Clint Eastwood has left an indelible mark on the history of cinema. He started out his journey as an actor known for his roles in the Western genre, but he soon moved on to directing. As a director, he is credited with making some of the best movies and even started his own style of directing movies. The director has proven that he can turn everything he touches into a classic.
Something similar happened behind the scenes of Unforgiven. The script by David Webb Peoples was being passed on from one director to another till Eastwood who was also playing the lead role decided to take on the script before it was almost tossed away and shelved forever after Francis Ford Coppola couldn’t get anyone to finance it.
Clint Eastwood’s faith in the Unforgiven script saved the movie
The scriptwriter of the movie David Webb Peoples, in his book, FilmCraft: Screenwriting revealed everything that happened in the backdrop that helped Unforgiven see the light of day after it was nearly shelved. The script revolves around the story of William Munny, who is a retired outlaw turned into a farmer. He returns to the job after receiving a bounty on two cowboys who cut the face of a prostitute. It was inspired by Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver.
In an interview with Los Angeles Times in 1992, Peoples shared how Clint Eastwood decided save to the script and took it from Francis Ford Coppola,
“Francis Ford Coppola optioned it in ’84. He took it around, but couldn’t get financing. Clint picked up the option in 1985 and said he was making it ‘next year’ a couple of times. The year before last, my wife was at the Telluride Film Festival and Clint walked on stage. He was overwhelmed by the scenery, he told the audience, and figured it was probably time to make his Western. I was thrilled.”
The actor was bagged to play the lead role in the movie initially but seeing that the script might never see the light of day, he decided to save it. He believed in the script more than most directors who passed it on.
David Webb Peoples claimed no one could make the movie like Clint Eastwood did
At the time when Francis Ford Coppola took on the role of directing Unforgiven, he was witnessing a career decline. His previous movie back then, One from the Heart, a musical romance was a huge flop. David Webb Peoples believed that he would’ve done a great job directing the movie, but Coppola failed to get anyone to finance the movie. Then Clint Eastwood took over and Peoples had to admit that he did an excellent job staying true to the original script and bringing it to life.
He explained in the same interview,
“Francis would have done it brilliantly as he does everything else, but it’s hard to imagine anyone making it as straightforwardly and uncompromisingly as Clint. No studio would have made it that way — dark, moody. With a lot of voices, things generally end up becoming blander and more accessible. ‘Unforgiven’ was Clint Eastwood saying ‘This is what I’m going to do … get out of my way.’”
He further explained,
“I didn’t meet Clint in person until he invited me to see the movie at Warner Bros. But he and I were enough in sync that he didn’t feel it necessary to ask for rewrites. One of the stars [of ‘Unforgiven,’ Eastwood’s then-partner], Frances Fisher, told me that this was the first time she saw a shooting script that was entirely in white. Most of them are multicolored, full of blue and red pages or whatever representing various changes in the screenplay.”
It all worked out for Eastwood in the end as the lead actor and director ended up winning two Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Direction while being nominated for Best Actor. Peoples, too, was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. It was nominated in 5 other categories and won two of them.