Some genres have that one film that defines it. And often,
your personal definitive film is someone else’s. Example: Raise your hand if
you believe Raiders of the Lost Ark to be the definitive adventure film. I’d be
willing to bet that 90% of the world just raised their hands. But sometimes a
genres definitive film isn’t so clear. If you want a mobster movie, there’s
Untouchables, Casino, Godfather, Goodfellas…there’s no one movie that defines
it. But there certainly is a film that changed the genre. With the release of
The Public Enemy in 1931, however, the standard by which all gangster flicks to
come would be set. The same is true of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
To really understand the movie, you need to understand what
a Western was pre-1964. Westerns were usually, but not always, a struggle of
good versus evil. The good guy wore the white hat and the bad guy wore the
black one. Think of the classic John Wayne films of the thirties and you’ve got
your standard western. That standard was propagated throughout the forties and
fifties with the success of supremely popular Lone Ranger film serials by the
amazing Republic Pictures, and later the Lone Ranger TV series that would spawn
the liked of Wanted: Dead and Alive, Gunsmoke, and Bonanza. And with the
exception of Wanted, all those shows featured on radio before moving to the
small screen.
All this is to say that America has had a love affair with
the Old West since, well, the Old West. The time has been so heavily
romanticized that, even though it was just 150 years ago, we’ve made more
movies about the Old West than Rome, Greece, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance,
Elizabethan era, or the Victorian era, probably combined. And it’s
understandable why. The Old West represents opportunity and freedom. But what
happens when a history buff decides to make a film based in the Old West, but
depicting it as it was, not as a romanticized good versus evil, cowboy versus
indian? You get A Fistful of Dollars.
A Fistful of Dollars is the first film in the Dollars
Trilogy and a real game changer. It defied nearly all the conventions that a
western should follow. For starters, the protagonist is an opportunistic ass,
the violence (compared to what preceded it) was staggering, and the writing was
very sophisticated. Ok, so you can make the argument that the film is a rip off
of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and you’d be right. And you can make the argument that
the violence is due to the brilliant Sergio Leone’s lack of understanding of
how westerns were shot. And, sure, you can also claim that the anti-hero had
been around since ancient Greece and Homer. But something special happened with
A Fistful of Dollar’s release in 1964. It completely changed the way we view
westerns.
A Fistful of Dollars was followed a year later by For a Few
Dollars More. Clint Eastwood returned to the role he originated the year
previous, only this time he wasn’t pinning two warring households against one another,
he was collecting a bounty. And the classic close up shots of the eyes were
defined. The shot has become one of the most popular and recognizable in the genre
and beyond. What is a showdown without a close up of the eyes? You can thank
Leone for that.
The chemistry between Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef was amazing
as well. So it’s no wonder that the two returned in The Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly. Of course, Leone loved to work with artists he had worked with before,
but there has to be chemistry to the movie to work. So, a year later, we have
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and it is even more ambitious that its
predecessor. The film was a prequel that told the story of how Blondie (or Joe
or Manco depending on the film, but we can just call him The Man with No Name)
became the man we see in A Fistful of Dollars.
The huge, epic panoramic shots utilized by Leone hint to the
huge, epic story that it attempts to tell. The last film in the series is
definitely the one that covers the most ground and showcases the most character
development. Of course, the story isn’t terribly unique: three guys race one
another to a secret treasure and each one needs the other in order to find it.
But it is all the elements that went into it that make it more than simply a
rat race film. Not least of which is the gigantic, sweeping score of Ennio
Moricone.
Moricone may be the most recognizable film composer of all
time. Of course, there are the likes of John Williams, Danny Elfman, Hans
Zimmer, James Horner, and Alan Silverstri. But once you hear just one note of
Moricone’s music, you know who you are listening too. And it isn’t just that
his scores are impressive to listen to. They fit the film and the characters
perfectly. He may be the finest composer of the late twentieth century. No
other composer captures a director’s feel and emotion like Moricone. In fact,
for Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, the score was written entirely before
shooting, with the music influencing the shots. Now, that is impressive.
So be it to see the film that set the standard for films
like Tombstone and Unforgiven, or to enjoy the intense score, or simply to go
back in time to the American Civil War, prepare your stagecoach to enjoy the
finest spaghetti and western was ever accompanied with.
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