Jeremy writes re: my notion that Munney's (Clint Eastwood) raising pigs at the start of _Unforgiven_ might be some sort of reference to the line of Lars in _The Searchers_ about raising pigs that . . . "Munney and Lars are such different types of characters that connecting them with an hommage seems a bit unlikely. I think there would be some interesting comparisons/contrasts to be made between Munney and Ethan Edwards (John Wayne), though." Actually, this is more what I had in mind. The connection I saw is that, just as Lars imagined raising pigs as a way to get out of the standard frontier world depicting by the Western (full of violence and the need to send posses to retaliate, etc.), so did Munney. Ethan, it seems to me, absolutely chooses and accepts his role. Munney has (and this is the one way in which he resembles Lars) renounced that role, only to find that even adopting a social position entirely outside the Western's economy of violence does not remove one from that world. I actually read _Unforgiven_ as somewhat less critical of the world depicted in the standard Western than many others apparently saw it. _Unforgiven_, ultimately and quite reluctantly, endorses the idea that certain forms of extralegal violence, though unpleasant, are necessary to maintain justice and order. [Speaking of hommage: Munney becomes a pig-farmer because - like Gary Cooper in _High Noon_ - he marries a religious woman who demands that he gives up his gun-slinging ways.] At any rate, the reason that I feel the pig reference may be intentional is that _Unforgiven_ seems very aware of the Western genre and (although I am by no means an expert about these things) I can't think of any other place in which pigs play a majory role (or even warrant a mention) in a Western. -- Ben Alpers Princeton University