I'll Take Any Opportunity To Discuss Unforgiven

I don't remember where I read it online, but I saw someone talking about Unforgiven, and they mentioned how they felt the end of the film sort of undercuts the themes of the rest of the film.

The movie up to that point is generally exposing all the myths we see in Westerns and undoing them. Men win gunfights not because they're fast, but because the other guy was drunk, his gun was faulty, or because they fight dirty. Little Bill doesn't defend his town by squaring off with the evil gun-for-hire English Bob in the street at high noon in a showdown. He has his deputies surround Bob with their guns drawn, forces the guy to surrender his weapons, then beats the hell out of him. William Munny can't remember half the things he did in his wild days, and the things he can recall doing, he can't remember why he did them. But at the end, he strides into the saloon and guns down the lawmen all by himself and walks out unscathed.

So I see the point the person was making, but I tend to disagree. That fight at the end isn't like the one from the first few minutes of A Fistful of Dollars, where Eastwood's character kills 4 gunmen without any of them getting a shot off in his direction. At least 2 of the deputies - Andy and Fatty - empty their guns at him. Even Little Bill gets off a shot. But they all panic. There's something Bill says to Beauchamp during one of their discussions at the jail, to the effect it isn't simply about being fast, it's about keeping a cool head. Here's the quote: 'Look son, being a good shot, being quick with a pistol, that don't do no harm, but it don't mean much next to being cool-headed. A man who will keep his head and not get rattled under fire, like as not, he'll kill ya. It ain't so easy to shoot a man anyhow, especially if the son-of-a-bitch is shootin' back at you.'

And that's largely how it plays out. All the lawmen, even Little Bill, panic. I think Bill had accepted he was dead, up to the moment the shotgun misfired. Then he saw his chance to survive, and he lost his cool. You can see him struggle to draw his gun as he's snarling, 'Kill the son of a bitch.'  Even so, and even with Munny throwing the shotgun at him, he still gets his shot off at almost the same time as Munny. But he's rushing, so he doesn't react when Munny ducks.

Munny's calm, but I think it's mostly because a) he's drunk, and b) he doesn't care. Munny's pretty sure he's going to die after he shoots Little Bill, considering he'll be holding an empty shotgun in a room with 4 armed deputies, but it doesn't matter. He came to kill the man who decorated his store with Ned, and to kill the man who killed Ned. That's it. He's already made arrangement that the Schofield Kid will get Munny's share of the reward to his children, so that's taken care of. He's given instructions on what to do with Ned's share in the event Munny doesn't returns as well, so he's made his arrangements, such as they are. If he doesn't make it, at least his kids have that cash.

There's a scene in The Outlaw Josey Wales where Josey (Eastwood) squares off with a group of Union soldiers outside a general store, and kills 4 of them (one of his associates gets the other). Afterward, he's asked how he knew which to kill first, and he recites some spiel about what he saw in their eyes and their body language. In Unforgiven, after it's over Beauchamp starts asking what the order was he killed them in, and Munny can't say. Beauchamp mentions some nonsense about how experienced gunfighters will always go after the best shot first, and Munny replies he was lucky in the order, but he's always been lucky at killing. There was no thought process about which order. He killed Little Bill not because he was the most dangerous, but because Bill was who he was there to kill.

After that, he just goes in clockwise order, starting with the guy closest to him, the one-handed deputy, Clyde. Who just happens to probably be the next most dangerous. Then, he gets Deputy Andy, but not before Andy and Fatty unload several rounds at him from not 10 feet away. All of which miss, badly. I mean, they're taking chunks out of the bar that's 3 feet to Munny's right, because they aren't aiming in the slightest (Andy even has this ridiculous, terrified, "oh shiiiiiit" look on his face). They just drew and started firing. To be fair, Little Bill only told them to pull out their pistols and gun Munny down like the mangy scoundrel he is. He didn't say anything about aiming. Anyway, by the time Andy gets shot (twice, because he didn't really react to the first bullet), Fatty's had enough and turned to flee, only to be promptly shot in the back. Charley (played by future Adventures of Brisco County Jr. alum John Pyper-Ferguson) had already fled.

Munny doesn't win because he's fast, because he's clever, or because he had Lee van Cleef as a partner. He wins because all the people he was up against panicked, because they all wanted to live, but they couldn't control that and use it. Not against a guy who doesn't care either way, past a certain point. I think survival instinct is why none of the other members of the posse get involved. No concerned citizen tries to aid the lawmen, because Munny made it perfectly clear he's not interested in them. He gives them the chance to get clear when he shoots Skinny, and again when he prepares to kill Little Bill, and again when the shooting is over. They know the best thing they can do to survive is not give this pissed off drunk guy a reason to think he needs to shoot them, and that's the choice all of them make. If even one of them decides to help, Munny might end up dead. All it would take is one halfway decent shot, one lucky shot.