The Unforgiven

The idea of Audrey Hepburn starring in a western seems a bit strange to me, doubly so if she's playing a native american. There's just something about the British that makes them mostly unsuitable for the genre. I mean, it's no coincidence that there are hardly any British-made westerns. Australia, Canada, Italy and Russia have all produced successful or interesting westerns but Britain has never really gotten there. Anyway, I digress... Hepburn has her work cut out for her in this role and I don't think she quite gets there.

Rachel Zachery (Hepburn) is the adopted daughter of a cattle-ranching family. We're introduced to her as she cheerfully goes for water, framed by the cross of her father's grave in the foreground. Her brother is Ben (Burt Lancaster), the man of the family who also runs the cattle business in partnership with a neighbouring family, the Rawlings. Rachel is, in reality, an indian orphan adopted by the Zacherys in the wake of their battles with the Kiowa tribe. Her ethnicity is a secret (even to her), and the arrival of a crazy, veangeful war veteran (Joseph Wiseman) threatens to shatter the relationship between the Zacherys and the Rawlings forever.

The Unforgiven is a dusty, passionate western with larger than life characters and theatrical twists and turns. The first half of the film is relatively lighthearted and quirky - cows eat the grass off the Zacherys' roof, and Ben and his brothers are a rough and ready bunch with a taste for Wichita prostitutes (the younger Zachery remarks excitedly, "Ben says they have girls there that only have first names!" and refuses to get married until he's been to Wichita to 'have a glass of beer').

Director John Huston uses this atmosphere to lull the viewer into a false sense of comfort - establishing and building on relationships to heighten the stakes and deepen the tragedy to come. The anti-racism subtext starts out as subtle before erupting with full force with mob justice, lynchings, betrayal and murder. At the centre of the film is Ben, a man who doesn't discriminate when it comes to hiring a skilled horseman who happens to be Indian. Ben is also a man of convictions who can make hard decisions when put in hard situations (such as when the Kiowa come calling to claim Rachel at the beginning of the film's climax). For a film made in 1960 (when miscegenation laws were still real enough to prevent a real native american from being cast in the role of Rachel) the racism depicted is realistically ugly, with the use of the term 'redhide nigger' and Ben's implicit description of Rachel's possible fate as a whore squatting outside a store in Wichita , taking silver dollars from troopers.

Hepburn is a little beyond her parameters though, her accent veers between basic and non-existent, and she looks about as Indian as you'd expect a lil-skinned girl born in Belgium to look. The strength of the film is in Lancaster's performance. He doesn't shy away from the incestuous overtones between his character and Rachel. He also acts big to match the broad characterisations aroun dhim. He's a big man of the west, bringing boundless bravado, humour and energy to the film to match Hepburn's childish enthusiasm. Despite the broadness of his performance, Lancaster is at his most affecting in his tender moments with Hepburn - and this range is why Lancaster's legacy as an actor is so enduring.

The only other aspect of the film I'd like to mention is Dimitri Tiomkin's typically intrusive score. It's all over the place, often undercutting the tragedy and the drama with it's whimsy or bombast. The Unforgiven is a stirring film but it might've been a lot better without the out-of-place music.

TRIVIA: Audrey Hepburn broke her back in a horseriding accident while making this film, causing it to shut down production until she recovered. She later had a miscarriage as a result.

DIRECTOR: John Huston
WRITER/SOURCE: Written by Ben Madden, based on the novel by Alan Le May.
KEY ACTORS: Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Audie Murphy, John Saxon, Lillian Gish, Charles Bickford, Joseph Wiseman, Doug McClure.

RELATED TEXTS:
- The novel of the same name by Alan Le May.
- Burt Lancaster also appeared in an earlier anti-racism western, Apache.