Amanda, you say it is "lamentable that the only female characters
in this movie ["Unforgiven"] were prostitutes." Well, yeah, but
don't overlook the fact that a woman NOT shown on screen, i.e.
William Munny's deceased wife, has great and positive impact on
the film. She is responsible for the "humanization"
of the Munny character, who had been a vicious killer in his
youth. Sometimes a character can throw a shadow over a movie without
actually appearing on screen. Another example of this is "Rebecca,"
in which the title character is dead at the opening of the film
but her shadow falls over everybody and everything. Ernie.