Thirty years ago
Clint Eastwood, aged 62, kicked off the second, dazzling part of his career, with an 'alternative' western
, as it has been written, which for many also marked the end of the genre.
'I was tired of hardly credible myths', will say the protagonist of dozens of westerns, between big and small screen, devoted pupil of Don Siegel and Sergio Leone (to whom Gli ruthless is dedicated), to explain how the idea for this film was born whose script remained in his hands for six years.
Clint portrays himself as an old killer who is struggling to get on his horse, whose aim is now precarious and who had promised his wife, on the verge of death, that he would no longer shoot or drink.
But no one, as Nietzsche would have said, can leap beyond his own shadow.
Not even William Munny, the last great cowboy in American cinema, who returns to work to grab the bounty placed by a group of prostitutes on a violent man who scarred one of them.
Nothing heroic (or feminist, at least in intention) because Munny needs the money to support the children.
The small group he puts together, with the very young Kid who never killed and his friend Ned (Morgan Freeman), is unlikely but fierce and must also contend with the prince antagonist, the violent sheriff Little Big Dagget (Gene Hackman) .
A lot of reflection and little action (a killer has never been seen in a western say: 'Killing a man is a big thing'), unadorned environments and twilight lights, in Ruthless at times it seems to be more in a noir than in a western real.
Good and bad are everywhere, even within the same person, and the fulfillment of the action is less important than the bitter reflection on the (ambiguous) meaning of life.
Four Oscars: Best Picture (it's one of three westerns to have had this honor in Academy Award history), Best Director, Supporting Actor (Hackman) and Editing.