Pass the Popcorn: Movies from where I Sit

There is something about Burt Lancaster that is bigger than life:  those teeth, those turquoise blue eyes, his physique, his expansive enthusiasm.  His great film is "Elmer Gantry", but my favorite is "Unforgiven", not to be confused with Clint Eastwood's later film of the same name.  "Unforgiven" (1959) is based on a bunch of incidents in the west at the time of whites' encroachment on Indian territories, and the kidnapings of white children by Commanches and other tribes.  In this movie, there have been skirmishes between Kiowas and whites, and an uneasy coexistence is present.  At a time when there was still enough room for all, if each would stay out of the others way, the tensions on each side erupted over petty incidents.  The story focuses on two families, one headed by Lancaster, with his mother (Lilian Gish) two other brothers (one the World War II famous soldier Audie Murphy) and their sister, Rachel (Audrey Hepburn).  The other is headed by the Dad (Charles Bickford), two sons and a daughter.  They have just come back from a cattle drive, and are about to head out again to sell the joint herd. 

A strange man in civil war garb appears and haunts them all with prophetic warnings.   Rumors begin floating around that Rachel is Indian.  A Kiowa brave shows up and wants his sister back.  Lancaster is protective of her, and jealous of her as well, and he portrays that conflict well.  They have always known she is not their blood sister, but think she is the daughter of white settlers killed by Kiowas.  When Rachel becomes engaged to the son of Bickford, everything quickly spirals out of control.  Murphy hates Indians because their Dad was killed by them.  His racism is mirrored in Bickford's family as well.  This agony of not belonging anywhere becomes universal with the sensitive acting of Hepburn.  She is amazing here.  The chemistry between her and Lancaster is fiery. 

Directed by John Huston, the film is edited beautifully, and the beginning scenes of people of these times rings true.  They talk, sound and act like people of the 1800s.  You see their hardscrabble lives and the dignity in how they create community and strengthen each other.  The movie is a history lesson, and a thought provoking one at that, as well as a story about love of all kinds, gone bad, held good, and what family is.  The acting is great all through, but Lilian Gish is amazing as the mother who is the only one who knows the secret still alive, and how complex and hard her life has been, with choices she never expected to make.  The cinematography of the land is authentic, not prettied up, and the viewer feels something of what it must have been like to live out west, brave and terrified, wrong and right, on land that is only theirs because nobody else wants it.  Nobody white that is.