And you have to place the films in context. The ads for the first of them, A Fistful of Dollars, was “This is the first movie of its kind; it will not be the last.” And that was true! The film marked a sea change in westerns. I saw this movie when it first came out in a college town movie theater; the audience went nuts. It was all the campus was talking about the next day. FWIW, I loved the first two movies in the series: *A Fistful of Dollars *and A Few Dollars More, but I hated The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I thought it was dragged out too much especially the three-man shoot-out.
This post should be made a Cafe Society sticky.
Not just movies. Doesn’t that define “art”, deciding which elements of the story to present, and how to present them?
There are these things called metaphors and symbolism …
Now, I don’t like Westerns, I don’t like violence and gore, and I particularly hate glorification of the American Civil War (and I hate spitting chaw even more), but even I appreciate those movies.
The score, the grit, the humor, the (moral) realism, and the resolved moral ambiguity (and it is resolved) …
They are just really good movies.
That being said, I’ve always hated …
[do I need a spoiler for a movie this old? I’ll play it safe …]
… the scene where they slash open the bag of gold with the shovel. I know, metaphor, symbolism … but every time, I think “Now how do you plan to carry it out?”
But I will never forgive Eastwood and MacLaine for the ending of Two Mules for Sister Sara.
I love Westerns, violence, and I don’t have any feelings about the glorification of the Civil War, but you pinpointed exactly why I love Italian westerns.
The OP has to be a whoosh.
The Spaghetti Westerns were phonomenal. They changed movie making. I remember when I first saw “The Good The Bad and The Ugly” in the theater. I was chuckling at the irony, the humor and brilliance of the acting and directing. Unfortunately, there were too few of us that were “getting” it. When they focused in on the boots that were worn and ripped you knew that the director was spitting in the face of the stupid John Wayne, costummed, conventional Westerns that were idiotic beyond belief. The Spaghetti Westerns were doing it the way it should have always been done.
Yea, let’s see you come up with a scene in Western where a guy is sitting in a bath tub and comes up with the line, “One bastard goes out and another bastard comes in.”
Eastwood nailed it. Explain the subtlety of a main character known as the “Man With No Name” or for lack identity is known as “Blondie”.
Watch the movies again. If you still don’t get it watch them again and again. They are brilliant.
Not to hijack, but I leved these until I saw Yojimbo the first time. Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune are much better IMHO.
Try a chili/sushi night with a double bill of the goo the bad and thr ugly combined with Yojimbo & let me know the result.
That final show down fight scene in Yojimbo…
But tell the truth … how did you feel about the shovel and the gold? Because a surprising number of people will admit they agree with me.
Kurosawa’s favorite director was John Ford.
Leone’s favorite director was John Ford.
Most of their movies were in large part tributes to the Westerns of John Ford.
I agree, and lissener has hit the nail on the head as usual. Some people care a lot about the acting, or verisimilitude. That wasn’t the point of the Spaghetti Westerns.
I rarely care about these things. I couldn’t give much more than a damn who acts in a movie, nor how they act. (But if the narrative is good, I might give it a pass, for passing my time without getting me bored.)
My favorite director was Robert Bresson, who after a few films, never used professional actors, and insisted that his actors not “emote.” His work was all direction and cinematography.
Shhhhh. :eek: Just because he’s right, let’s not start planting ideas in his head! 
He called them “models,” IIRC. Not actors.
Anyway, this thread puts me in mind of that moment in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when Dr. Frankfenfurter has unveiled Rocky, and asks Janet what she thinks. Janet replies something about not liking too many muscles, and Dr. Frankenfurter bristles, and responds: “I didn’t make him for YOU!”
Today in the store we were playing The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, one of the greatest masterpieces of fantasy art of the 20th Century, on the store widescreen. A 12- or 13-year-old boy stopped and watched for a moment, then proclaimed, “This is terrible! Look how fake it looks!”
He’s chained in the basement.
I can shoot from the hip and hit what I’m aiming at as can quite a number of my friends/ex colleagues.
Ex colleagues?? How many of them did you shoot?
One of my favorites and the ending is the best movie scene ever filmed, IMO.
I don’t agree.I think they had another bag nearby(mebbe in the saddlebag…or use the saddlebag itself),or could have found one easily.
I figured they had other saddle bags they could use.
Best part of Good/Bad/Ugly is that bloated trumpet solo when they’re in the three-way duel.
As I’ve stated before, I love Leone’s films. TGBU especially. But I do always cringe at breaking open the bag of gold.
And to me, the final shootout is just pure ecstacy, brilliance beyond compare.
Spaghetti westerns are foreign made films, and not ones made by American studios. Watch a real spaghetti western and you’ll cry for death in five minutes.
What’s an example of a real spaghetti western?
Once Upon A Time in the West is as far from suckitude as you could possibly get. It’s brilliant, every second of every minute, genius. I’d loved it for years on video, but I got to see it on the big screen for the first time when it played at a revival theater here a couple of weeks ago. I was in freakin’ awe!
I wish I could see the movies the OP’s talking about in the theater. I haven’t seen them since I was a kid, liked 'em ok, but I think they need the big screen and 100% attention.