Anti-social distancing
(Warning: story and plot twists described in explicit detail)
Locked down and stewing in your home, it can be a relief to view the works of Sergio Leone, particularly the later titles. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; Once Upon a Time in the West; Duck, You Sucker; and Once Upon a Time in America all have the expansive feel of a tale told of long ago, set in a mythological West (or America) so vast it makes the real thing (glimpsed at in daguerreotypes) feel claustrophobic. A pipe dream, in effect, concocted by your favorite nutty uncle sitting at the fireside with other kids gathered round, listening raptly.
America, about Jewish gangsters in Prohibition New York, may be Leone's most sprawling ambitious work and possibly his masterpiece but West is arguably perfection, impeccably cast and executed. Even the stunt of using Henry Fonda as villain pays off--as the young boy looks slowly about him Leone inserts shots of his decimated family; enter the killers to the blare of an electric guitar, emerging from the surrounding brush like wraiths. The killers approach, and at one point the camera following behind swings around to peer at one of the faces and it's Mr. Lincoln--sorry, Mr. Fonda, not so Young anymore, as hired gunslinger Frank. The lined face the pale blue eyes, so iconic in American films, are pitiless here, faintly contemptuous even.
(Warning: story and plot twists described in explicit detail)
Locked down and stewing in your home, it can be a relief to view the works of Sergio Leone, particularly the later titles. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; Once Upon a Time in the West; Duck, You Sucker; and Once Upon a Time in America all have the expansive feel of a tale told of long ago, set in a mythological West (or America) so vast it makes the real thing (glimpsed at in daguerreotypes) feel claustrophobic. A pipe dream, in effect, concocted by your favorite nutty uncle sitting at the fireside with other kids gathered round, listening raptly.
America, about Jewish gangsters in Prohibition New York, may be Leone's most sprawling ambitious work and possibly his masterpiece but West is arguably perfection, impeccably cast and executed. Even the stunt of using Henry Fonda as villain pays off--as the young boy looks slowly about him Leone inserts shots of his decimated family; enter the killers to the blare of an electric guitar, emerging from the surrounding brush like wraiths. The killers approach, and at one point the camera following behind swings around to peer at one of the faces and it's Mr. Lincoln--sorry, Mr. Fonda, not so Young anymore, as hired gunslinger Frank. The lined face the pale blue eyes, so iconic in American films, are pitiless here, faintly contemptuous even.