What follows is the first piece of film criticism I ever wrote. I polished it up a little, but it's basically the same piece I wrote when I was 15. Enjoy.
The first image in Sergio Leoné’s brilliant ‘The Good, The Bad And The Ugly’ is a desolate, rocky, yellow-brown landscape. The screen is suddenly filled by a giant face. The face is much like the landscape — dry, ragged and scared. The face becomes the landscape and in observing it we learn no facts, but we glimpse his entire life. Then there is another face; his hat casts a menacing shadow. A third man arrives. Abandoned buildings loom over them. The men walk towards the center of town. The silence is all encompassing except for their soft, rhythmic footsteps that sound like the ticking of a bomb. They meet in front of a saloon doorway. They say nothing to each other. The first man rolls up his sleeve and nods at the others. Then, as fast as lightning they reach for their guns and charge through the door. Four gunshots ring. A dirty bandit with a child like grin on his face jumps through the window and onto the street. One of his hands grips a revolver and the other holds a half eaten chicken leg. There is a whooping cry on the soundtrack as all movement freezes. An invisible hand writes "THE UGLY" across the frozen movie screen in pure Loony Tunes fashion. The scene is only four minutes long, but every moment is drawn out, played to its height. The movie never feels rushed like so many others do; it takes its time, but never too much. The movies actual plot deals with the three titular outlaws searching for buried gold during The Civil War, but it’s not really about that. It's more about people, and the states of mind that lead to violence.
The first image in Sergio Leoné’s brilliant ‘The Good, The Bad And The Ugly’ is a desolate, rocky, yellow-brown landscape. The screen is suddenly filled by a giant face. The face is much like the landscape — dry, ragged and scared. The face becomes the landscape and in observing it we learn no facts, but we glimpse his entire life. Then there is another face; his hat casts a menacing shadow. A third man arrives. Abandoned buildings loom over them. The men walk towards the center of town. The silence is all encompassing except for their soft, rhythmic footsteps that sound like the ticking of a bomb. They meet in front of a saloon doorway. They say nothing to each other. The first man rolls up his sleeve and nods at the others. Then, as fast as lightning they reach for their guns and charge through the door. Four gunshots ring. A dirty bandit with a child like grin on his face jumps through the window and onto the street. One of his hands grips a revolver and the other holds a half eaten chicken leg. There is a whooping cry on the soundtrack as all movement freezes. An invisible hand writes "THE UGLY" across the frozen movie screen in pure Loony Tunes fashion. The scene is only four minutes long, but every moment is drawn out, played to its height. The movie never feels rushed like so many others do; it takes its time, but never too much. The movies actual plot deals with the three titular outlaws searching for buried gold during The Civil War, but it’s not really about that. It's more about people, and the states of mind that lead to violence.
Almost everything about this movie is different than most other movies. Ennio Morricone’s score is as riveting as it is downright weird. The sound is different. The cast, lacking a common language, spoke their lines in their native tongues. The result being that when the film was dubbed much of the dialogue didn't match up. But strangely enough this actually helps the movie. The hiss of the microphones cutting in and out all the time seems to give all the dialogue this strange, acidic quality. The gunshots don’t sound like normal gunshots. Even the people are different. Leoné didn't cast generic or pretty people in his movies. Everyone in his international cast has an "interesting" face, they all look like they've lived in the desert all their lives. Leone’s photographs his actors so you can see every pore and crevasse in their leathery, wrinkled skin, and in their eyes you see the pain and sorrow of a lifetime. That's how Leoné develops his characters, not by telling us their life story, but by letting us just look at them. Where this pays off the most is in the films depiction of violence.
Filmmakers today know that their audiences are used to violence in movies, and it tends to have a passive, detached feel. But the violence in this movie feels like a slap in the face. The people getting shot don’t seem like faceless, soulless thugs. But strangely there is still this joyous glee about it; it's so different its just electric.
Leoné has said that he “Grew up in the cinema.” He was in love with westerns in particular, especially John Ford’s. But he hated how “clean” they were. He was always a little too much of a cynic for them. Maybe it had something to do with growing up in Italy just after WWII. But he loved their look and feel; they spoke to him about this larger then life, almost mythological place called America. So when he began to make his own westerns he wanted to pay homage to the old school, but still create something very different from the norm. His concoction here is something dark, turbulent and grand. The suspense in this movie is terrific, especially in the scenes were not much happens, you feel that at any moment, someone could die. The people in this movie are immoral killers, and it doesn’t shy away from that.
It should be noted that movie isn't strictly about violence, as much as it's about people who use it. It never stops being an exciting film but as it goes on you begin to realize how nasty these people’s lives are. How empty, and pitiful and desperate.
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