Sergio Leone!

then i took a class about spaghetti westerns and italian horror in college. it didnt help that the class was four hours on thursday nights but most of the westerns would put me to sleep [morricone's music was a sweet lullaby somehow]. dario argento's horror movies were just so much more exciting to watch in class. it also ruined westerns to have to write lengthy papers breaking down their cultural significance while italian horror was much more sexual in nature...

still like leone but only when i have a whole afternoon free and plenty of popcorn.

what about those:

sabata
the great silence
man of the east
keoma
gunlaw
my name is nobody

all brilliant. the last one doesnt really count though because leone co-directed it (and because its a piss-take of "for a few dollars more")

http://www.lfb.it/fff/fumetto/aut/a/imm/aragones01x.jpg

also, i consider that film to have a stronger, more haunting feel to it, due mainly to the score and aspects like that hazey telephoto shot of a distant man walking towards the camera, his visage blurred by desert heat

say, does anybody know what kind of revolver makes that characteristic spaghettie western retort? that "Pyewwww!" sound? or is it just a recording of a richochet of a rifle-fired bullet?

The box is out this Tuesday!

jesus christ... Duck You Sucker kicks ass.

I just rented Colossus of Rhodes. It's Leone's first directorial feature and it's a epic set in ancient Greece.

Box made it seem awesome. I really should have translated that "cult" actually can mean "a very homo-erotic gladiator film". The acting and fight scenes are lousy too. Bummer.

didnt he just co-direct that?

It feels like he co-directed it with no one. I think the term "half-directed" is spot on. But no, Imdb just credits Leone. Disappointed because I really wanted this to be like another Jason and the Argonauts or Satyricon. Not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OspdJIxTYi4

(I'm so so sorry)

just finished a fistful of dollars. so amoral! love it

I love pretty much everything this guy did or touched except "Once Upon a Time in America," which I find a strange drag.

it was significantly cut and re-edited on release -- esp.the us version, which didn't have leone's approval -- and i'm not sure anyone has ever yet seen the original intended version: tho whether the full-length version would have been less draggy is obv a bit of a question

it sets itself lots of tricky technical conundrums -- multiple flashback structure involving multiple child actors playing characters when young , plus characters playing themselves when old slathered in latex, and hinges on a not-very-amazing reveal, if i recall correctly

also it turns urban new york in the 30s into somewhere as spaciously unpeopled as some of his westerns, though this is kind of amazing in its strangeness

i don't think de niro is that great in it, which is a problem: he'd entered his slump period round now, i guess

oth it has that terrific infolded multiple flashback montage with the ringing phone, which is one of my favourite coups de cinema (some of it set in the most spacious opium dens outside qing dynasty beijing)

den not dens

what was going on w/ this dude between 1971 and 1984?? anyone read a biography or somethin'?

p.s. i love how everybody in duck you sucker says "duck you sucker" like leone imagined it to be some kind of common american slang phrase.

anyone read a biography or somethin'?

Yeah this:

http://cache0.bookdepository.co.uk/assets/images/book/medium/9780/5711/9780571164387.jpg

... not that interesting tbh 'cos he wasn't that interesting. I think between 1971 and 1984, he was trying to make "Once Upon a Time In America", buying rights, raising money, arguing over money, writing scripts, rejecting scripts, hiring writers, fighting with writers, firing writers, filming far too much then being unable to decide what to leave in and what to leave out - pretty much what he did on all his films!

Prefer this Frayling bk to his actual biog -

http://www.boomerangbooks.com.au/bookImages/LARGE/439/9780500287439.jpg

but Frayling's commentary tracks for the Leone movies, especially the blu-ray only TGTBATU commentary, are some of the very best ever recorded - guy has done his research, is an excellent public speaker, has interesting things to say about the content.

Local indie cinema running a morricone season, man with no name trilogy, ouatitw, the mission. result.

http://diodatilodge.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ad1.jpg

http://www.lushquotes.com/pics/sergio-aragones/The-Western,-when-I-do-one,-will-be-one-long,-continuous-story..jpg

The Dollars trilogy Blu-ray boxset keeps calling to me from the shelves in HMV

it is the greatest

Those movies are poetry. Esp. if you throw "Once Upon a Time in the West" in.

Once upon a time in the west tho. Its somehow more, isnt it? Elegaic as opposed to pulpy maybe?

RIP screenwriting man

“But to the general public Mr. Vincenzoni was most associated with For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, two hugely successful Italian-made westerns directed by Sergio Leone that are now recognized as classics. ‘I have written movies that won prizes at Cannes and Venice,’ he told Christopher Frayling, a cultural historian and Leone biographer. ‘These were screenplays for which we suffered on paper for months. Do you know how long it took me to write For a Few Dollars More? Nine days.’”

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-luciano-vincenzoni-1926-2013http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-luciano-vincenzoni-1926-2013

Yesterday Criterion shared this photo of Bresson and Leone taken in Venice in '72

http://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1374936_10153346893555565_1024260217_n.jpg

amazing pic! cld def fit on the 'people who you wldn't expect to be photogged together' thread.

i like the way bresson is always such a dandy!

for all the talk about everything else associated with The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, it's hardly ever noted how Eastwood gives such a good performance, and he's so understated throughout that it's hard to miss next to Wallach and Van Cleef and the more colorful supporting turns. And he's very good with the low-key comedy -- in particular his delivery of this line kills me every single time:

Tuco: Even when Judas hanged himself there was a storm.

Blondie: That *could* be cannon fire.

Was surprised to be quite moved by Fistful Of Dynamite/Duck You Sucker. Wonderful film.

The music helps.

I'm told that many versions of it were butchered and the big relationship reveal at the end was cut, which is a big change. Apparently the current UK release is our first fully uncut one.

I don't know, I've seen various different cuts of this film over the years but, curiously, the longer cuts I've seen are more confusing and make less sense than the shorter ones.

I really liked the ending, which features Coburn's best smile in the film. Definitely makes the film better.

A Fistful of Dollars was pretty good!

Rewatched Once Upon a Time in the West and think it's my favorite now. I could watch Fonda and Bronson stare at each other all day. Which I guess is what I did.

Does bug me how Bronson doesn't even feign blowing while playing the harmonica. Seems intentional tho?

Harmonica : The reward for this man is 5000 dollars, is that right?

Cheyenne : Judas was content for 4970 dollars less.

Harmonica : There were no dollars in them days.

Cheyenne : But sons of bitches... yeah.

OUATITW German title: Play Me The Song Of Death

Good observation

watched A Fistful of Dollars for the first time in eons the other night. it's far more violent than i initially remembered, definitely goes far beyond any other western of its era. it's not shocking to anyone who's seen westerns from The Wild Bunch and after, but for 1964 it pushes some limits. i read a lot of contemporaneous reviews which consider it pretty bad but no, it's amazing. just the beautiful stark look of the town and the colors of the fire and blood, the dirt and sweat covering everyone at all time. and it's kind of remarkable how Eastwood immediately settled into the role without any growing pains, and how that role really informed the rest of his acting career so much. the absolute expert delivery of his lines when he confronts the men from the Baxter clan, asking them to apologize to his mule (after asking the undertaker to prepare three coffins), his almost tongue-in-cheek amorality masking his ability to do the right thing at the right moment in his own particular manner (i.e. getting Marisol and her family out of town after rescuing her from the Rojos), etc. overall it's a film that feels very contemporary and pitiless in a way that isn't intentionally feel-bad, but simply a brutal tale told well.

I just watched it recently too and agree with the above. I think I'd seen it before but honestly I don't remember. If so, it was years and years ago. I've seen reviews call it the punk-rock western and that seems appropriate. I think Quentin Tarantino stole almost all of his ideas from this movie. And of course the soundtrack is all-time.