Journal X Volume 7 Number 1 Autumn 2002 Article 5 2020 Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, the "Alternative" Western, and the American Romance Tradition Steven Frye California State University, Bakersfield Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jx Part of the American Film Studies Commons Recommended Citation Frye, Steven (2020) "Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, the "Alternative" Western, and the American Romance Tradition," Journal X: Vol. 7 : No. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jx/vol7/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal X by an authorized editor of eGrove. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Frye: Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, the "Alternative" Western, and the A Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, the "Alternative" Western, and the American Romance Tradition Steven Frye Steven Frye is Asso Much criticism of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven ciate Professor of focuses on the way the film dismantles or decon English at structs traditional western myths. Maurice California State Yacowar argues that Unforgiven is a myth "disre- University, Bakers membered and rebuilt, to express a contempo field, and author of Historiography rary understanding of what the west and the and Narrative Western now mean" (247). Len Engel explores Design in the the film's mythopoetic nature, stating that direc American tor Eastwood and scriptwriter David Webb Peo Romance: A Study ples "undermine traditional myths" in a tale of Four Authors that evokes Calvinist undertones of predestina (2001). tion (261). Leighton Grist suggests that the film "problematizes the familiar ideological assump tions of the genre" (294).