Time Phrase
00:01:28 when united Artists acquired the film
00:01:32 and decided to put out it
and two predecessors,
00:01:39 Fora Few Dollars and
A Few Dollars More, as a group of films,
00:01:44 and they, of course, invented,
as probably everybody knows,
00:01:48 the conceit that the Clint Eastwood
character was consistent in all three films
00:01:39 Fora Few Dollars and
A Few Dollars More, as a group of films,
00:01:44 and they, of course, invented,
as probably everybody knows,
00:01:48 the conceit that the Clint Eastwood
character was consistent in all three films
00:01:54 and was the Man With No Name.
00:01:57 Again, as everybody knows,
he has a name in all three of the films.
00:01:48 the conceit that the Clint Eastwood
character was consistent in all three films
00:01:54 and was the Man With No Name.
00:01:57 Again, as everybody knows,
he has a name in all three of the films.
00:02:01 In this particular film he's called Blondie,
00:02:06 although he is, of course,
not particularly a blond fellow.
00:02:06 although he is, of course,
not particularly a blond fellow.
00:02:10 And the film was, I think,
a way station for Sergio Leone -
00:02:19 in other words, the two earlier films
he'd done with Eastwood
00:02:24 had been, relatively speaking, modestly
budgeted, particularly the first one,
00:02:30 for which Clint, I think,
received a salary of $15,000,
00:02:30 for which Clint, I think,
received a salary of $15,000,
00:02:34 which, even by the standards of that day,
was relatively low.
00:02:38 They had become enormously
successful films in Europe,
00:02:42 but there had been problems
about releasing it in the united States,
00:02:46 in particular the first one,
which was a knock-off of Yojimbo,
00:02:46 in particular the first one,
which was a knock-off of Yojimbo,
00:02:51 the Kurosawa film.
00:02:54 So this is a film that is much more epic
in scope than the previous films.
00:03:01 And I think this very first shot,
or the first sequence of shots,
00:03:05 is just a typically Leone deal.
00:03:16 was the alternation
of tight close-ups like this one
00:03:19 with extremely wide shots.
00:03:26 It gave his films a kind of
an interesting operatic quality.
00:03:32 And I do believe that a lot
of the basic setting of this kind of work,
00:03:42 the close-ups and the long shots,
00:04:26 So this was something that
hasn't been particularly commented upon
00:04:33 in such critical work
as there has been on Leone.
00:04:40 And I think it's important - it's something
he did in the very first films
00:04:45 and something he does
a great deal of in this film.
00:04:51 It is part of his uniqueness as a director,
00:11:37 Another thing to point out in this scene,
00:11:39 because, again, it's a characteristic
Leone moment, or extended moment,
00:11:47 for a man who became notorious for the,
I think, exaggerated violence in his films -
00:11:58 that is, it was exaggerated by the critics,
00:12:00 I don't find them all that violent,
honestly speaking...
00:17:35 in new and operatic directions.
00:17:45 Here is Mr Eastwood's
introduction to the film.
00:17:52 He has... The one thing he carried
through all his three Leone films
00:17:57 were those noxious little cigars.
00:18:00 Clint is not a smoker,
and he told me once
00:19:55 and they collect and split the reward
that Blondie receives
00:20:02 for this bounty scam that they're running.
00:20:44 In the earlier films - in particular
the first one, Fistflul ofDollars -
00:20:51 Clint had had in the script
a great deal more dialogue,
00:20:55 and one of the discussions
he persistently had with Leone
00:21:22 who, of course, couldn't talk
because he was in silent pictures.
00:21:25 But the convention that the hero
does not speak a great deal in westerns
00:21:32 is more than maintained in these films.
00:21:38 On the other hand, Clint also argued...
00:21:43 This, by the way, is a classic moment -
00:22:07 he's also a kind of commentator
on the life that he's participating in.
00:22:15 The business of shooting off hats
00:22:17 is something that Leone
had used in previous films,
00:22:21 and was a way of establishing
00:22:28 the eptitude, if you will,
of the Clint character.
00:29:11 I think his idea was that human nature
was untrustworthy, dangerous,
00:29:17 difficult to predict,
00:29:19 and I think he liked the element
of human carelessness in his films.
00:29:27 And it sort of fits
with his whole interest in the surreal,
00:29:33 his interest in expanding the range
00:30:12 This was the kind of thing...
00:30:14 In the 1960s, where we were unused
to this kind of violence -
00:30:23 particularly between a man
and a woman - in films,
00:30:26 and it is the sort of thing that put off
00:30:32 in particular the American critics
of this film when it was released.
00:31:00 But at the time it was certainly something
that I would say was the major component
00:31:10 of most of the serious reviewing
of this film,
00:31:13 and these films - the three spaghetti
westerns that Leone made with Clint.
00:31:37 We tend,
because these pictures are so vivid
00:31:41 and partly because of Clint's presence
in them and their intrinsic qualities,
00:32:08 Most of them have not
survived terribly well.
00:32:12 I myself have seen
only a handful of others,
00:32:16 and they don't seem to me to compare
to the Leone films in their quality.
00:32:28 This is a scene
that is a vastly extended version
00:32:36 of a scene that appeared
20-odd years earlier
00:33:57 It's the same joke, and it's one
of those jokes that continues to work.
00:34:05 Important to say about Leone is that
his father had been in the film business,
00:34:10 had been a director of ltalian films
00:34:13 and had fallen foul
of the Fascist regime in ltaly.
00:34:18 But Leone was two things:
00:34:30 He was a guy who, when the war ended,
just got drunk on American movies.
00:34:41 All throughout Europe they had, of course,
not been played throughout World War Il -
00:34:47 they weren't imported to Europe,
American films.
00:34:51 And they arrived in
a kind of flood after the war,
00:34:55 and it was a revelation, not just to Leone.
00:49:03 as he looks around
at the devastation that's occurred
00:49:07 and begins to take in
the notion of the vastness of killing.
00:49:15 Incidentally, stray dogs
constantly appear in Leone's films.
00:49:23 You know, minor victims
of major catastrophes.
00:49:28 I think it's something
he took from Kurosawa,
00:53:51 as a major figure in film scoring.
00:53:53 And the extension of Morricone's
rather unique vision into this film,
00:54:03 and the subsequent films,
I think established him
00:54:07 as one of the most important innovators
in musical film history.
00:54:19 He has been tracked, he has been found.
00:58:24 not especially with Leone, but with
the whole spaghetti-western thing.
00:58:28 He really had begun to understand,
00:58:31 that even though these films had not yet
been released in the united States,
00:58:34 even though his long stint on Rawhide
was clearly coming to an end,
00:58:40 that he was gonna have
to make his career elsewhere.
01:02:06 And given that as a movie actor
he had really never had
01:02:13 this kind of a leading role where
he's absolutely central to the movie...
01:02:20 He was much more of a character guy
in films like The Misfiits or Lord Jim.
01:02:28 He did tend to play kind of ethnic weirdos,
if not outright ethnic villains,
01:02:35 and this picture gives him a lot of good
screen time and a lot of character to play.
01:08:17 there are always references
01:08:19 to the bluntest, crudest conventions
of popular fictioneering in the movies.
01:08:27 But in the end these films
are exercises in style,
01:08:33 of style transcending the banalities of plot
and of characterisation, for that matter.
01:08:45 If you give the film
a rich visual dimension -
01:08:53 which Leone does in just shot after shot,
just in this little, simple sequence -
01:09:00 it finally gives the film a kind of grandeur
01:09:09 that other films, in particular
other spaghetti westerns, didn't have.
01:09:16 In my critical practice, I've always loved
the guys who take popular conventions
01:09:28 and in some way - with filmmakers,
usually through visual means -
(What's this?)
