September 9th, 2009

Some of the finest writing I’ve ever read was penned by screenwriter David Webb Peoples. Peoples wrote the Unforgiven and I think it’s a brilliant piece of film writing. I couldn’t help thinking about one of the final scenes in the screenplay this morning. Seeking vengeance isn’t right, but in a well written western it’s so satisfying. I fear for my brother’s life everyday and knowing he’s fading away while the guilty parties continue on without a worry makes my blood boil. And so I turn to David Peoples and his spectacular work Unforgiven for a taste of justice. Little Bill is holding court in a saloon with his deputies. Outside the saloon, in an upright coffin is Ned, Munny’s friend, a man that has been as close to him as a brother. Little Bill tells his men, “Now if we divide up into four parties and hit all the farms and trails in a circle, we’re bound to find someone who seen them skunks (referring to Munny).” Little Bill is suddenly conscious of his own loud voice in a sudden silence that has swept the bar like a brushfire and, turning, he sees what everybody is staring at. Munny, with his 10-gauge shotgun leveled from the shoulder, is standing thirty feet away in the doorway. Taking a couple of sideways steps to get the door behind his back and sweeping the twin barrels in an ominous arc, he surveys the scene. Munny, a little drunk say, “Which one of you owns this place?” Nobody says a thing. Skinny stares pop-eyed from behind the bar and the sweat starts on his forehead and Little Bill is thinking coolly and everybody else is swallowing hard and looking at the shotgun. Munny, to an overweight man in front of him, “You there, fat man, speak up.” The man gulps and then Skinny screws up his courage and steps from behind the bar and gives it every bit of dignity his fear will permit. “I?I own this establishment,” Skinny says. “I bought it from Greely for a thous?.” “Better step clear, boys,” Munny says to the men around Skinny. And Skinny looks from side to side as people step away from him and he wants to say something desperately he wants to live, he wants?. “Hold on, mist?,” Little Bill interjects. Bah-whoom! Munny fires and smoke belches and Skinny is blown back against the wall and he falls to the floor a bloody mess. Little Bill is furious. “Well, sir you are a cowardly son of a bitch, because you have just shot down an unarmed man.” Munny points his gun at Little Bill. “He should have armed himself if he was gonna decorate his saloon with the body of my friend.” That level of animosity is how I’m feeling this morning. There’s nothing I can do about any of the wrong done to Rick though so I’ll just replay that section of this western masterpiece over and over again – changing the names of the characters in an effort to quiet the desperate pleas for help I hear everyday.