Yup, 32 years after the premiere, I have watched it, being myself 43 years old - still younger than 62 years old then Eastwood :) And I gotta tell you... I suspect this movie felt a bit oldish even at the premiere. I appreciate the script being constructed quite widely across so many quite deeply described characters' stories. I appreciate the acting from Eastwood, Freeman and Hackman (but, to be honest, they 'just' deliver their defaults - a prime ones, of course, but there's nothing in those roles different from other great appearances in their careers). I appreciate even the slow burning flow of the story - I don't mind a bit of air in the movie...
BUT...
For the most part of the movie dialogues are very clumsy, openly descriptive, even childish, very often not necessary at all. And this bloody tendency to... repeat the lines, the jokes, the substories even a few times throughout the movie feels like director's/screenwriter's dementia hitting in.
Editing from scene to scene is... weird here and there. Within the scenes everything seems flawless and the edits are 'invisible', as they should, but when the story jumps in time and/or place... strange things happen in the cuts. I mean, don't get me wrong, cuts between the scenes actually almost CAN'T be 'invisible', so I don't expect what is impossible, but in this movie those cuts often let go of the scene a few seconds too early, or they miss fade out - somehow expected basing on the rhythm of earlier stages of the story. Those moments in editing feel 'broken', 'abandoned' somehow and - sadly - painful because they contrast with the sublime and precise cuts which we can (not) feel inside a scene. That spoils the flow of the story and gets you out of it right away, so the next scene has to bring you back in the saddle (pardon, couldn't help myself).
In some way above paragraph could also be... a praise of a superb within the scene editing - oh, it shine, believe me, like good old classy, timeless shine - but overall, the magic-spoiling effect of those broken between-the-scenes cuts cast a shadow which, being more closely related to the tone of the film, is bigger.
Directing of all that wide, ambitious many characters driven fresk... seems a bit messy nowadays. I think I KNOW what the the director wanted to achieve, and it IS achieved on the intellectual level - I get the message, I receive the dual morality concept spreaded across almost all characters here, I even comprehend the antihero hero final scene. It is all here as it should. But the WAY it is all combined in the whole fails to be considered sharp, coherent, poetic, impactful nowadays. This movie got old much, much worse, than only two years younger 'The Shawshank Redemption', which still holds the line in 2024 in my opinion. And that comes, I think, from the director's intelligence and sensitivity (and luck, I guess).
Overall this is not a bad movie by any means, it keeps you thinking, asking questions - which, surprisingly, remain actual today as they were in 1992 and 1830 - but the WAY it makes you ask those questions feel a bit forced, a bit stiff, a bit grumpy and outdated. Eastwood always treated the audience a bit like morons - his cinema always had this narrow, shallow sensitivity, spreading a kinda dry worldview, I guess. But nowadays (and I mean according to modern cinema's language, not to modern social policies) - while dealing with such sophisticated theme and the potential seeded in the script - that kind of clumsiness is... unforgivable ;)
I'm curious how 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' - which is another take on anti-western - made 15 years after 'Unforgiven' will stand up to the trial of time in 2039. I will be then quite old, 58, but still younger than Eastwood in 1992 ;)
BUT...
For the most part of the movie dialogues are very clumsy, openly descriptive, even childish, very often not necessary at all. And this bloody tendency to... repeat the lines, the jokes, the substories even a few times throughout the movie feels like director's/screenwriter's dementia hitting in.
Editing from scene to scene is... weird here and there. Within the scenes everything seems flawless and the edits are 'invisible', as they should, but when the story jumps in time and/or place... strange things happen in the cuts. I mean, don't get me wrong, cuts between the scenes actually almost CAN'T be 'invisible', so I don't expect what is impossible, but in this movie those cuts often let go of the scene a few seconds too early, or they miss fade out - somehow expected basing on the rhythm of earlier stages of the story. Those moments in editing feel 'broken', 'abandoned' somehow and - sadly - painful because they contrast with the sublime and precise cuts which we can (not) feel inside a scene. That spoils the flow of the story and gets you out of it right away, so the next scene has to bring you back in the saddle (pardon, couldn't help myself).
In some way above paragraph could also be... a praise of a superb within the scene editing - oh, it shine, believe me, like good old classy, timeless shine - but overall, the magic-spoiling effect of those broken between-the-scenes cuts cast a shadow which, being more closely related to the tone of the film, is bigger.
Directing of all that wide, ambitious many characters driven fresk... seems a bit messy nowadays. I think I KNOW what the the director wanted to achieve, and it IS achieved on the intellectual level - I get the message, I receive the dual morality concept spreaded across almost all characters here, I even comprehend the antihero hero final scene. It is all here as it should. But the WAY it is all combined in the whole fails to be considered sharp, coherent, poetic, impactful nowadays. This movie got old much, much worse, than only two years younger 'The Shawshank Redemption', which still holds the line in 2024 in my opinion. And that comes, I think, from the director's intelligence and sensitivity (and luck, I guess).
Overall this is not a bad movie by any means, it keeps you thinking, asking questions - which, surprisingly, remain actual today as they were in 1992 and 1830 - but the WAY it makes you ask those questions feel a bit forced, a bit stiff, a bit grumpy and outdated. Eastwood always treated the audience a bit like morons - his cinema always had this narrow, shallow sensitivity, spreading a kinda dry worldview, I guess. But nowadays (and I mean according to modern cinema's language, not to modern social policies) - while dealing with such sophisticated theme and the potential seeded in the script - that kind of clumsiness is... unforgivable ;)
I'm curious how 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' - which is another take on anti-western - made 15 years after 'Unforgiven' will stand up to the trial of time in 2039. I will be then quite old, 58, but still younger than Eastwood in 1992 ;)