Unforgiven: a hermeneutical reading

Abstract

This thesis proposes an existential analysis of the ethical dimension of film. Its goal is to illuminate the role of fiction in creating and testing moral worlds. It does so by examining Unforgiven, a Western film by Clint Eastwood. This examination provides the grounded analysis of a specific moral universe, relating it to earlier analyses of the Western genre. In doing so, the thesis stakes a claim for ethical textual analysis as an alternative to formalism and other established approaches to analyzing film. This thesis examines film as an ethically significant art form. It argues that film is a crucial laboratory for ethical discussion in which the lifeworld, and the representation of lif..