Saturday, September 1, 2012

American Foreign Policy as Presented by Clint Eastwood in the Unforgiven (1992)


Clint Eastwood speaking at the Republican National Convention reminds me of another speech he gave at the end of The Unforgiven, the 1992 film that he directed.  

In this speech, he tells the people of the town how things are going to be. As he does so, there is an American flag behind him.   I felt, watching this scene, that somehow the speech was metaphorically a statement of American foreign policy in various administrations.

The character played by Eastwood, Will Munny, is on his horse, in the rain, after killing a whole lot of people in a gun fight and, dramatically positioned in front of an American flag, he says:

You better bury Ned right. You better not cut up nor otherwise harm no whores. Or I will come back and kill every one of you sons a bitches.



It just seems obvious to me that he is talking about something more, something grander, than just the events in this movie.  

But see for yourself.  Here is the sequence until Youtube takes it down.


1 comment:

  1. Now that you brought it up, is that the right flag for what I must assume is 19th century Uncle Sam?

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