Spaghetti Westerns

[slayrrr666]

Well, after horror, I would say that these films are my second love. I guess it's because I'm Italian, it could be because they're cool, or it could be because they're the source and inspiration for the action films (when they were cool) that I grew up on before I turned to horror and found these films. Anyone out there a fan of these?

[Quorthon]

You mean like stuff from the 40's and 50's?

[Phoenix]

I hope you don't mind Slayrrr666 but I am going to put up a good definition of "Spagetti Western" because even I was a little wonky on what exactly classified the genre till I looked it up.

Spaghetti Westerns is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most of them were produced by Italian studios. Originally they had in common the Italian language, low budgets, and a recognizable highly fluid, violent, minimalist cinematography that eschewed (some said "demythologized") many of the conventions of earlier Westerns—partly intentionally, partly as a result of the work being done in a different cultural background and with limited funds. The term was originally used disparagingly, but by the 1980s many of these films came to be held in high regard, particularly because it was hard to ignore the influence they had in redefining the entire idea of a western up to that point.

The best-known and perhaps archetypal spaghetti Westerns were the so-called Man With No Name trilogy (or Dollars Trilogy) directed by Sergio Leone, starring the American TV actor Clint Eastwood and with musical scores composed by Ennio Morricone (all of whom are now synonymous with the genre): A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The last is one of the most famed Westerns of all time (although, atypically for the genre, it had a relatively high budget in excess of one million USD).

Many of the films were shot in the Spanish desert region of Almería, which greatly resembles the landscape of the American Southwest. (A few were shot in Sardinia.) Because of the desert setting and the readily available southern Spanish extras, a usual theme in Spaghetti Westerns is the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits and the border zone between Mexico and the USA.

Funny fact: Spaghetti westerns are known as "macaroni westerns" in Japan.

[slayrrr666]

I don't mind at all, Phoenix, not one iota at all, because of that extremely knowledgable definition. I take it then that you are a fan?

[Quorthon]

The very idea of Italian filmmakers making Westerns in Spain is very funny to me.

That's like In Flames' live album: Swedish Metal band singing in English to a Japanese crowd.

[Heineken Skywalker]

My favorite spaghetti westerns are:

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968) and THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY (1966)

A couple of obvious choices in the genre, I know, but you really can't do better than Sergio Leone. I've been meaning to take a second look at the other two in the Man With No Name trilogy, besides THE GOOD, THE BAD..., A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS and FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, but haven't yet gotten around to it.

[slayrrr666]

I actually prefer For a Few Dollars More in the trilogy, it's more tightly paced than the others and I can get into it a little bit easier. Ugly seems to be three different movies in one and doesn't really know which one to be (Angel Eyes vs. Tuco and Blondie; Tuco and Blondie in the Civil War; the search for the money) and while all three are great ideas and makes for some thrilling viewing, the three views get to me a little bit. I still like both more than the disappointing A Fistful of Dollars though.

[Phoenix]

slayrrr666 said:

I don't mind at all, Phoenix, not one iota at all, because of that extremely knowledgable definition. I take it then that you are a fan?

I am a fan. I love Clint Eastwood though, so of course I like the Man With No Name triology the best. Like Heineken I like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly the best but mainly because I like the feel of three movies in one.

[Pulpmariachi]

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.

Slayrrr, I disagree. That movie knows exactly what it is, and that's a treasure-hunting movie. And, if you've read any treasure-hunting adventure epic, you knows there's always conflict between one character, another character, the first character with a new character, and a new character that's just come out of the blue.

It totally is just a giant epic, taking its sweet little time in introducing us to all the characters, setting up the situation, and leading us on our way. But the resolution has got to be one of the best endings of all time, from the destruction of the bridge to the final showdown, it's just an amazing last part.

Personally, I feel "A Fistfull of Dollars" is a better movie than "For a Few Dollars More". I mean, the latter is a good film, but "Fistfull" is indirectly (directly, maybe?) linked to Dashiell Hammett's "Red Harvest", which is an amazing novel. But yeah, "Dollars More" is my least favorite in that unofficial trilogy.

"Once Upon a Time in the West" is good too, Heineken. Unfortuantley, my knowledge of spaghetti-Westerns almost begins and ends with Leone. Though I have seen "Death Rides a Horse". Thank God for TCM.

OH! Speaking of spaghetti-Westerns, I feel that for the most part they are better than American westerns. These were just low-down, violent movies with no-good characters and thieving people all around. American westerns on the other hand, are glorifying the Old West as America's epic fantasy. The West wasn't glorious at all, and I think it's ironic that films shot around Spain captured that better than us. Of course, Amercia has always turned its head and looked the other way at things.

Also, I have some cool links to spaghetti-Western music sites.

Here:

members.home.nl/batenroger/top150333.htm

and here:

spaghettiwesterns.1g.fi/music.htm

Found them when I was playing "Red Dead Revolver" and looking for that main theme (still can't find it).

Hey, Quorthon, how do you get the link to have a title instead of just being the Web address?

[Heineken Skywalker]

pulpmariachi said:

Slayrrr, I disagree. That movie knows exactly what it is, and that's a treasure-hunting movie. And, if you've read any treasure-hunting adventure epic, you knows there's always conflict between one character, another character, the first character with a new character, and a new character that's just come out of the blue.
OH! Speaking of spaghetti-Westerns, I feel that for the most part they are better than American westerns. These were just low-down, violent movies with no-good characters and thieving people all around. American westerns on the other hand, are glorifying the Old West as America's epic fantasy. The West wasn't glorious at all, and I think it's ironic that films shot around Spain captured that better than us.

Pulp, have you ever seen Humphrey Bogart's TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE? I love that movie and it pretty much follows the treasure-hunting adventure "rules" you posted above.

As for Spaghetti westerns vs. American westerns, you pretty much hit on what it was that made them unique. They basically deconstructed what audiences felt a western should be. Instead of a clear-cut good guy versus a clear-cut bad guy, you got anti-heroes like Eastwood's man with no name. Instead of a white hat versus a black hat, pretty much everybody's wearing a grey hat, metaphorically speaking, of course. Plus the violence was bloody, people got grimy and dirty, etc. just more realistic all around.

American westerns definitely changed after the late sixties and early seventies to reflect the things that they had learned from the Italian filmmakers. One need look no further than the Westerns Eastwood starred in post-Leone, ie: HANG EM HIGH, PALE RIDER, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, etc., to see how they, American filmmakers, had been influenced.
And of course, even though it's not a spaghetti western, there was Eastwood's own UNFORGIVEN as the ultimate deconstruction of the classic Western. An over the hill gun for hire (Eastwood), his black sidekick (Morgan Freeman), an up and coming gunslinger with poor eyesight, a villain (Gene Hackman) who really isn't evil, just misguided. On top of that, the people hiring them aren't put-upon ranchers, but prostitutes, not exactly upstanding citizens themselves. And to further rip apart the mythology, you've got a pulp writer following Richard Harris around and writing everything Harris tells him as gospel, only to have most of it later debunked as bullshit by Hackman's character. Shows how things like the old west get glorified and how often it was mostly myth and exaggerations.

A movie like UNFORGIVEN would've never been made back in the forties or fifties, but the spaghetti westerns forever changed what an audience would accept, and what they would find too cornball. No more singing cowboys, I guess.

[slayrrr666]

pulpmariachi said:

OH! Speaking of spaghetti-Westerns, I feel that for the most part they are better than American westerns. These were just low-down, violent movies with no-good characters and thieving people all around. American westerns on the other hand, are glorifying the Old West as America's epic fantasy. The West wasn't glorious at all, and I think it's ironic that films shot around Spain captured that better than us. Of course, Amercia has always turned its head and looked the other way at things.

I think so too. You compare the early work in the genre to the US westerns, they have the full-on violence, action, and cool characters that were both compelling to watch as they made the audience want to follow along to make sure you knew what there alliances were, and that is much more interesting to watch than the Amiercan characters. I couldn't agree with that more.

[Quorthon]

pulpmariachi said:

Hey, Quorthon, how do you get the link to have a title instead of just being the Web address?

(For the purpose of making this visible, I substituted a "1" in place of the lowercase "L" in "url." Except in the case of actual links.)

A normal link goes like this: Put "[ur1]" at the beginning and "[/ur1]" at the end for a normal link. That gives you www.ResidentHazard.com

But for a "titled" link, it goes like this: [ur1=http://www,website-address,com]Click Here[/ur1] (I substituted commas for periods here so it doesn't try to be a link.) That's how you get: Click Here

The only difference is that the actual site address follows the first "url=" inside the brackets.

Hope that helps.

[Pulpmariachi]

heinekenskywalker said:

Pulp, have you ever seen Humphrey Bogart's TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE? I love that movie and it pretty much follows the treasure-hunting adventure "rules" you posted above.

No more singing cowboys, I guess.

I love Bogart, but that's one of his I haven't seen yet, unfortunatley. Isn't that one of his few, if not only only, Westerns?

I'm gonna need to hit the video store soon here. God, I hate not having TCM.

[slayrrr666]

I'll repeat this in Just Watched, but if you guys can find the Leone film A Fistful of Dynamite (no bonus points for correctly guessing which film this one was inspired by) on cable TV, which isn't availiable on R1 DVD yet, do so, as it's a great one. James Coburn stars as an Irish explosives expert who gets a small-time Mexican bandit into the Mexican Revolution. Large scale action, beautiful scenery, and a compelling story gives this one a nice re-watchability factor to it. The train-takeover is a beauty to watch in and off itself. I highly recommend it.

[slayrrr666]

This will go into the Watched thread as well, but yesterday saw one of the better ones around, My Name is Nobody. Peter Fonda in a Spaghetti Western? Yes, it did. Paired with the far underrated Terrence Hill, it was a great combination of slapstick and shootouts, as Hill played the smart-alec gunslinger forcing Fonda to take on a legendary group of banditos who had killed his friend years ago. Laughed pretty frequently at the jokes and situations, which is a good thing as it was intentional, and it has now made it onto the Top 5 of my favorites list.