years later, Mrs. Ansonia
Feathers made the arduous
journey to Hodgeman County
to visit the last resting place
of her only daughter.

William Munny had long since
disappeared with the children...
some said to San Fransisco
where it was rumored he
prospered in dry goods.

And there was nothing on the
marker to explain to
Mrs. Feathers why her only
daughter had married a
known thief and murderer,
a man of notoriously vicious
and intemperate disposition.

[The Man With No Aim]

My memory is sure a good editor for changing the film to be the way I want it to be!

The still you picked for the "we all got it comin Kid" scene is a perfect one to capture the drama of it, though, perhaps not the exact moment.

I still think that Munny and Kid were either sitting or squatting at the moment that Munny said "we all got it it comin Kid", and now you have gone and done it, you are gonna make me dig out my Unforgiven DVD and watch it again. You know how much I hate    to watch one of the best films of all time AGAIN!


Manwith

[The Man With No Aim]

Wait just a minnit!

When beautiful but cut up whore told Munny "Neds dead, I thought you knew", Munny said :Neds not dead! He headed back to MISSOURI."

Didnt he say "MISSOURI"?

Awww, KC, do you know how much bad housekeeping bachelor junk I got to dig up to find my DVD ? And then find my player?


Manwith

[KC]

Munny stands, and the Kid sits, throughout the "We all have it coming" scene. The line is spoken with the camera close on Munny, more or less as in the shot I posted, though I haven't checked to see if that is the exact shot. The woman who comes with the bounty money isn't Delilah, the "cut whore"; it is Little Sue, and when she tells the men that Ned is dead, Munny replies, "Nobody killed Ned! He didn't kill anyone, he went south yesterday."

Earlier, in the snowy scene with Delilah and the convalescent Munny, Munny tells Delilah he won't accept a "free one" from her, not because she is cut up, but "on account of my wife." Delilah asks, "Is she back in Kansas?" "Yeah. She's watching over my young ones." There are several other references to Kansas in the script.

But go ahead ... watch the movie again, just to see if I'm right.

[exit00]

KC is right about Munney standing and the kid sitting, I've seen this scene a million times and is just a great shot.  Yeah, I did incorrectly call the pine tree a "bare tree" (I think because there were no leaves on it but there are obviously pine needles on it.) The Kid is actually sitting and leaning back against the trunk of the tree.  I knew it wasn't the same tree as the one at the beginning and end.  One of my favorite Clint lines.  And Little Sue arrives with the news that Ned is dead right after the "we all have it comin' kid" line.....

[The Man With No Aim]

Correct, Munny and the Kid are standing near a tree in the "We all have it coming, Kid" scene, but it is a pine tree, not a "bare tree." like the one we see at the beginning and the end of the film.







Or nearly correct: The Munny homestead is supposed to be in Hodgeman County, Kansas, not Missouri. And there is no voiceover at the end of the film, but an onscreen "crawl" that tells us:

[The Man With No Aim]

Correct, Munny and the Kid are standing near a tree in the "We all have it coming, Kid" scene, but it is a pine tree, not a "bare tree." like the one we see at the beginning and the end of the film.







Or nearly correct: The Munny homestead is supposed to be in Hodgeman County, Kansas, not Missouri. And there is no voiceover at the end of the film, but an onscreen "crawl" that tells us:

It is always fascinating for me to see how my trick memory has creatively changed my view of an experience.

Still have not watched the film again, am dreading excavation of my bad-housekeeping junk to retrieve my DVD. Caught sight of my player yesterday, and can always play the DVD on my computer, but the DVD has crawled under something and is hiding.

Found the Unforgiven script online, just used Google for "unforgiven script" and picked the one on the top of the list.

In the script, Munny is standing and Kid is sitting during the time that one of the whores is riding out to them. It is a large oak tree they are under.


Manwith

[The Man With No Aim]

In the script, Little Sue tells Munny that Ned has told Little Bill that Munny is really Three Finger Jack outta Missouri. This is transformed into Little Bill saying that Munny is William Munny from Missouri, in the saloon in the ending of the film. This is probably what led me to think Munny and his children lived in Missouri.

I will be interested to see if Hodgeman County Kansas is said in the film or only in the script.

Many of us never get around to reading the script or the book, only watching the film.

I recommend any fan looking up the script and reading it. It is extremely interesting to notice the changes made "on the fly" during filming.


Manwith

PS....It was interesting that in the script, Munny rode a pale horse. Just like Preacher rode in Pale Rider. I can't remember what color horse I saw Munny ride in Unforgiven, The Movie. Perhaps it was the very same horse, one of Clint's own horses.

[KC]

There is an Unforgiven script posted on this site that is actually a direct transcript of the film's dialogue. I was going to post a link to it earlier. It is here: http://www.clinteastwood.net/filmography/unforgiven/script/unforgivenscript.txt

It's very accurate on the whole, though there are some typographical errors and a few other slip-ups (Little Sue is misidentified as "Kate" in the scene we've been discussing).

David Webb Peoples's original script (which has been published, and which is presumably what you read online) does specify that Will Munny has lost a finger, and so he was known as "Three-Fingered Jack" in the bad old days. I'm glad Clint didn't sacrifice a finger for the sake of faithfulness to this detail, though he stayed remarkably close to Peoples's script otherwise, as Peoples himself was amazed to discover when he saw the finished film for the first time. And yes, in both script and film, Munny is supposed to be "out of" Missouri, originally, like that other outlaw, Josey Wales.

Peoples's script places the scene in which the Schofield Kid rides up to Munny's pig farm in "Hodgeman County, Kansas." In the film, "Hodgeman County" is mentioned only in the film's final crawl (which I quoted above), where it is said to be "the last resting place" of Mrs. Ansonia Feathers's only daughter, Claudia. For the record, there is indeed a Hodgeman County in Kansas, but not in Missouri.

I agree with this:

It is extremely interesting to notice the changes made "on the fly" during filming.

They are indeed slight, but telling.

[The Man With No Aim]

Much thanks to KC for the Unforgiven transcript from the film.

Reading it was like watching the film again, in my imagination (and creatively inventive memory).

In a few places, there was brief evidence of material that may have been cut from the DVD I own and have watched (and have begun to seek, but not yet find). In my low-budget phase, I buy stuff out of the bargain bin, so it is no surprise if I find out that my prized DVD might not be the Director's Cut.

Generally speaking, what a great delight to devote some time to again think of a truly momentous film, and relive the enjoyment and pleasant surprise that I first had the first time I viewed it.


Manwith

PS When I finally find my DVD, how can I figure out if it is the final, Director's Cut, as shown in theaters, or, if it is a cut-down version?

[KC]

I don't think there has ever been but the one version of the film released in theaters and on video. There is no "director's cut"; the theatrically released version is Clint's final cut (as is his usual practice). It is 131 minutes long, including the final credits, during which the closing shot of the abandoned Munny pig farm never leaves the screen.

I know that the film as shown on network television (this was around 1992, remember) had some of the "adult language" bowdlerized, but I don't know whether anything was actually cut. At any rate, that version would never have been released on video or DVD.

[The Man With No Aim]

Thank you, KC, for valuable information!

The time, 131 minutes enables me to compare the time of my DVD, if and when my Excavation Of Ancient Atlantis ever brings it to my bleary eyes again.

All my life, although I always try to fight it with vigor, my Strong Ego always struggles unrelentingly to try to somehow prove it is right, even after overwhelming evidence has piled up. I should just surrender now and say that you (all) are right and in the film it said in a lot of places that Munny lived in Kansas not in Missouri, but, "I'm from Missouri, (a figure of speech, I was actually born in Alabama, or, as Lone Watie said in the book Gone To Texas, "Bammer") show me!", so, my soul will still be troubled until I have eventually uncovered my DVD and played it and watched it intensely and have seen it for myself.

Many thanks for trying to help me "see the light". You are probably right. I just have to see it for myself.


Manwith   

[exit00]

In the movie, I know that Delilah asks Munny "is she back in Kansas" (talking about Munny's wife).  This is when she visits Munny after Little Bill has beaten him up.  Although then at the end, Little Bill says "you be William Munny out of Missouri".

[KC]

Yes, as discussed above. See Reply #7 and Reply #12.

Munny is "out of" Missouri, but since the 1870s, he has been practicing swine husbandry (as Peoples's script calls it) in Hodgeman County, Kansas.

[The Man With No Aim]

exit00, and KC;  with such a genuinely respectable cloud of witness having appeared, I have become pretty much convinced that the film presented Munny as living in Kansas and being a "swine husbanderist". ( please understand that this very day I enjoyed eating a remarkably delicious fried chicken salad containing BACON  in Batesville, Mississippi, and, would be therefore be a miserable hypocrite if I failed to give respect to the noble profession of swine husbandry).

I am not expressing argument against the hypothesis that the film represented Munny as being, in common vernacular, a pig farmer, living in Kansas. I am simply saying that, as a scientist, I must actually view the thing with my own eyes before I can personally attest to it.

So, I cannot honestly sign off on it, Munny living in Kansas,  until I have finally successfully excavated my own DVD and watched it again.


Manwith

[KC]

I hope you find your DVD soon. If not, maybe you could borrow one from your local library?

Meanwhile, let's get back to topic. Assuming I've understood the original poster correctly, this was a really good idea for a thread, and I don't think we've had one exactly like it in all these years.

What is the best picture of Clint in his movies? That is, if you had to select one single onscreen moment showing Clint in a film, which one would you pick?