It’s an interesting line on a lot of levels, particularly when considered in terms of the film’s general deconstruction of the genre.
There’s a bit of old hoke from the heyday of Westerns that I think of as The Tom Joad Speech. It’s the one that goes, “Where ever there’s _____, I’ll be there.” I think this line is meant to be William Munny’s Tom Joad Speech. Except that instead of being aspirational, it’s a drunken threat shouted by a heavily armed man.
But I don’t think the line is straight parody. In the dumbed down version of the trope, it’s sort of a declaration of superheroism - the character’s going to be out there, walking the earth, righting wrongs. The original speech from The Grapes of Wrath, isn’t exactly like that, though. While Tom is planning on going out on his own to help the labor movement in whatever capacity he can, when he start’s talking about “Wherever a cop’s beatin’ on a guy,” he’s not saying he’s going to be there personally, but that there’s a growing spirit of resentment and anger in the country, and the more that spirit is repressed, the more it spreads.
Munny’s threat to the townspeople has that same subtext. Obviously, it’s not a credible threat. What, he’s going to hide out in the mountains, like some sort of gunslinger Batman, waiting until somebody slaps a hooker too hard? Nobody in that town will ever see Munny again, and they know it. But Munny’s threat remains credible, because if the town continues as it is, sooner or later, some other drunken psychotic asshole is going to show up and murder a bunch of people again. As long as the west is a place where “law” is dispensed by sadistic brutes like Little Bill, where shootin’ Chinamen for the railroads is a legitimate career, where a woman who can’t find a husband has almost no choice except to become a whore if she wants to survive, then there’s always going to be more William Munnys, because that sort of environment breeds people like William Munny. The real threat there, is “Civilize, or you’ll keep seeing more like me.”
Yes! We love the deeper meaning of the characters. But when Will walks into the saloon and we see the look on his face, we become the very type of people who buy J.J. Beauchamps books.
A chance for me to mention the death of “Davey Boy.” His was strictly guilt by association. Perhaps even less than Ned, Davey Boy didn’t deserve to die the way he did. Which reminds me of another scene that I get choked up at (and that I don’t think anybody else has already mentioned within this thread): the one when Davey Boy and Quick Mike finally bring the ponies to town and when Davey Boy tells Skinny (the saloon owner) that he can’t have the one pony 'cause it’s meant for Delilah (the woman who was cut up by Quick Mike) and then the other prostitutes fling mud on him and the pony there’s the shot of Delilah looking rather wistful. I don’t know about any of the rest of you but I always took that shot to mean that Delilah actually appreciated the gesture (maybe she was a little bit too forgiving for her own good) even if the other women didn’t and would have accepted the gift from Davey Boy if only she’d had the chance to. {sniff}
The irony in little Bill’s line is that, in a couple of senses, he did ‘deserve it’ - it was his decision not to punish the whore-mutilators (above a fine in horses) that started the whole episode - never mind whipping a suspect to death.
I agree with everything else you said, but not this. I think the people of Big Whiskey actually ARE terrified Will Munny might come back and kill them all.
The movie is about the difference between myth and reality, but the people in it quite often believe the myth. There’s a reason Beauchamp is writing garbage like “The Duke Of Death” - the people back then ate that shit up, just like they eat up Kardashian nonsense today. (The movie’s grim, almost religious title and its contrast to the stupidity and silliness of the title within the story, “The Duke of Death,” is quite purposeful.) Munny’s reputation precedes him, and people are clearly fearful of Little Bill. The Schofield Kid thinks killing and gunfighting is the awesomest, until he actually shoots someone.
So in comes Will Munny and he IS the myth. He’s the goddamned Angel of Death; he walks into the saloon and kills Little Bill and half the saloon and rides off into the dark. When a man has a clear shot at him he refuses to take it, the implication being that even with an open shot he thinks Munny will somehow not die and will kill him; like Keyser Soze, how do you shoot the Devil in the back? What reason does anyone have to not look over their shoulders the rest of their lives? They believe.
Now, **you and I **know Munny never goes back, because we have seen what he truly is. The message to the viewer is of the pointlessness of violence, of the falsity of myth, of the fact that and eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Munny will, I believe, get back to his kids, because he has nothing else to do. After that, meh, who knows. But the townspeople don’t know that, they didn’t see that. He leaves them as a living embodiment of the myth of the Western gunfighter.
I’d go even further: the townsfolk couldn’t know he wouldn’t come back, and indeed Munny’s previous behaviour suggests it is entirely plausible he might.
He didn’t have to come back to town and shoot up the bar to avenge Ned but he did so. Who’s to say that if they didn’t bury Ned decently he wouldn’t hear about it and come back?
Also, he came to town to avenge the hookers when paid to do so. If the townsfolk mistreated the hookers again, who’s to say they wouldn’t pay him to come to town and avenge them?
Yeah, Davey is the one I always felt sorriest for. He had no idea what Mike was going to do to Delilah - he was just doing what his older & more experienced coworker was yelling at him to do. As soon as Mike started slashing Delilah’s face, Davey let go of her, and started wrestling with Mike to stop him.
Right - his one kill is of a helpless unarmed man, pants around his ankles, taking a dump and begging for his life. Hardly the kind of badass killer the Kid thought he would be.
I hadn’t thought about that but you’re right. The kid idolized the toe-to-toe fight between two armed men. But when it came time to actually do it he snuck up on an unsuspecting, unarmed (Mikes gun belt was hanging on the door and he didn’t quite reach it when the kid opened it) victim and killed him while he begged “No!don’t!” And then ran for his life with Will. So not only does he have the guilt of his act hanging on him, he can’t even brag about being in a gunfight or beating someone fairly.