Leone’s West, Not Hollywood’s How an Italian Director Redefined the American

A general consensus regarding American cinema is that if you have seen one western you have seen them all. Cowboys, Indians, and settlers vie for survival in the American frontier, but lacking a developed legal system inhabitants maintain order primarily by codes of ethics. In the midst of this disorganization a wandering cowboy enters the scene. Riding into town to save the damsel in distress, the trustworthy protagonist proceeds to carry out justice in the town and the good characters live happily ever after. The aforementioned characteristics existed in almost all westerns during their peak popularity – the middle of the 20th century. The stories were repetitive, and thus predictable; westerns washed into an unchanging template featuring a gleaming cowboy riding into a familiar frontier town. However, in 1964 refreshed the fading genre by changing the western from a morality tale to a merciless story of survival of the fittest. His westerns feature bounty hunters, not good-willed cowboys; they break the rules to show the audience a ruthless west where good morals do not guarantee survival.

From the moment he was conceived, Leone was destined for cinema. As the son of a director and an actress, Vincenzo and Valcarenghi Leone, films naturally played a large part in

Leone’s life. His band of childhood friends routinely visited the cinema, and soon his passion turned into his profession. Learning first from his father, Leone began working on films in his early teens. By the time he was eighteen, he had dropped out of school to start his own career in film. Thirteen years later he directed his first full-length film, The Colossus of Rhodes. The film only found mild success primarily because interest in this genre was declining at the time. So,

Leone turned to a new genre: the western. Although westerns were traditionally created in

America, Italian-directed westerns were quite common at the time. Hundreds were being Donohue 2 produced in the 60s, but none of them were popular enough to be recognized outside of Italy.

This changed when Leone stepped in.

Spaghetti Westerns and the

A is simply a western created by Italians. The nickname originated from an American journalist in the , when Spaghetti westerns were becoming popular, and is still used today. Furthermore, it wasn’t just Italians who got the culinary nickname: there were

Sauerkraut westerns, Paella westerns, Chop Suey westerns and even Curry westerns – directors from all over the world were making westerns. However, none were becoming famous on a global scale, until Leone’s .

Making its debut in 1964, A Fistful of Dollars shook the infrastructure of contemporary westerns. One way Leone differentiated himself from the rest of the field was through his use of rogue characters. According to Mickey Knox, the man responsible for translating Leone’s movies from Italian to English, “Leone is the only director of Spaghetti westerns that made it in

America because he was artful; he was very, very clever in the making of his movies. He made them feel like real important pictures by the way he shot it and the kind of characters he used”(Leone’s West). At the time, Hollywood-made westerns featured characters that looked almost like models; they were polished, well dressed and lived up to traditional morals. Leone condemned these unblemished characters. As a result, the most fundamental difference between

Leone’s first western and those that preceded it lies with his use of harsh characters.

A Fistful of Dollars begins with the protagonist, played by , riding into town on an exhausted mule. Arriving out of the wilderness, he wears threadbare clothes – a tattered brown cowboy hat, dusty leather boots, and a worn out . Protruding from his rough and unkept beard is a cigarillo that does not leave his mouth the entire movie. Clearly, he Donohue 3 is not our typical clean-cut cowboy riding proudly into town on his horse. No. This character exists in Leone’s West.

In A Fistful of Dollars, Eastwood’s character seldom goes by his name, Joe. Most commonly he is referred to as the Wanderer, or, the Man with No Name. This is the case for his character in Leone’s next two westerns as well (“Tuco” in For a Few Dollars More, and

“Blondie” in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly). Actually, namelessness suits the character quite well. He has both, an unclear name as well as ambiguous morals. For example, when confronted by the Rojo brothers shortly into A Fistful of Dollars (the crueler of two families vying for control of town) he responds with hard-nosed violence. He shows us that he doesn’t care for the town’s laws, or what consequences he may face for his rash decision. The Rojos taunt

Eastwood’s character telling him that he is unwelcome in their town, and proceed to mock him about his mule and deteriorating attire. So, flipping his poncho over his shoulder and taking a drag of his cigarillo, he responds with aggression, “I don’t think it’s nice, you laughin’. You see my mule don’t like people laughin’. He gets the crazy idea you're laughing at him. Now, if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn’t mean it.” The leader of the Rojos spits; Eastwood makes a move for his pistol, and in a fraction of a second the four brothers are shot dead in as many shots. The other, more peaceful town residents (family members of sheriff John Baxter) smile. The brothers’ mockery is callous but does it warrant their murder? Family members of the town sheriff seem to think so, and so audiences are left rooting for the Man with No Name although his intentions are unclear. He excites viewers with his unpredictable actions, and replaces the repetitive protagonist in previous westerns. So, a morally ambiguous hero now takes the stage. Daring, brutal, fearless. He is the product of a gritty West. Donohue 4

Due to his cryptic integrity, there exists a debate about the Man with No Name.

Audiences either see the Man with No Name as a heartless killer, or as a hero surviving an unforgiving environment. Taking the former standpoint, McClain asserts that the Man with No

Name is neither a hero nor an anti-hero, rather, “he was just a man with a talent for killing, and the opportunity to do so” (62). Now, although the Man with No Name does exhibit acts of violence and manipulation, he is not simply a “man with a talent for killing”. The Man with No

Name never kills simply because he has the opportunity to do so; he kills when he has to. Leone himself agrees, stating that, “I introduced a hero who was negative, dirty, who looked like a human being, and who was totally at home with the violence which surrounded him” (qtd. in

Something to Do with Death 122). Not only does Leone resolve the debate, stating that the Man with No Name is in fact a hero, he also speaks to the violence that surrounds him. The Man with

No Name must be violent to survive the cruel and unforgiving west in which he lives.

Indeed, the characters in A Fistful of Dollars show us that Leone’s West is one where life has little value; characters are ruthless and have little regard for human life. In fact, Leone’s first three westerns (The : A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More and, The

Good, The Bad and, The Ugly) present us with characters that kill for ransom, or simply to prove their point. In this way, Leone communicates the kill-or-be-killed mentality of his west; they are savage because of the environment, and their character traits are the product of a relentless west where life had little value.

The Sounds of Leone’s West

John Ford’s Rio Grande, as well as other traditional westerns, feature orchestrated sounds consisting of violins and horn instruments. This didn’t suit Leone. Instead, he chose to use harmonicas, gunshots, cracks of the whip, and electric guitar to create a new and exciting sound Donohue 5 track. Leone did more than just introduce tough characters in his films; he used harsh sounds to personify his relentless west, and powerful scores to dramatize life-or-death scenes. Now although Leone himself didn’t compose the musical scores in his westerns (a role handled by

Ennio Morricone, Leone’s childhood classmate) it is well documented that the two collaborated extensively on the use of music in his films. The work they accomplished together makes the sounds in Leone’s west truly unforgettable.

Leone uses music to perform two main functions in his westerns. He uses graphic sounds to convey a harsh environment containing rough characters, and powerful music to stage scenes in which the audience doesn’t know what will happen next. Watching a Leone western one will not hear an orchestra or a fluid Spanish guitar. In fact, they will hear the opposite. For example, in the beginning of Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone’s third western, the audience hears a train bustling into town with such power that it seems to have entered the room. Later, a whip snaps loudly in between blows of a deafening harmonica and piercing gunshots. All of Leone’s sounds are sharp, loud, and life-like. They don’t blend into a continuous rhythm; rather, they keep the audience engaged in Leone’s uncompromising environment, and ultimately reminded that they are in an unrelenting west.

Leone’s second major use of music is to stage scenes with impeccable drama. Frayling comments on this kind of music in Leone’s westerns:

The musical themes would be more than just illustrative. They would also

“comment” on the behavior of the characters, like a form of musical punctuation:

an electronic whirr for El Indio’s drug habit; a trill to release the tension after

some tough dialogue, and to accompany the movement of Eastwood’s cigarillo

across his mouth. (Something To Do With Death 195) Donohue 6

Commenting on the behavior of his characters with music is something Leone does brilliantly, and a great example of this is heard in the opening scene of A Fistful of Dollars. When

Eastwood’s character first arrives into town he goes for a drink of water from the well. He then sees a young boy running around town climbing into the windows of buildings. Musically, Leone creates contemplation among the audience with a high-pitched wind instrument alternating quickly between notes. The boy disappears momentarily as the music, and the audience’s anxiety climax. We hear nothing, leaving us curious as to what might happen next. Then, a group of evil- looking men throws the boy out of their house. They kick him in the stomach and fire gunshots at his feet; the once mischievous music takes a dark turn. One of the men stares directly at

Eastwood as an organ plays deep and resounding notes. The music is dark, amplifying the audience’s resentment for the man who just punished the boy. Viewers now realize that

Eastwood’s character is in for a rough time in this town. Using music, Leone first provokes curiosity from the audience; then he changes it drastically to portray a budding rivalry between

Eastwood and the evil child-beater, a Rojo brother.

Yet another powerful dramatization of music arises in the graveyard scene in, The Good, The

Bad, and The Ugly. Tuco (the Ugly) is looking for a sum of gold which he was told lies in a buried coffin. This scene would ordinarily take thirty seconds in a traditional western, but instead it goes on for five minutes. Tuco sprints through an immense circular graveyard while the camera angle cuts between third person and first person. The music is at first that of an opera while the camera swoops over the colossal cemetery. Then, it shifts to deeply dramatic. An organ, similar to the one heard in the scene with the mischievous boy in A Fistful of Dollars, returns, and three notes play repeatedly. The audience feels as though they are Tuco, racing to find the buried treasure. The music intensifies then mightily climaxes when he realized he was Donohue 7 duped. One would think that this five-minute long scene of Tuco searching for a grave would feel dragged out, but it doesn’t. Leone’s dramatization of the scene entertains us through it all, proving his expertise for using music in film.

Violence and Brutality: Leone’s Legacy

Leone’s characters are undoubtedly brutal. No westerns in the 1960s contained the amount of violence that Leone’s did. Think back to Eastwood’s character blasting off the Rojo brothers for insulting his mule and his clothes, or the young boy being kicked and shot at for climbing into the Rojo’s hostile home. Surprisingly, these are not the only examples of brutality in Leone’s westerns. In Once Upon A Time In the West exists what might be the most inhuman scene in all of Leone’s westerns when a young boy named Harmonica gets tortured out in the desert. Wearing a noose around his neck, and on the brink of being hanged, he struggles to stay standing on the shoulders of the man below him. The older man painfully holds a harmonica in his mouth, sweating profusely as he knows the end is near. Then, he collapses. His face hits the dusty earth and one note of the harmonica echoes before he spits the instrument out; the boy hangs. Now, while possibly tame by today’s standards this was an extremely graphic scene for its time. Frayling elaborates on the violence in Leone’s films through a more historical lens:

It was the long-standing convention in America that you don’t show the gunshot

and the effect on its target in the same shot. Leone knew nothing about this so he

had guys being shot off left and right. This caused the directors back in

Hollywood to start doing this. So, Leone had a huge impact in this aspect on the

progression of violence in film. (Once Upon A Time: Sergio Leone)

Violence in Hollywood films gained a lot of popularity following Leone’s effective uses of it in his westerns. In fact, to this day Leone’s influence has impacted the use of violence in westerns. Donohue 8

Quentin Tarantino (director of Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds, and Resevoir Dogs to name a few) has publicly cited Leone as his favorite director, and a huge inspiration in the making of his first ever western, Django Unchained. Watching Django, audiences see some of the most gruesome violence allowed in cinemas. The violence in Tarantino’s only western is undoubtedly an inspiration stemming from Leone.

Sergio Leone entered into the western genre in 1964. When he left it in 1975 the genre had experienced monumental changes. Beating all odds, an Italian director gave rise to a whole new depiction of the American west. Characters were no longer polished; they became tough and solitary heroes. Music no longer repeated itself with orchestrated scores; instead, music became a deeper part of the experience, serving almost as an entirely new character through the likes of gun shots, whip cracks and ominous organ tones. Violence and brutality prevailed in Leone’s west causing the entire film industry to reconsider using more violence in their pictures.

Ultimately, all of his revolutionary changes mixed together to create Leone’s west, a barbarous tale of the American frontier where it was either kill, or be killed.

Works Cited

Cumbow, Robert C. The Films of Sergio Leone. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2008. Print. Donohue 9

Frayling, Christopher. Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio

Leone. New York: Tauris, 1998. Print.

---. Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death. New York: Faber, 2000. Print.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Leone’s West. Dir. Michael Arick. MGM Home

Entertainment, 2004. DVD.

Leone, Sergio. dir. Once Upon a Time in the West. Paramount, 1968. DVD.

---. dir. A Fistful of Dollars. Constantin, 1965. DVD.

---. dir. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Produzioni Europee Associati, 1966. DVD.

McClain, William. “Western, Go Home! Sergio Leone and the ‘Death of the Western’ in

American Film Criticism.” Journal of Film and Video 62.1 (2010): 52-66. J-STOR. 30

March 2014. Web.

Once Upon a Time: Sergio Leone. Dir. Howard Hill. Janne Schack, 2001. DVD.