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Hello. I'm Richard Schickel.

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I will be doing the commentary on this
extended English-language version -

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the first that comes close to the ltalian
version that Sergio Leone originally made.

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It was truncated for its American release

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and is now restored -
as extensively as is possible -

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to the director's original intention.

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
was produced in ltaly and Spain in 1966.

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It was a film that did not get released
in the united States until two years later,

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when united Artists acquired the film

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and decided to put out it
and two predecessors,

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Fora Few Dollars and
A Few Dollars More, as a group of films,

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and they, of course, invented,
as probably everybody knows,

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the conceit that the Clint Eastwood
character was consistent in all three films

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and was the Man With No Name.

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Again, as everybody knows,
he has a name in all three of the films.

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In this particular film he's called Blondie,

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although he is, of course,
not particularly a blond fellow.

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And the film was, I think,
a way station for Sergio Leone -

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in other words, the two earlier films
he'd done with Eastwood

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had been, relatively speaking, modestly
budgeted, particularly the first one,

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for which Clint, I think,
received a salary of $15,000,

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which, even by the standards of that day,
was relatively low.

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They had become enormously
successful films in Europe,

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but there had been problems
about releasing it in the united States,

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in particular the first one,
which was a knock-off of Yojimbo,

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the Kurosawa film.

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So this is a film that is much more epic
in scope than the previous films.

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And I think this very first shot,
or the first sequence of shots,

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is just a typically Leone deal.

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In other words, he was a director
whose most characteristic trait

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was the alternation
of tight close-ups like this one

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with extremely wide shots.

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It gave his films a kind of
an interesting operatic quality.

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And I do believe that a lot
of the basic setting of this kind of work,

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the close-ups and the long shots,

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I think drew on something
that people don't know too much about,

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which is that Leone
was a rather devoted art collector

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and was aping styles
he particularly liked.

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The close-ups have a Goya-esque quality.

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The wide shots, particularly
in these bleak desert landscapes,

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owe a fair amount to surrealism,

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one of the visual specialties of which was
these extremely bleak, wide landscapes

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with grotesque and often inappropriate
figures placed in them.

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So this was something that
hasn't been particularly commented upon

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in such critical work
as there has been on Leone.

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And I think it's important - it's something
he did in the very first films

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and something he does
a great deal of in this film.

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It is part of his uniqueness as a director,

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which, again, is something that was not
particularly commented upon at the time.

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People were much more interested
in the violence of his movies,

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which, by the standards of the day,
that is the standards of the mid-'60s,

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seemed to them
particularly vivid and off-putting

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to genteel Americans
when the pictures came out.

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The Eli Wallach character is, by Leone's
standards, kind of a new element.

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The humour of the character,
the wildness of the character -

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he's obviously dispensed with the four
or five guys who came in to kill him here -

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is new to Leone.

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And the humour of it is often grotesque,

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but also a unique, new element
in Leone's storytelling.

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This film was kind of spitballed
into existence

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by Leone's screenwriting collaborator,
Luciano Vincenzoni,

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who took a bunch of united Artists
executives to a screening in Rome

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of Fora Few Dollars More.

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And it was a packed house,
an enthusiastic house,

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and these guys walked out
and said "Wow."

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"We'd like to buy this, we'd like to buy the
previous one, and have you got more?"

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And Vincenzoni just said
"Yeah, there's a story we want to do."

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"It's about three guys
who are in pursuit of a chest of gold."

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And that's about what he had at that point,

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and Leone, I think, at the point didn't even
know that he had proposed this notion.

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So the upshot was
a much more expensive picture -

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this picture ultimately cost
about $1 .2 million,

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as opposed to a few hundred thousand
for the first one.

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It does bring back Lee Van Cleef playing
"The ugly" in this particular movie.

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This is a shot - or this whole sequence
here - that is worth commenting upon.

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Clint Eastwood said of Leone
that he was like a child

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when he looked at sets and locales,

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because when we're kids
we see the house we live in

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as much larger
than it actually is in reality.

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Then when we go back as adults
and visit it,

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we're always amazed at how small it is
in comparison to our memories.

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Clint said that he felt
Leone saw all of life that way,

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that he continued to show these settings
with the eye of a child,

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in that they are much larger
than reality would dictate.

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For example, this sort of peasant's home
in the wilds of wherever we are

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is much larger than it would be
in whatever reality this movie referred to.

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I think that's a good point.

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I think that partly accounts
for his predilection for big, wide shots

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and the scope of Leone's vision
in these pictures.

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Lee Van Cleef was, as you know,
a veteran actor, particularly in westerns.

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He'd worked a lot with John Ford - he's
notable for his appearance in High Noon.

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He's a striking-looking man,

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who'd had some troubles
and had been kind of out of the movies

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until Leone hired him
for a much more sympathetic,

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and actually wonderful character
in Fora Few Dollars More.

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He wasn't necessarily
Leone's first choice for this part,

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but Clint Eastwood liked him a lot.

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They'd worked together on Clint's
Rawhide television programme,

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he'd found him an extremely agreeable
co-star in the previous picture,

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so he encouraged Leone
to bring him back.

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And he's very very fine in this movie.

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He is, without doubt,
one of the most implacably evil figures

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ever to appear on a movie screen.

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There is no softness in this man.

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There is no nostalgic memory
operating in him.

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He is a killing machine,

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and he is a machine
that is determined at all costs

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to achieve this box of gold.

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And what's going on in this scene

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has to do with his search for a man
who may know where the gold is hidden,

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and this peasant knows more
than he wishes to talk about.

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And I think,
as is so often the case with Leone,

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we know, almost from the moment
Van Cleef makes his entrance,

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that the man eating his chilli over there
has not got long to live,

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unless he accedes to
Van Cleefs demands for information.

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It's a scene that foreshadows much of
the brutality that will ensue in this movie.

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And it certainly foreshadows
almost everything we need to know

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about Van Cleefs character.

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Another thing to point out in this scene,

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because, again, it's a characteristic
Leone moment, or extended moment,

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for a man who became notorious for the,
I think, exaggerated violence in his films -

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that is, it was exaggerated by the critics,

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I don't find them all that violent,
honestly speaking...

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But the whole point
about violence in Leone movies

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is that it takes a long, long, long time
for it to arrive.

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There's always a lot of talk,
there's always a lot of silent exchanges

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between the people who are
going to perpetrate this violence.

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Then, when the violence arrives,
it tends to go very quickly.

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And it is, I think, the opposite

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of what was then the prevailing style
of western violence,

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which was established
in the united States by Sam Peckinpah,

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where the act of violence was extended
by Peckinpah's use of slow motion,

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of blood squibs exploding in slow motion,

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the length of time - as another western
director, Howard Hawks, said at the time -

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the length of time it took between
the moment the bullet hit the victim

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and the moment the victim hit the ground.

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It's the opposite with Leone.

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He does an enormous amount of -

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what shall we say, foreplay? -
before the moment comes,

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but when the moment comes
it tends to be brutal and quick and over.

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So I don't know that you can make
a particular aesthetic choice

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between the two methods
of presenting death on the screen.

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I think my own preference
is for Leone's style.

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I mean, this scene
has been going on a very long time

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before it reaches the moment
we've just seen here.

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Again, that's a very typical
Leone moment there.

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Generally speaking,
no distinction is particularly made

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between people
who may or may not deserve to die

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and people who really
don't deserve to die,

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but do in the accidental exchange
of gunfire and so forth.

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Now, in this particular sequence
Van Cleef has succeeded in his mission.

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He has additional information,

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but his employer in this story

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also is a man who,
the moment we begin this encounter,

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we know is not going
to live very long either

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because Van Cleef is going to take over
this particular criminal activity.

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He's not going to go on working
for someone else

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who will take the lion's share of the loot.

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So this establishment
of the Van Cleef character

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as a kind of baseline of evil - of badness,
if you will, referring to the film's title -

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takes a considerable amount of time
to get set up in the film.

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And I think that's another thing
to mention about Leone.

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Basically, with the exception
of certain epic westerns -

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Shane would be an example of
a western that has scope and scale to it -

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but westerns are essentially,
if not necessarily a B-picture product,

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but they are a lowlife product
in the history of cinema.

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And Leone's manner of taking
all the time he needs to tell his tale

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and to allow scenes to play at great length
- excessive length, really -

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represents, I think,
something new in westerns.

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One of the things that Clint Eastwood said
about working for Leone

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is that he felt westerns of the '50s and
'60s had become stale and clich�-ridden,

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and one of the things
that just utterly delighted him

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was that Leone was attempting
to re-imagine the western.

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And if that entailed taking
a good deal of time to work them out,

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if that entailed this kind of large-scale
mise en sc�ne, as the French would say,

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well, so be it.

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And there was a delight that I think Clint,
particularly in the first two movies,

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took in working with a man
who was attempting to take the western

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in new and operatic directions.

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Here is Mr Eastwood's
introduction to the film.

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He has... The one thing he carried
through all his three Leone films

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were those noxious little cigars.

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Clint is not a smoker,
and he told me once

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that he had deliberately chosen the most
offensive cigars to chew on and smoke

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because he said it put him
in a really scratchy mood,

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suitable to his character for these shots.

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I mean, those are really bad cigars,

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which he bought in Los Angeles at a cigar
store somewhere around Fairfax Avenue.

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By the time they were making this picture,
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,

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I think Clint was to a degree
disaffected from Leone.

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He'd had a good time
with the earlier pictures.

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He'd enjoyed Leone,
who was a colourful and active director -

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about as far from the taciturn character
Clint was playing as it's possible to get,

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in that he was excitable and funny.

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And, of course, had little or no English,
and Clint had little or no ltalian,

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so their communication
tended to be in a miming sort of mode.

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The set-up here, of course,
is that Clint is playing a bounty hunter,

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and he keeps bringing in -
this is only the first time -

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ugly little Eli Wallach,
turning him in for the reward

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and then, as we'll shortly see,

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working it out so that Tuco does not die
as a result of being brought in

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and they collect and split the reward
that Blondie receives

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for this bounty scam that they're running.

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In the earlier films - in particular
the first one, Fistflul ofDollars -

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Clint had had in the script
a great deal more dialogue,

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and one of the discussions
he persistently had with Leone

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was to do less dialogue.

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It wasn't that he didn't feel
he could carry the dialogue,

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he just felt that this character was better
realised as an essentially silent guy -

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almost parodying the silence
of the classic western hero,

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going back to William S Hart,

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who, of course, couldn't talk
because he was in silent pictures.

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But the convention that the hero
does not speak a great deal in westerns

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is more than maintained in these films.

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On the other hand, Clint also argued...

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This, by the way, is a classic moment -

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the moment of the puff of smoke and
the appearance of the Man With No Name.

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He's a kind of classic ironist of the West
in this film - and in the others to a degree.

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Even though he's technically the hero,

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he's also a kind of commentator
on the life that he's participating in.

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The business of shooting off hats

226
00:22:17,891 --> 00:22:21,520
is something that Leone
had used in previous films,

227
00:22:21,611 --> 00:22:27,720
and was a way of establishing

228
00:22:28,051 --> 00:22:31,885
the eptitude, if you will,
of the Clint character.

229
00:22:33,611 --> 00:22:41,404
Eli Wallach is a new sort of a figure
for a Leone film.

230
00:22:41,491 --> 00:22:48,090
He was - and is - a very distinguished
New York actor,

231
00:22:48,171 --> 00:22:53,040
an actor who had rich experience
with the Actors Studio.

232
00:22:53,131 --> 00:23:02,847
He had, prior to this film,
been in a number of terrific movies

233
00:23:02,931 --> 00:23:05,968
Iike Elia Kazan's Baby Doll.

234
00:23:09,891 --> 00:23:14,760
He played a character not unlike
this character, although even more evil,

235
00:23:14,851 --> 00:23:17,001
in The Magnifiicent Seven.

236
00:23:17,091 --> 00:23:26,648
Was a little bit afraid of typecasting
as this kind of an ethnic figure, if you will.

237
00:23:26,731 --> 00:23:36,003
But Eli is a man
of terrific spirit and energy,

238
00:23:36,091 --> 00:23:40,084
and even today, in his eighties,

239
00:23:40,411 --> 00:23:42,971
is a wonderfully colourful character.

240
00:23:43,051 --> 00:23:49,729
He said a wonderful thing
about this figure he's playing in this film.

241
00:23:49,811 --> 00:23:55,124
He said "Sergio let me have my way
with that little guy",

242
00:23:55,211 --> 00:23:59,250
and that's certainly a true thing.

243
00:23:59,331 --> 00:24:05,964
I don't think there's any particular
restraint put on Wallach's character,

244
00:24:06,051 --> 00:24:13,287
and it makes for a lot
of energy in the picture,

245
00:24:13,371 --> 00:24:17,523
and it is the central energy
of the picture, I think.

246
00:24:17,611 --> 00:24:25,325
Everything that's sort of lively
and most human in the picture

247
00:24:25,411 --> 00:24:32,283
centres on Eli's character,
who's very ambiguously portrayed.

248
00:24:33,291 --> 00:24:36,567
This is a nice little sequence here -

249
00:24:36,651 --> 00:24:45,241
the attaining of information from
this legless veteran of the major killing

250
00:24:45,331 --> 00:24:52,043
that is going on all around
the central story of the pursuit of this gold.

251
00:24:52,531 --> 00:24:59,846
This is the first introduction of what is,
I think, the major theme of the movie:

252
00:24:59,931 --> 00:25:09,169
that although these guys are pursuing
their own narrow, private, evil interests,

253
00:25:09,251 --> 00:25:12,880
it's a very small crime

254
00:25:12,971 --> 00:25:20,207
next to the crime that preoccupies
and finally takes over the movie,

255
00:25:20,291 --> 00:25:25,729
which is the mass killing of the Civil War -

256
00:25:25,811 --> 00:25:35,209
which Leone imagined having a larger
presence in the Texas of this moment

257
00:25:35,291 --> 00:25:37,282
than it actually did historically.

258
00:25:37,371 --> 00:25:41,887
There was some combat in Texas
between the North and the South,

259
00:25:41,971 --> 00:25:44,769
but it was relatively minor
compared to the combat

260
00:25:44,851 --> 00:25:48,161
that later in the picture
Leone will show us.

261
00:26:08,011 --> 00:26:12,801
An uncharacteristic miss by Blondie
in that particular sequence.

262
00:26:12,891 --> 00:26:15,246
And it's...

263
00:26:19,411 --> 00:26:23,245
This is a scene where
Clint did the stunt, but urged Eli,

264
00:26:23,331 --> 00:26:28,246
who he took under his wing
on this first ltalian-western shoot

265
00:26:28,571 --> 00:26:30,687
that Eli had ever done,

266
00:26:30,771 --> 00:26:36,960
urged Eli to use a stunt double
on that sequence. And he did.

267
00:26:37,051 --> 00:26:43,650
And Clint by this time,
this was his third "spaghetti western" -

268
00:26:43,731 --> 00:26:50,682
which is just a simple term
for an ltalian version of a western,

269
00:26:50,771 --> 00:26:56,767
of a particularly and peculiarly
American genre -

270
00:26:56,851 --> 00:27:01,208
he mistrusted
ltalian crews and filmmakers.

271
00:27:01,291 --> 00:27:09,448
He really did feel
they were fairly careless about actors,

272
00:27:09,531 --> 00:27:13,843
not necessarily having safety
as their first concern.

273
00:27:13,931 --> 00:27:19,881
And both he and Eli,
in conversing about this film,

274
00:27:19,971 --> 00:27:29,130
talk about the fact that Clint was always
urging this relatively untutored -

275
00:27:29,211 --> 00:27:33,807
untutored in the ways of ltalian westerns -

276
00:27:33,891 --> 00:27:37,008
New York actor on taking care of himself,

277
00:27:37,091 --> 00:27:45,248
on being utterly certain about what
safety measures were available to him.

278
00:27:46,851 --> 00:27:54,531
This betrayal on the part of Blondie
is strangely unmotivated.

279
00:27:54,611 --> 00:27:59,560
I have never understood exactly why
he needs to break up this partnership,

280
00:27:59,651 --> 00:28:05,886
or break it up in so violent a way -
in an almost sadistic way.

281
00:28:07,011 --> 00:28:09,889
Do we really wanna say "almost"?
It is sadistic.

282
00:28:09,971 --> 00:28:16,649
And it is kind of a strangeness,
which gets buried as the picture develops,

283
00:28:16,731 --> 00:28:25,764
but which certainly sets up the tension
between Tuco and Blondie.

284
00:28:25,851 --> 00:28:30,163
This business of leaving him
here in the desert,

285
00:28:30,251 --> 00:28:34,722
without water, without food,
without protection from the elements,

286
00:28:34,811 --> 00:28:42,206
is a very strange activity
for this character to indulge in.

287
00:28:45,491 --> 00:28:53,045
I guess it introduces
an element of the absurd in this film,

288
00:28:53,131 --> 00:28:57,329
and I think the element of the absurd
was significant for Leone.

289
00:28:57,411 --> 00:29:10,085
I mean, he, in the end, is never
incredibly careful about motivations.

290
00:29:11,291 --> 00:29:17,480
I think his idea was that human nature
was untrustworthy, dangerous,

291
00:29:17,571 --> 00:29:19,766
difficult to predict,

292
00:29:19,851 --> 00:29:27,121
and I think he liked the element
of human carelessness in his films.

293
00:29:27,211 --> 00:29:33,127
And it sort of fits
with his whole interest in the surreal,

294
00:29:33,211 --> 00:29:39,081
his interest in expanding the range

295
00:29:39,171 --> 00:29:44,450
of what westerns could take up
emotionally and so forth.

296
00:29:47,571 --> 00:29:50,483
Again, here is the Van Cleef character

297
00:29:50,571 --> 00:29:56,806
being typically implacable,
typically merciless,

298
00:29:57,931 --> 00:30:02,129
and, you know, getting the job done.

299
00:30:12,971 --> 00:30:14,882
This was the kind of thing...

300
00:30:14,971 --> 00:30:23,128
In the 1960s, where we were unused
to this kind of violence -

301
00:30:23,211 --> 00:30:26,647
particularly between a man
and a woman - in films,

302
00:30:26,731 --> 00:30:32,522
and it is the sort of thing that put off

303
00:30:32,611 --> 00:30:38,368
in particular the American critics
of this film when it was released.

304
00:30:38,451 --> 00:30:44,765
Most of the reviews could not say enough
about this kind of behaviour

305
00:30:44,851 --> 00:30:47,365
between characters in the film.

306
00:30:47,451 --> 00:30:50,124
I think now, the years having gone on

307
00:30:50,451 --> 00:30:56,845
and violence having
vastly expanded in the movies,

308
00:30:56,931 --> 00:31:00,719
it does not seem
particularly shocking to look at now.

309
00:31:00,811 --> 00:31:10,083
But at the time it was certainly something
that I would say was the major component

310
00:31:10,171 --> 00:31:13,607
of most of the serious reviewing
of this film,

311
00:31:13,691 --> 00:31:20,642
and these films - the three spaghetti
westerns that Leone made with Clint.

312
00:31:37,131 --> 00:31:41,522
We tend,
because these pictures are so vivid

313
00:31:41,611 --> 00:31:46,685
and partly because of Clint's presence
in them and their intrinsic qualities,

314
00:31:46,771 --> 00:31:52,050
we tend to think spaghetti westerns
began and ended with Sergio Leone.

315
00:31:52,131 --> 00:31:54,406
But that's not true.

316
00:31:56,091 --> 00:32:01,563
There were dozens more previous to this.

317
00:32:01,651 --> 00:32:07,920
There were hundreds more after
the success of these movies of Leone's.

318
00:32:08,011 --> 00:32:12,721
Most of them have not
survived terribly well.

319
00:32:12,811 --> 00:32:16,201
I myself have seen
only a handful of others,

320
00:32:16,291 --> 00:32:25,324
and they don't seem to me to compare
to the Leone films in their quality.

321
00:32:28,171 --> 00:32:36,727
This is a scene
that is a vastly extended version

322
00:32:36,811 --> 00:32:41,965
of a scene that appeared
20-odd years earlier

323
00:32:42,051 --> 00:32:45,407
in a James Cagney movie
called Blonde Crazy.

324
00:32:45,491 --> 00:32:47,880
It's the same deal.

325
00:32:47,971 --> 00:32:54,729
The criminal guy comes into, in the
Cagney film, a pawnshop to buy a gun,

326
00:32:54,811 --> 00:33:05,881
and, you know, talks the owner
of the shop into letting him heft a gun,

327
00:33:05,971 --> 00:33:10,203
feel out the weight
and seriousness of the weapon,

328
00:33:10,291 --> 00:33:17,720
and then cons him
into giving him a few bullets,

329
00:33:17,811 --> 00:33:26,401
which he then loads into the gun
and holds up the pawnshop owner

330
00:33:26,491 --> 00:33:29,483
with the very gun
that he's thinking of buying,

331
00:33:29,571 --> 00:33:32,563
and walks out with the gun
and the bullets in it.

332
00:33:32,651 --> 00:33:36,166
Now, that's a very quick scene
in Blonde Crazy -

333
00:33:36,251 --> 00:33:41,450
probably doesn't take more than a minute
or a minute and a half of screen time.

334
00:33:41,531 --> 00:33:48,369
Typical of Leone - he takes
that little notion and vastly extends it.

335
00:33:48,451 --> 00:33:53,161
I mean, this scene
goes on a good long time.

336
00:33:57,331 --> 00:34:04,521
It's the same joke, and it's one
of those jokes that continues to work.

337
00:34:05,651 --> 00:34:10,805
Important to say about Leone is that
his father had been in the film business,

338
00:34:10,891 --> 00:34:13,405
had been a director of ltalian films

339
00:34:13,491 --> 00:34:18,770
and had fallen foul
of the Fascist regime in ltaly.

340
00:34:18,851 --> 00:34:21,081
But Leone was two things:

341
00:34:21,171 --> 00:34:26,689
he was movie-crazy by virtue
of his relationship to his father,

342
00:34:26,771 --> 00:34:29,444
and he was also kind of America-crazy.

343
00:34:30,331 --> 00:34:38,329
He was a guy who, when the war ended,
just got drunk on American movies.

344
00:34:41,251 --> 00:34:47,565
All throughout Europe they had, of course,
not been played throughout World War Il -

345
00:34:47,651 --> 00:34:51,530
they weren't imported to Europe,
American films.

346
00:34:51,611 --> 00:34:55,445
And they arrived in
a kind of flood after the war,

347
00:34:55,531 --> 00:34:57,840
and it was a revelation, not just to Leone.

348
00:34:57,931 --> 00:35:02,686
The entire French wave
was taken up by seeing these movies

349
00:35:02,771 --> 00:35:05,490
and realising what they'd missed.

350
00:35:05,571 --> 00:35:09,359
And this was most advantageous
to American movies.

351
00:35:09,451 --> 00:35:18,166
The reputation of directors like Hawks
and Raoul Walsh and William Wyler

352
00:35:18,251 --> 00:35:25,168
was really made by the Europeans
having this intense relationship

353
00:35:25,251 --> 00:35:31,440
with the movies that they had not seen
from, say 1941 through 1945.

354
00:35:31,531 --> 00:35:33,806
And Leone was very much a part of that,

355
00:35:33,891 --> 00:35:37,850
and he was also very drawn
to American popular fiction,

356
00:35:37,931 --> 00:35:44,643
which included westerns and
crime pictures and novels, film noir.

357
00:35:45,851 --> 00:35:51,642
And this was enormously
influential on Leone

358
00:35:51,731 --> 00:35:57,442
in terms of the stories he liked,
the stories he wanted to do.

359
00:35:57,531 --> 00:36:03,083
His big thing, though,
was to lend an epic quality

360
00:36:03,171 --> 00:36:09,519
to these essentially very modest
literary endeavours that he read.

361
00:36:09,611 --> 00:36:13,126
He always claimed he read
a lot of Faulkner and F Scott Fitzgerald

362
00:36:13,211 --> 00:36:17,762
and the major American writers.
Whether he did or not, I'm not certain.

363
00:36:17,851 --> 00:36:26,407
But there's no question that popular
literature was a huge influence on Leone,

364
00:36:26,491 --> 00:36:28,959
as were the popular movies.

365
00:36:29,771 --> 00:36:33,650
Hence this kind of borrowing
from Blonde Crazy

366
00:36:35,811 --> 00:36:42,410
and the vast extension of the little comic
conceit of that early Cagney movie.

367
00:36:51,211 --> 00:36:56,126
We're coming
to what is the major new scene

368
00:36:56,211 --> 00:37:00,523
in the American restoration
of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

369
00:37:00,611 --> 00:37:05,765
This is a scene
that was in the ltalian release print,

370
00:37:05,851 --> 00:37:13,007
but was excised from the American
version when it appeared here in 1968.

371
00:37:13,091 --> 00:37:15,241
It's called "the grotto scene",

372
00:37:15,331 --> 00:37:23,682
and it's the Tuco character
getting himself re-associated

373
00:37:23,771 --> 00:37:28,049
with what was once his criminal gang.

374
00:37:28,131 --> 00:37:39,360
And it essentially is him
conning these guys into joining him,

375
00:37:39,451 --> 00:37:45,162
and in particular joining him so that
he can take his revenge against Blondie.

376
00:37:48,371 --> 00:37:54,890
It's a significant scene, I think,
only in this respect:

377
00:37:54,971 --> 00:38:03,128
which is that when he finally goes to kill
Blondie he's got all these guys with him,

378
00:38:03,211 --> 00:38:10,481
and in the picture as it previously existed
we're not certain where he recruited them.

379
00:38:10,571 --> 00:38:16,328
But in this scene
we learn where he recruited them.

380
00:38:16,411 --> 00:38:18,879
And it's kind of a nice scene,

381
00:38:18,971 --> 00:38:31,600
and since we have now all the time in the
world to study the work of Sergio Leone,

382
00:38:34,731 --> 00:38:37,848
it seems to me a good addition.

383
00:38:39,331 --> 00:38:42,403
But who knows where they are now?

384
00:38:43,331 --> 00:38:46,960
Ah, it's too bad, friends.
Tough luck I haven't found you.

385
00:38:47,051 --> 00:38:49,360
I had a good deal foryou.

386
00:38:51,411 --> 00:38:55,006
There's a big son ofa bitch
who's got $4,000.

387
00:38:56,091 --> 00:39:00,721
$4,000. And I know where to fiind him.

388
00:39:00,811 --> 00:39:07,603
This monologue is kind of
an amusing Leone sort of a deal.

389
00:39:09,651 --> 00:39:14,964
He knows that his old pals
are somewhere in this room,

390
00:39:15,571 --> 00:39:18,529
and, of course, when the ropes appear,

391
00:39:18,611 --> 00:39:26,120
having heard his reflections on the money
he knows where and how to get...

392
00:39:27,611 --> 00:39:31,968
I love the way those close-ups
drop into the frame there.

393
00:39:33,691 --> 00:39:40,529
It's a nice little minor example
of Leone's sense of humour.

394
00:39:57,651 --> 00:40:01,246
One way of looking at the character
that Eli plays in this picture

395
00:40:01,331 --> 00:40:03,845
is that he is a kind of life force.

396
00:40:03,931 --> 00:40:09,563
However nasty he is,
however amoral he is,

397
00:40:09,651 --> 00:40:14,281
he's just a guy who's full of life
in this picture.

398
00:40:14,371 --> 00:40:20,241
And I think the picture,
to some degree, runs on his energy.

399
00:40:20,331 --> 00:40:23,721
We really like it when he appears.

400
00:40:23,811 --> 00:40:30,410
He's not playing in the kind
of legato mode of Clint in this picture.

401
00:40:30,491 --> 00:40:37,203
He's always busy and bustling
and full of cockamamie ideas and all that.

402
00:40:37,291 --> 00:40:40,124
This little sequence here
is to me interesting

403
00:40:40,211 --> 00:40:45,331
because it is where what amounts
to the major theme of this movie

404
00:40:45,411 --> 00:40:47,641
begins slowly to be introduced.

405
00:40:47,731 --> 00:40:55,365
We are in this town,
and it's a town that is being, you know...

406
00:40:56,451 --> 00:41:02,003
Typical of the way the bourgeoisie
appears in all Leone movies -

407
00:41:02,091 --> 00:41:07,927
they're all hypocrites, they all go with
whatever the current flow is in their lives.

408
00:41:08,011 --> 00:41:10,844
If the Confederates are in town,
they're Confederates,

409
00:41:10,931 --> 00:41:13,206
if the Yankees are in town,
they're Yankees.

410
00:41:13,291 --> 00:41:16,203
If Tuco's in town,
they will cooperate with Tuco,

411
00:41:16,291 --> 00:41:20,330
however difficult that may be for them.

412
00:41:20,411 --> 00:41:26,202
That's Leone's basic idea,
I think, of human nature.

413
00:41:26,291 --> 00:41:32,048
But the business here
is only to slightly prefigure

414
00:41:32,131 --> 00:41:36,329
where Tuco and Blondie
will be going in the future.

415
00:41:38,331 --> 00:41:42,040
He is going to attempt to kill Blondie here.

416
00:41:44,851 --> 00:41:50,289
One of the things that's, of course,
required of a western hero

417
00:41:50,371 --> 00:41:53,966
is that he is preternaturally alert.

418
00:41:54,051 --> 00:42:01,002
So, even though he is preoccupied
with cleaning and reassembling his gun,

419
00:42:01,091 --> 00:42:06,768
he will hear people who are,
as we see here,

420
00:42:06,851 --> 00:42:12,721
beginning to stalk him and surround him
and attempt to kill him.

421
00:42:23,771 --> 00:42:29,084
When Clint Eastwood is around
you cannot walk too quietly,

422
00:42:29,171 --> 00:42:36,407
because, you know,
like all western heroes

423
00:42:36,491 --> 00:42:47,004
he is peculiarly in touch
with odd sounds, odd menaces

424
00:42:47,091 --> 00:42:51,289
that the rest of us would not be alert to.

425
00:42:51,371 --> 00:42:55,808
That's part of the spirit
of the western hero,

426
00:42:55,891 --> 00:43:01,249
that he's better, almost magically so.

427
00:43:02,811 --> 00:43:09,569
He's better at staying alert,
staying ahead of the game,

428
00:43:09,651 --> 00:43:15,601
being ready for assaults
that we would not be ready for.

429
00:43:15,691 --> 00:43:20,446
And that's particularly true
in this little sequence.

430
00:43:33,211 --> 00:43:37,966
Particularly true in that outside
an army is moving through the streets,

431
00:43:38,051 --> 00:43:43,330
with all the attendant noise
and confusion and kerfuffle

432
00:43:43,411 --> 00:43:48,201
that goes with mass movement
of men and arms.

433
00:43:48,291 --> 00:43:52,807
But Clint can kind of cut through all that

434
00:43:52,891 --> 00:43:57,965
and hear the particular menace
that's stalking him.

435
00:44:10,611 --> 00:44:15,446
They're hoping the movement
will cover their movements.

436
00:44:25,651 --> 00:44:33,888
That business, incidentally, of tying
the gun firing to the victims of its firing

437
00:44:33,971 --> 00:44:38,362
is something that was forbidden
in American movies.

438
00:44:38,451 --> 00:44:45,846
In other words, you couldn't show the gun
firing and then its victim falling dead.

439
00:44:48,531 --> 00:44:52,285
That was a genteelism
that had established itself

440
00:44:52,371 --> 00:44:56,159
in the course of American
motion-picture censorship.

441
00:44:56,251 --> 00:44:58,765
Leone either didn't know
or didn't care about it,

442
00:44:58,851 --> 00:45:02,890
and Clint said "I didn't think I'd tell him
because it was a great idea."

443
00:45:02,971 --> 00:45:10,480
So you do get the shot of the gun firing
and its victim falling

444
00:45:10,571 --> 00:45:14,610
all in the same shot,
not done with cuts.

445
00:45:15,331 --> 00:45:17,526
Here what is going to happen, of course,

446
00:45:17,611 --> 00:45:25,768
is that Tuco is going to reconstruct,
in effect, all his false deaths

447
00:45:28,131 --> 00:45:34,206
that Blondie had rescued him from
in their previous partnership.

448
00:45:34,291 --> 00:45:42,448
In other words, Clint is going
to have to put a noose around his neck

449
00:45:42,531 --> 00:45:47,366
and stand on a table or stool.

450
00:45:50,011 --> 00:45:54,607
The difference here being
that Tuco is not going to fire the gun

451
00:45:54,691 --> 00:45:59,719
that will separate the rope,
or break the rope.

452
00:45:59,811 --> 00:46:02,803
He's gonna leave him hanging there.

453
00:47:13,771 --> 00:47:19,289
That is one of the most odd and violent
rescues from almost certain death

454
00:47:19,371 --> 00:47:22,169
that probably the movies ever contained.

455
00:47:22,251 --> 00:47:29,407
The notion that the big gun
would intrude upon the small gunplay

456
00:47:29,491 --> 00:47:32,722
going on between Eli and Clint here

457
00:47:32,811 --> 00:47:39,762
is important for Leone to establish
because he's going to establish the fact

458
00:47:40,091 --> 00:47:49,727
that a much more violent life is
proceeding around these characters.

459
00:47:51,771 --> 00:47:55,889
This is another restored scene -
it's about four minutes long -

460
00:47:55,971 --> 00:48:02,285
that was eliminated from
the first American release of the picture.

461
00:48:02,371 --> 00:48:08,810
It is the introduction of this character

462
00:48:08,891 --> 00:48:19,290
to the fact that
his narrow interests are being pursued

463
00:48:19,371 --> 00:48:27,688
against a background
of much larger and more tragic violence.

464
00:48:33,171 --> 00:48:41,647
What he is encountering here, which
is the remnants of a Confederate unit

465
00:48:41,731 --> 00:48:48,443
that's been obviously defeated
and decimated in this war

466
00:48:51,171 --> 00:48:58,168
even, to a degree,
moves this thoroughly evil guy

467
00:48:58,251 --> 00:49:03,245
to at least an element
of ironic compassion,

468
00:49:03,331 --> 00:49:07,563
as he looks around
at the devastation that's occurred

469
00:49:07,651 --> 00:49:15,604
and begins to take in
the notion of the vastness of killing.

470
00:49:15,691 --> 00:49:21,641
Incidentally, stray dogs
constantly appear in Leone's films.

471
00:49:23,451 --> 00:49:28,809
You know, minor victims
of major catastrophes.

472
00:49:28,891 --> 00:49:32,327
I think it's something
he took from Kurosawa,

473
00:49:32,411 --> 00:49:37,007
who also had a famous stray dog
in Yojimbo.

474
00:49:37,091 --> 00:49:44,964
But this encounter, again,
is an interesting prefiguration

475
00:49:45,051 --> 00:49:48,407
of where this movie is going to go.

476
00:49:48,491 --> 00:49:51,722
And the little head-shake by him

477
00:49:51,811 --> 00:49:58,125
indicates a miniscule amount of humanity
operating in this character.

478
00:49:58,771 --> 00:50:00,727
But...

479
00:50:03,491 --> 00:50:08,406
This movie is, at this level,
rather nicely constructed.

480
00:50:08,491 --> 00:50:17,729
That is to say, the introduction of the fact
that there are vast armies in the field

481
00:50:17,811 --> 00:50:24,762
and near to these guys
who are pursuing their little chest of gold

482
00:50:24,851 --> 00:50:27,240
just keeps kind of being hinted at.

483
00:50:27,331 --> 00:50:32,485
You know, the explosion of the big gun in
the previous sequence with Clint and Eli,

484
00:50:32,571 --> 00:50:42,481
and now this comparatively speaking -
to what we're about to see in the film -

485
00:50:42,571 --> 00:50:53,049
introduction of this kind of
decimation of ordinary humanity

486
00:50:53,131 --> 00:50:55,326
is actually rather nicely done.

487
00:50:55,411 --> 00:50:59,324
I mean, this film is building
towards a couple of climaxes

488
00:50:59,411 --> 00:51:03,199
that will establish, if nothing else,

489
00:51:03,291 --> 00:51:08,206
Sergio Leone's - how to put it? -
pacifist credentials.

490
00:51:13,051 --> 00:51:18,489
This is, in a way,
quite a consciously antiwar movie.

491
00:51:20,131 --> 00:51:23,487
I mean, probably in a way
all great war movies -

492
00:51:23,571 --> 00:51:27,803
which this is only half of,
it's not entirely a war movie -

493
00:51:27,891 --> 00:51:32,840
but all the great war movies
are essentially antiwar movies.

494
00:51:32,931 --> 00:51:36,321
That's the point of view
that the filmmaker takes

495
00:51:36,411 --> 00:51:45,046
in most serious examinations
of wartime activities.

496
00:51:54,771 --> 00:51:59,606
We haven't said much
about Ennio Morricone's score.

497
00:51:59,691 --> 00:52:05,721
That's a very familiar little theme that
he's used in previous spaghetti westerns.

498
00:52:05,811 --> 00:52:12,080
Morricone is a great genius
of film scoring.

499
00:52:12,171 --> 00:52:21,250
There is just, you know, a remarkable
uniqueness in what he's doing.

500
00:52:21,331 --> 00:52:28,487
In other words, he's expanded
the forces of available sounds,

501
00:52:28,571 --> 00:52:35,090
using chorals, using instruments like
penny whistles, jew's-harps and so forth.

502
00:52:36,851 --> 00:52:41,971
At first, I think, because
there wasn't much money for scoring,

503
00:52:42,051 --> 00:52:50,880
but it became such a unique Morricone
signature, that kind of scoring, that...

504
00:52:50,971 --> 00:52:56,603
And they set, in a way
that very few film scores do.

505
00:52:58,611 --> 00:53:03,127
They are part of the uniqueness
of Leone's vision.

506
00:53:03,211 --> 00:53:08,843
Certainly it's true of Clint,
who had not heard any score for this film,

507
00:53:08,931 --> 00:53:17,726
and after he had made Fistflul ofDollars,
the first evidence he had of a finished film

508
00:53:17,811 --> 00:53:24,808
was actually an LP, or perhaps
it was a tape, of Morricone's score

509
00:53:24,891 --> 00:53:27,564
which got sent to him
when he was back in the uS.

510
00:53:27,651 --> 00:53:31,405
He heard this thing and said
"Wow, this is really interesting."

511
00:53:31,491 --> 00:53:33,686
"I've never heard a score like this."

512
00:53:33,771 --> 00:53:37,889
And then when he saw the film
with the score integrated into it,

513
00:53:37,971 --> 00:53:43,921
he recognised - since Clint is himself
quite an expert musician - that this was...

514
00:53:45,451 --> 00:53:47,965
It wasn't the first score
Morricone had done,

515
00:53:48,051 --> 00:53:51,327
but this was the score
that announced him

516
00:53:51,651 --> 00:53:53,642
as a major figure in film scoring.

517
00:53:53,731 --> 00:54:03,766
And the extension of Morricone's
rather unique vision into this film,

518
00:54:03,851 --> 00:54:07,321
and the subsequent films,
I think established him

519
00:54:07,411 --> 00:54:14,601
as one of the most important innovators
in musical film history.

520
00:54:19,731 --> 00:54:23,280
He has been tracked, he has been found.

521
00:54:45,451 --> 00:54:47,760
Nice little moment here.

522
00:54:47,851 --> 00:54:49,682
"Too bad, Shorty."

523
00:54:50,691 --> 00:54:52,807
Sorry, Shorty.

524
00:55:01,531 --> 00:55:06,446
Now this is the beginning of what
will be an inordinately long sequence,

525
00:55:06,531 --> 00:55:17,681
in which the Clint character
is tormented by this walk in the desert

526
00:55:17,771 --> 00:55:20,126
by Eli's character.

527
00:55:25,411 --> 00:55:28,448
In Christopher Frayling's
really quite remarkable

528
00:55:28,531 --> 00:55:33,321
and complete biography of Sergio Leone,

529
00:55:33,411 --> 00:55:36,881
which is an extremely valuable book,

530
00:55:36,971 --> 00:55:40,486
he makes mention in this sequence

531
00:55:40,571 --> 00:55:50,811
of Leone's being influenced
by the surrealist painters.

532
00:55:53,331 --> 00:55:56,641
In particular, these desert sequences

533
00:55:56,731 --> 00:56:03,842
Frayling traces
to the surrealist Giorgio de Chirico.

534
00:56:07,731 --> 00:56:14,682
And I think it's true. This was a painter
who used bleak landscapes,

535
00:56:14,771 --> 00:56:19,128
and we do know
that Leone knew that work.

536
00:56:20,571 --> 00:56:23,643
There are other elements.

537
00:56:23,731 --> 00:56:27,883
Leone was quite mad
for the French painter Magritte -

538
00:56:27,971 --> 00:56:30,201
he even owned a small Magritte.

539
00:56:30,291 --> 00:56:37,845
And you'll see touches of that kind
of landscaping in this sequence.

540
00:56:45,611 --> 00:56:51,686
The cameraman on this picture was
Tonio Delli Colli, who was new to Leone.

541
00:56:53,331 --> 00:56:57,404
And I spoke to Frayling about

542
00:57:02,051 --> 00:57:08,047
Leone referring to these pictures,
asking him to take a look at the pictures,

543
00:57:08,131 --> 00:57:11,362
asking him to find
photographically the equivalent

544
00:57:11,451 --> 00:57:14,170
of what some of these painters had done.

545
00:57:14,251 --> 00:57:17,163
I've always particularly loved...

546
00:57:17,251 --> 00:57:24,168
There is a classic example
of surrealism, I think -

547
00:57:24,251 --> 00:57:27,402
the vast landscape, two tiny little figures.

548
00:57:27,491 --> 00:57:31,120
Again, that's something
that Leone liked to do a lot.

549
00:57:31,211 --> 00:57:36,683
But the parasol
is a wonderful touch in this sequence.

550
00:57:36,771 --> 00:57:42,846
It is just so absurd.
It is so Magritte-like -

551
00:57:42,931 --> 00:57:48,244
you know, who always put bowler hats
on figures standing in strange landscapes.

552
00:57:48,331 --> 00:57:53,883
And this is a particularly
good example, I think,

553
00:57:53,971 --> 00:57:58,089
of the rough-and-ready
surrealism of Sergio.

554
00:58:03,691 --> 00:58:06,080
This is that kind of European notion

555
00:58:06,171 --> 00:58:12,280
that in torment there can be
a considerable amount of beauty.

556
00:58:12,371 --> 00:58:19,163
I think it's probably appropriate to say
that by this time, by this third film,

557
00:58:20,931 --> 00:58:24,367
Clint had become somewhat disaffected -

558
00:58:24,451 --> 00:58:28,649
not especially with Leone, but with
the whole spaghetti-western thing.

559
00:58:28,731 --> 00:58:30,961
He really had begun to understand,

560
00:58:31,051 --> 00:58:34,885
that even though these films had not yet
been released in the united States,

561
00:58:34,971 --> 00:58:40,045
even though his long stint on Rawhide
was clearly coming to an end,

562
00:58:40,131 --> 00:58:43,919
that he was gonna have
to make his career elsewhere.

563
00:58:44,011 --> 00:58:47,003
And I think he felt that in this film,

564
00:58:47,091 --> 00:58:52,324
although he had negotiated a much better
salary than in the previous Leone pictures

565
00:58:52,411 --> 00:58:54,879
- and had a percentage
of this picture, actually,

566
00:58:54,971 --> 00:58:59,169
which was unprecedented
among ltalian filmmakers at the time -

567
00:58:59,251 --> 00:59:10,560
the truth was that I think he saw that
his part in these pictures was diminishing.

568
00:59:10,651 --> 00:59:13,643
Not in terms of total screen time
or anything like that,

569
00:59:13,731 --> 00:59:18,202
but rather his importance in the film
was being diminished

570
00:59:18,291 --> 00:59:25,447
as Sergio went
for a much more epic-scale film.

571
00:59:27,531 --> 00:59:35,085
Eli remembered Clint constantly saying to
him that this was his last one with Leone,

572
00:59:35,171 --> 00:59:37,924
that he was going to have
to go back to the uS,

573
00:59:38,011 --> 00:59:43,529
was going to have to establish himself
as an American movie star.

574
00:59:43,611 --> 00:59:50,687
And though I think he had maybe
a little bit more contention with Sergio

575
00:59:50,771 --> 00:59:54,764
on this and that aspect
of his performance in the picture,

576
00:59:54,851 --> 00:59:57,490
he was still doing it in good heart.

577
00:59:57,571 --> 01:00:01,166
He just knew that he was going
to move on from this.

578
01:00:01,251 --> 01:00:07,201
And Eli perfectly understood that,
and perfectly understood that -

579
01:00:07,291 --> 01:00:13,161
and in fact Eli went on
and made other pictures in ltaly -

580
01:00:13,251 --> 01:00:17,529
that Clint was done
with this aspect of his career.

581
01:00:17,611 --> 01:00:24,642
I don't think it was anything to do
with egocentricity on the part of the star.

582
01:00:24,731 --> 01:00:29,759
It was really that, as he once said to me,

583
01:00:29,851 --> 01:00:33,400
"I could go on doing this
for another decade, but it wouldn't be..."

584
01:00:33,491 --> 01:00:40,283
That's a great little moment,
as he pulls the empty boot toward him.

585
01:00:40,371 --> 01:00:45,491
This little sequence here is,
again, part of the restoration.

586
01:00:45,571 --> 01:00:52,966
It was not included in the American
version of this film when it came out.

587
01:00:53,051 --> 01:00:57,124
It's new and it's good.

588
01:01:00,211 --> 01:01:07,970
Again, I don't know how much
establishment we need at this juncture

589
01:01:08,051 --> 01:01:12,806
of Eli's sadistic behaviour to Blondie,

590
01:01:12,891 --> 01:01:15,928
but on the other hand it's fun,

591
01:01:16,011 --> 01:01:21,039
especially here, where he washes his feet
in the precious water.

592
01:01:25,371 --> 01:01:32,322
It's worth saying that of course Clint
and Eli had a good time on this picture.

593
01:01:32,411 --> 01:01:36,324
Eli in particular, perhaps more than Clint,

594
01:01:38,491 --> 01:01:41,449
became more intimately
associated with Sergio.

595
01:01:41,531 --> 01:01:43,886
They took to having dinners together

596
01:01:43,971 --> 01:01:49,887
and took to having - to the best of their
ability, given their language difficulties -

597
01:01:49,971 --> 01:01:55,568
a lot of conversations about movies
and life and all that in general.

598
01:01:58,011 --> 01:02:04,450
Eli had a great time with this movie, and
I think you can see it his performance.

599
01:02:04,531 --> 01:02:06,328
He was really having fun.

600
01:02:06,411 --> 01:02:13,169
And given that as a movie actor
he had really never had

601
01:02:13,491 --> 01:02:20,010
this kind of a leading role where
he's absolutely central to the movie...

602
01:02:20,091 --> 01:02:28,169
He was much more of a character guy
in films like The Misfiits or Lord Jim.

603
01:02:28,251 --> 01:02:34,963
He did tend to play kind of ethnic weirdos,
if not outright ethnic villains,

604
01:02:35,051 --> 01:02:43,641
and this picture gives him a lot of good
screen time and a lot of character to play.

605
01:02:43,731 --> 01:02:47,121
And he really did make the most of it.

606
01:02:49,571 --> 01:02:57,080
At this point in this lengthy sequence of -
how to put it? - heated torment,

607
01:02:59,171 --> 01:03:06,521
again, I think we're dealing with
a Leone who is setting his own pace.

608
01:03:06,611 --> 01:03:13,687
It's obvious that you could make
this sequence in a lot less screen time,

609
01:03:13,771 --> 01:03:23,681
but, again, I like this leisureliness
of the development of the movie.

610
01:03:23,771 --> 01:03:31,280
It seems to me to give the film
a kind of scope and grandeur

611
01:03:31,371 --> 01:03:37,287
that is really unexpected in a movie

612
01:03:37,371 --> 01:03:42,525
with the kind of dubious antecedents
that this film has.

613
01:03:42,611 --> 01:03:49,722
It's almost as if Leone is transcending the
genre that he has invented, or reinvented.

614
01:03:51,051 --> 01:03:58,207
Now, the arrival of this...
Well, it's really a hospital wagon.

615
01:03:59,451 --> 01:04:05,970
This, of course, is what saves Clint's life
in the development of the film.

616
01:04:26,651 --> 01:04:39,166
This is, again, one of Sergio's
really leisurely revelations of the action

617
01:04:39,251 --> 01:04:49,843
and the significance of what these guys
find in this runaway ambulance.

618
01:04:55,091 --> 01:05:04,204
What will happen here is that the two
of them will get the most significant clue

619
01:05:04,291 --> 01:05:06,646
anyone in the movie has thus far had

620
01:05:06,731 --> 01:05:12,363
as to the location of this
famously missing chest of gold.

621
01:05:15,171 --> 01:05:17,639
It's kind of cleverly set up

622
01:05:17,731 --> 01:05:25,923
in the sense that each of them
gets one piece of information,

623
01:05:26,011 --> 01:05:31,005
and each piece of information
will be in and of itself useless.

624
01:05:31,091 --> 01:05:39,567
It requires both pieces of information in
order to find out where the gold is buried.

625
01:05:39,651 --> 01:05:44,406
So now these people
who have been in deadly contention

626
01:05:44,491 --> 01:05:50,487
are - or will be - brought together
out of mutual need.

627
01:05:51,411 --> 01:05:55,643
Each needs the other to survive
with his piece of information.

628
01:05:55,731 --> 01:06:01,840
So it becomes a significant
turning point in the movie.

629
01:06:21,451 --> 01:06:27,890
When I was writing about this movie in
the biography I wrote of Clint Eastwood,

630
01:06:27,971 --> 01:06:32,761
I characterised Tuco
as kind of like Till Eulenspiegel -

631
01:06:32,851 --> 01:06:40,485
you know, the merry prankster, outside
the law, outside of conventional morality,

632
01:06:40,571 --> 01:06:43,643
but someone we can't help but like.

633
01:06:45,371 --> 01:06:49,603
And I think I'll stand by
that characterisation.

634
01:06:49,691 --> 01:06:54,719
He's maybe
not the merriest of pranksters,

635
01:06:54,811 --> 01:06:57,928
but there is something prankish
in his character,

636
01:06:58,011 --> 01:07:03,039
and therefore something
kind of very human,

637
01:07:03,131 --> 01:07:09,684
no matter how antisocial
much of his behaviour is.

638
01:07:09,771 --> 01:07:15,289
Now he's getting the information,
or the partial information,

639
01:07:15,371 --> 01:07:22,243
that will lead on to their adventures
in the second half of the movie.

640
01:07:22,331 --> 01:07:24,640
What was that you said about the dollars?

641
01:07:24,731 --> 01:07:27,086
$200,000, all mine.

642
01:07:27,971 --> 01:07:30,087
Was the Third Cavalry's.

643
01:07:30,851 --> 01:07:32,842
Bakerhas nothing.

644
01:07:33,491 --> 01:07:37,120
The gold... I hid the gold.
The gold is safe.

645
01:07:38,211 --> 01:07:40,088
Where? Where, here?

646
01:07:40,171 --> 01:07:48,966
Again, this is a kind of conventional piece
of plotting in terms of popular fiction,

647
01:07:49,051 --> 01:07:53,567
whether it's a detective story
or a western or what-have-you -

648
01:07:53,651 --> 01:08:01,490
the dying man's confession
that motivates the rest of the movie.

649
01:08:09,731 --> 01:08:15,488
That's a significant aspect
of Leone's filmmaking -

650
01:08:17,571 --> 01:08:19,562
there are always references

651
01:08:19,651 --> 01:08:27,683
to the bluntest, crudest conventions
of popular fictioneering in the movies.

652
01:08:27,771 --> 01:08:33,243
But in the end these films
are exercises in style,

653
01:08:33,331 --> 01:08:45,084
of style transcending the banalities of plot
and of characterisation, for that matter.

654
01:08:45,411 --> 01:08:53,443
If you give the film
a rich visual dimension -

655
01:08:53,531 --> 01:09:00,528
which Leone does in just shot after shot,
just in this little, simple sequence -

656
01:09:00,611 --> 01:09:09,007
it finally gives the film a kind of grandeur

657
01:09:09,091 --> 01:09:15,087
that other films, in particular
other spaghetti westerns, didn't have.

658
01:09:16,651 --> 01:09:28,324
In my critical practice, I've always loved
the guys who take popular conventions

659
01:09:28,411 --> 01:09:35,442
and in some way - with filmmakers,
usually through visual means -

660
01:09:35,531 --> 01:09:38,170
transcend those things.

661
01:09:38,251 --> 01:09:44,645
You know, give you
a new and different kind of reality

662
01:09:44,731 --> 01:09:48,201
that transcends
the conventions of the genre.

663
01:09:49,611 --> 01:09:51,920
This is the moment...

664
01:09:52,011 --> 01:09:56,209
He now,
having wanted to slowly kill Clint,

665
01:09:57,531 --> 01:10:00,682
he now must rescue him.

666
01:10:06,771 --> 01:10:13,882
The sadist of ten minutes ago has now
become the bosom buddy of this moment.

667
01:10:13,971 --> 01:10:16,690
And that's funny.

668
01:10:16,771 --> 01:10:29,525
And I think it's terrifically well played
by the now desperate Tuco.

669
01:10:44,731 --> 01:10:48,360
Tuco has, of course,
commandeered the ambulance

670
01:10:48,451 --> 01:10:54,560
and is now entering on a scene
that, again, was missing

671
01:10:54,651 --> 01:11:00,601
from the original
American release print of the film.

672
01:11:00,691 --> 01:11:04,001
This is really a very simple little sequence

673
01:11:04,091 --> 01:11:10,849
where, in effect, he's asking these
Confederate soldiers for directions

674
01:11:10,931 --> 01:11:15,322
and trying to pass through their lines
and pretend to be something he isn't,

675
01:11:15,411 --> 01:11:18,448
which is a Confederate soldier.

676
01:11:21,171 --> 01:11:23,560
Again, it's a nice little scene.

677
01:11:23,651 --> 01:11:28,930
You can understand why,
in the desire of the American distributors

678
01:11:29,011 --> 01:11:33,368
to make a film
of more or less conventional length,

679
01:11:33,451 --> 01:11:36,124
you could get by without this sequence.

680
01:11:36,211 --> 01:11:39,806
But it's a nice little sequence nonetheless.

681
01:11:42,051 --> 01:11:48,126
Again, it's worth sitting around
watching this movie on home video,

682
01:11:48,211 --> 01:11:52,045
and we do have the time
for this sort of thing.

683
01:11:54,611 --> 01:11:57,330
This little soldier
is a character who appeared

684
01:11:57,411 --> 01:12:03,168
in at least one other Sergio picture.

685
01:12:03,251 --> 01:12:08,325
I think he was the ticket seller
in Once Upon a Time in the West

686
01:12:08,411 --> 01:12:10,242
at the railway station.

687
01:12:10,331 --> 01:12:19,080
But anyway, where Tuco
is bringing Blondie is to a mission

688
01:12:19,171 --> 01:12:26,805
of the kind that dotted the Catholic
American Southwest of the time.

689
01:12:29,971 --> 01:12:36,570
There is, in all of Leone's work
a kind of wistfulness

690
01:12:36,651 --> 01:12:43,648
about the Catholicism of his youth,
that he was obviously brought up in.

691
01:12:46,851 --> 01:12:55,327
He is a specialist in kind of
bare, ruined choirs and graveyards.

692
01:12:55,411 --> 01:13:03,887
In all of the panoply
of conventional Catholicism,

693
01:13:03,971 --> 01:13:10,319
which I think he had pretty much
put behind him, as many ltalians do,

694
01:13:13,691 --> 01:13:18,606
there is - and I'll remark on it
later on in the film -

695
01:13:18,691 --> 01:13:22,650
he does often stage sequences,

696
01:13:22,731 --> 01:13:30,570
usually sequences
that have some pitiable quality to them,

697
01:13:32,091 --> 01:13:39,008
in disused churches
or places like this mission,

698
01:13:39,091 --> 01:13:51,561
which are doing their best
to succour the wounded of the war.

699
01:13:51,651 --> 01:13:58,170
And I think that does represent for Leone
some kind of wistfulness

700
01:13:58,251 --> 01:14:06,488
for a better world
or a world that had been lost -

701
01:14:06,571 --> 01:14:13,921
and lost, I think, in Leone's view
in the cataclysm of World War ll.

702
01:14:14,011 --> 01:14:21,691
I think this movie
constantly refers to the way

703
01:14:21,771 --> 01:14:29,246
the vastness and horror of that war
destabilised people's expectations,

704
01:14:29,331 --> 01:14:31,640
destabilised their morality.

705
01:14:31,731 --> 01:14:37,283
And I think the notion
he's exploring in this movie

706
01:14:37,371 --> 01:14:48,646
of war as the ultimate cataclysm
that destroys conventional morality

707
01:14:48,731 --> 01:14:55,250
is something that is very much
on Leone's mind in this film,

708
01:14:55,331 --> 01:15:01,964
and something that I think he explored
in other aspects of his work,

709
01:15:02,051 --> 01:15:04,281
but most directly in this film.

710
01:15:04,371 --> 01:15:10,606
This is a film that is implicitly about

711
01:15:10,691 --> 01:15:16,960
the lingering effects
of vast combat on ordinary people,

712
01:15:17,051 --> 01:15:20,521
and how it afflicts their morality.

713
01:15:20,611 --> 01:15:26,368
I'm not saying that Tuco would've been
a saintly man without these interventions,

714
01:15:26,451 --> 01:15:34,847
but he might've been
a slightly different man

715
01:15:35,251 --> 01:15:41,963
were he not so profoundly involved
in this massive dislocation,

716
01:15:42,051 --> 01:15:47,762
which wartime has imposed upon him.

717
01:15:47,851 --> 01:15:54,450
I mean, all bets are off,
morally speaking, in this context.

718
01:16:19,971 --> 01:16:26,080
I don't really think that when Leone
was pitching this movie to Clint

719
01:16:26,171 --> 01:16:28,731
that he was particularly suggesting

720
01:16:28,811 --> 01:16:34,204
that Eli would become a dominant figure
as the film worked out.

721
01:16:34,291 --> 01:16:42,005
I have a feeling that part of the dominance
simply arises out of Eli's performance.

722
01:16:42,091 --> 01:16:46,528
It's just so compelling and so amusing

723
01:16:48,571 --> 01:16:56,330
that in a way it backs off Clint
and, in a way, Lee Van Cleef.

724
01:16:59,411 --> 01:17:04,644
When you've got an actor rippin'
and tearing the way Eli is in this movie,

725
01:17:04,731 --> 01:17:13,048
about the only thing his fellow actors can
do is back off and gracefully partner him.

726
01:17:13,131 --> 01:17:16,282
Now, as this movie will develop,

727
01:17:16,371 --> 01:17:26,724
Clint will manifest
conventionally heroic behaviour,

728
01:17:26,811 --> 01:17:30,440
and even conventionally heroic ideals,

729
01:17:30,531 --> 01:17:41,169
but the competition for amusing screen
time is bound to go to a character like Eli.

730
01:17:42,691 --> 01:17:48,926
I'm not sure Clint would have recognised
that to begin with when he read the script.

731
01:17:49,011 --> 01:17:52,640
I think what he did recognise
is that this is a movie

732
01:17:52,731 --> 01:17:59,330
in which Sergio is moving toward
what we might call his mature style,

733
01:17:59,411 --> 01:18:02,687
which was for a much more epic cinema

734
01:18:02,771 --> 01:18:06,684
than the kind of films that Clint
had appeared with him in previously,

735
01:18:06,771 --> 01:18:09,569
Fistflul ofDollars and A Few Dollars More.

736
01:18:09,651 --> 01:18:16,682
These are movies with much higher
aspirations, much broader themes,

737
01:18:18,851 --> 01:18:21,809
a much bigger scope for Leone's talents.

738
01:18:21,891 --> 01:18:25,361
And I think that if Clint
had a problem with that,

739
01:18:25,451 --> 01:18:30,400
it was simply that Leone
was going in his direction

740
01:18:30,491 --> 01:18:36,487
and Clint was going in his direction,
and the two directions

741
01:18:36,571 --> 01:18:41,565
were, if not diametrically opposed,
somewhat opposed.

742
01:18:42,571 --> 01:18:48,726
I think Clint, maybe more than Sergio,
was cool with that.

743
01:18:48,811 --> 01:18:51,769
I think Sergio would've liked
to have clung to Clint.

744
01:18:51,851 --> 01:18:54,081
He came to him
and wanted him to go on

745
01:18:54,171 --> 01:18:57,527
and do Once Upon a Time in the West
a few years later.

746
01:18:57,611 --> 01:19:00,330
They had meetings about it
and talked about it,

747
01:19:00,411 --> 01:19:07,522
and Clint really just felt
he was going in some other direction

748
01:19:07,611 --> 01:19:11,206
and that Leone had to go in his own.

749
01:19:22,371 --> 01:19:25,568
Muttering for his reward here.

750
01:19:46,451 --> 01:19:50,410
This is an interesting moment
that's going to come up here,

751
01:19:50,491 --> 01:19:56,680
because the Father, Father Ramirez,
is in fact Tuco's brother.

752
01:19:59,571 --> 01:20:02,324
This is the uniqueness of this moment,

753
01:20:02,411 --> 01:20:10,489
in that Tuco is the only character
in the film who has a back story,

754
01:20:10,571 --> 01:20:16,043
and the back story is somewhat
motivating of his character.

755
01:20:16,131 --> 01:20:19,885
These are the two brothers
who went their different paths,

756
01:20:19,971 --> 01:20:24,408
one becoming a priest -
a disapproving priest, obviously -

757
01:20:24,491 --> 01:20:29,485
and the other becoming
the outlaw figure that Tuco is.

758
01:20:39,531 --> 01:20:44,286
I think one of the things going on here -

759
01:20:44,371 --> 01:20:49,320
and it will come directly
to the surface in a moment or two -

760
01:20:49,411 --> 01:20:54,485
is that poor people
of their ethnic background

761
01:20:55,091 --> 01:20:57,241
really did only have two choices.

762
01:20:57,331 --> 01:21:00,721
This is a thing that comes up
in many crime pictures -

763
01:21:00,811 --> 01:21:05,009
you know, you either become
a cop or a priest,

764
01:21:05,091 --> 01:21:10,006
or you become an outlaw
if you are from dirt-poor circumstances.

765
01:21:10,091 --> 01:21:17,884
That American life does not offer
to immigrant people, like these two guys,

766
01:21:17,971 --> 01:21:19,882
a lot of choices.

767
01:21:19,971 --> 01:21:24,840
You're not gonna become the CEO of
a great corporation or something like that

768
01:21:24,931 --> 01:21:28,890
if you come from these kind
of downtrodden backgrounds.

769
01:21:28,971 --> 01:21:38,130
So Tuco acknowledges this in a way
that his brother can't quite acknowledge.

770
01:21:39,651 --> 01:21:44,441
This is something that, of course, comes
up time and again in gangster pictures -

771
01:21:44,531 --> 01:21:51,050
a gangster picture would be something
in Sergio Leone's future, of course.

772
01:21:51,131 --> 01:21:54,328
Again, it's very simple stuff,

773
01:21:54,411 --> 01:21:59,804
but it is significant that Sergio
thought to give this character -

774
01:21:59,891 --> 01:22:04,919
obviously betokening
his sympathy with this character -

775
01:22:05,011 --> 01:22:11,883
some kind of a back story, some kind
of a motivation for his present character.

776
01:22:14,491 --> 01:22:17,324
Go on, preach me a sermon, Pablo.

777
01:22:18,851 --> 01:22:23,720
What good would that be?
Just keep on the way you're going.

778
01:22:24,651 --> 01:22:28,485
Go away. And the Lord
have mercy on yoursoul.

779
01:22:28,571 --> 01:22:32,200
Sure, I'll go - while I'm waiting
for the Lord to rememberme.

780
01:22:32,291 --> 01:22:37,604
I, Tuco Ramirez, brother ofBrother
Ramirez, will tell you something.

781
01:22:37,691 --> 01:22:39,682
You think you're better than I am.

782
01:22:39,771 --> 01:22:42,410
Where we came from,
ifone did not want to die ofpoverty,

783
01:22:42,491 --> 01:22:44,766
one became a priest ora bandit.

784
01:22:44,851 --> 01:22:48,924
You chose your way, I chose mine.
Mine was harder.

785
01:22:49,011 --> 01:22:50,763
You talk ofourmotherand father.

786
01:22:50,851 --> 01:22:53,888
When you left to become a priest,
I stayed behind.

787
01:22:53,971 --> 01:22:58,010
I must've been ten, twelve,
I don't remember which. But I stayed.

788
01:22:58,091 --> 01:23:00,446
I tried, but it was no good.

789
01:23:00,531 --> 01:23:02,408
Now I'm gonna tell you something.

790
01:23:02,491 --> 01:23:07,406
You became a priest because you were
too much ofa coward to do what I do.

791
01:23:15,571 --> 01:23:21,009
I do think there is some bitter truth in that
exchange between those two brothers.

792
01:23:21,091 --> 01:23:27,007
And I do like the thought that Clint,
as I mentioned earlier,

793
01:23:27,091 --> 01:23:30,003
is very often the observer,

794
01:23:30,091 --> 01:23:38,283
the ironist who is taking in these
occasional moments of high emotion.

795
01:23:38,371 --> 01:23:41,408
Not commenting on them,
not doing anything,

796
01:23:41,491 --> 01:23:45,120
but absorbing them
into his understanding

797
01:23:45,211 --> 01:23:51,650
of what's going on in the film,
in the narrative.

798
01:23:56,211 --> 01:24:00,170
I like the silence
that Clint maintains in this sequence.

799
01:24:00,251 --> 01:24:09,364
And something in his eyes that indicates
a slight growth in sympathy for Tuco.

800
01:24:09,451 --> 01:24:12,011
Nothing he's going
to own up to particularly,

801
01:24:12,091 --> 01:24:20,601
but some kind of, again,
ironic understanding of this guy.

802
01:24:21,451 --> 01:24:26,730
And, of course,
his hypocritic rationalisations

803
01:24:26,811 --> 01:24:33,000
of his relationship with his brother
- "He's a nice guy" and all that -

804
01:24:35,571 --> 01:24:38,210
I think are very nice.

805
01:24:38,291 --> 01:24:40,327
Look at the little look on Clint's face

806
01:24:40,411 --> 01:24:45,326
as he, who knows much better what's
gone down between the two brothers,

807
01:24:45,411 --> 01:24:47,925
just sort of absorbs that.

808
01:24:53,371 --> 01:24:57,649
Well, aftera meal
there's nothing like a good cigar.

809
01:24:58,611 --> 01:25:06,564
It's the first thing that
Blondie has volunteered to Tuco

810
01:25:06,651 --> 01:25:08,721
in the course of this relationship.

811
01:25:08,811 --> 01:25:17,844
In other words, there is some kind
of forging of a bond in this sequence.

812
01:25:17,931 --> 01:25:20,764
Even though it's a very quiet sequence

813
01:25:20,851 --> 01:25:24,890
and not a huge element
in the development of the film,

814
01:25:24,971 --> 01:25:31,285
it is very nice, and I think it will pay off
in the future action of the film.

815
01:25:33,731 --> 01:25:38,600
Each has now done all the dirt
he needs to do to the other guy,

816
01:25:38,691 --> 01:25:45,244
so they are now free to develop some kind
of a wary but authentic relationship.

817
01:25:49,891 --> 01:25:57,684
Now this is again a short sequence
added back in to the film

818
01:25:57,771 --> 01:26:01,400
that was cut in the original
American release print.

819
01:26:01,491 --> 01:26:08,602
It's simply a business of trying
to establish where they're going.

820
01:26:08,691 --> 01:26:13,207
And they do know now
roughly where they should be going.

821
01:26:13,291 --> 01:26:17,842
But this whole business of driving through

822
01:26:17,931 --> 01:26:23,767
a place where an obviously
terrible battle has taken place

823
01:26:23,851 --> 01:26:26,923
is new to the American print.

824
01:26:44,611 --> 01:26:49,002
Now, this is one
of the famous sequences of the film,

825
01:26:49,091 --> 01:26:52,561
that these two Confederate soldiers,

826
01:26:52,651 --> 01:26:56,610
who are not Confederate soldiers
but have their uniforms,

827
01:26:56,691 --> 01:26:59,569
see a troop of cavalry
coming toward them

828
01:26:59,651 --> 01:27:08,320
and assume that they are, from the colour
of their uniforms, also Confederates.

829
01:27:09,371 --> 01:27:11,931
Hurrah for General... What's the name?

830
01:27:12,011 --> 01:27:14,525
- Lee.
- ..Lee!

831
01:27:15,211 --> 01:27:20,001
God is with us because
he hates the Yanks too. Hurrah!

832
01:27:20,091 --> 01:27:23,447
God's not on ourside,
cos he hates idiots also.

833
01:27:27,251 --> 01:27:30,084
What's amusing about this sequence
is, of course,

834
01:27:30,171 --> 01:27:34,562
that dust-covered
they look like Confederates,

835
01:27:34,891 --> 01:27:38,281
but if you brush the dust off
they are union soldiers.

836
01:27:38,371 --> 01:27:40,646
That, incidentally, according to Frayling

837
01:27:40,731 --> 01:27:45,930
is a little conceit that is taken
from an Ambrose Bierce story

838
01:27:46,011 --> 01:27:48,844
in which the same thing happens -

839
01:27:48,931 --> 01:27:53,288
a man in a blue uniform, dust-covered,
looks like a Confederate.

840
01:27:53,371 --> 01:27:57,080
Which I suppose
says something about this war,

841
01:27:57,171 --> 01:28:00,800
in which brother was set against brother.

842
01:28:02,211 --> 01:28:04,088
But this sequence here,

843
01:28:04,171 --> 01:28:11,805
which again is an extraordinarily
long and fairly complicated one,

844
01:28:11,891 --> 01:28:19,400
takes place in a union prison camp
which is called Betterville -

845
01:28:19,491 --> 01:28:25,600
a kind of deeply ironic comment
on prison camps and so forth.

846
01:28:27,451 --> 01:28:30,602
It's an extremely brutal sequence,

847
01:28:30,691 --> 01:28:36,687
and intentionally so by Leone.

848
01:28:37,571 --> 01:28:42,042
Leone was terribly aware
of Andersonville,

849
01:28:42,131 --> 01:28:45,919
the notorious Confederate prison camp

850
01:28:46,011 --> 01:28:51,324
in which thousands upon thousands
of Yankee soldiers died

851
01:28:51,411 --> 01:28:55,199
in the most grim
and sadistic circumstances.

852
01:28:55,291 --> 01:29:05,565
He was also volubly aware of - and
made us aware of in various interviews -

853
01:29:05,651 --> 01:29:13,160
he was also extremely conscious
of the concentration camps

854
01:29:13,251 --> 01:29:17,210
of the fairly recent European war,

855
01:29:17,291 --> 01:29:25,483
and wanted to make a comment
on the death camps.

856
01:29:25,571 --> 01:29:39,121
And this film is about - at this point -
concentration camps, death camps,

857
01:29:39,211 --> 01:29:43,489
and he is definitely making his statement

858
01:29:43,571 --> 01:29:55,130
about this truly unprecedented
lack of humanity in wartime.

859
01:30:14,091 --> 01:30:19,085
Now here, after a long absence
from the film, is Angel Eyes -

860
01:30:20,331 --> 01:30:25,007
which is a name, I think, Eli gave him.

861
01:30:25,091 --> 01:30:28,128
He didn't have that name in the script,

862
01:30:28,211 --> 01:30:34,480
but he became Angel Eyes on the set
and then Angel Eyes in the film.

863
01:30:35,931 --> 01:30:44,760
It's a little bit enigmatic how Angel Eyes
has acquired a Yankee uniform,

864
01:30:44,851 --> 01:30:50,209
a Yankee rank, actually de facto
command of this prison camp.

865
01:30:51,131 --> 01:30:54,123
He's still looking for Bill Carson,

866
01:30:54,211 --> 01:31:01,720
and in the previously deleted scene,
which we saw a bit back,

867
01:31:01,811 --> 01:31:06,805
he has learned that Bill Carson
is a Confederate soldier.

868
01:31:07,651 --> 01:31:11,166
So I suppose there is some kind of logic
that he would think

869
01:31:11,251 --> 01:31:17,201
"Well, Carson will be captured
and we will find him in a prison camp."

870
01:31:17,291 --> 01:31:20,761
I don't think that logic is too intense.

871
01:31:21,451 --> 01:31:29,768
It's one of those little leaps
that Leone requires us to take on faith.

872
01:31:29,851 --> 01:31:35,721
But, face it, that's true of lots of movies,

873
01:31:35,811 --> 01:31:40,839
that the logic of them
is not exactly clockwork.

874
01:31:40,931 --> 01:31:45,925
It's sufficient that he is here,
he's as mean as ever...

875
01:31:52,571 --> 01:31:58,487
Here he is, justifying his cruelty
to the prison commander,

876
01:31:58,571 --> 01:32:03,929
who, it's already been established,
is sorely wounded

877
01:32:04,011 --> 01:32:10,723
and pretty much on his deathbed.

878
01:32:11,491 --> 01:32:13,288
That an accusation?

879
01:32:13,371 --> 01:32:18,206
Sergeant, gangrene is eating
my leg away, not my eyes.

880
01:32:18,771 --> 01:32:21,968
I know the prisoners here
are being robbed systematically.

881
01:32:22,051 --> 01:32:25,168
I know there's scum around
who are bivouacked near the camp,

882
01:32:25,251 --> 01:32:28,323
waiting forsomeone to deliver this loot.

883
01:32:28,411 --> 01:32:32,290
But as long as I'm commandant,
I won'tpermit any such trickery.

884
01:32:32,371 --> 01:32:34,362
Am I clear?.

885
01:32:35,371 --> 01:32:39,250
Yes, sir.
Just as long as you're the commandant.

886
01:32:40,771 --> 01:32:42,762
Yes, Sergeant.

887
01:32:45,051 --> 01:32:48,248
I know this leg means
I won't last very long,

888
01:32:48,331 --> 01:32:51,050
but I pray I can manage
to have enough time

889
01:32:51,131 --> 01:32:54,965
to amass evidence
and bring to a court martial

890
01:32:55,051 --> 01:33:00,489
all those who discredit and dishonour
the uniform ofthe Union.

891
01:33:05,051 --> 01:33:07,246
I wish you luck.

892
01:33:11,091 --> 01:33:18,679
That's one of those sequences that
are almost put in so that we understand

893
01:33:18,771 --> 01:33:26,769
that only a few bad apples in the barrel
are spoiling an honourable cause.

894
01:33:29,291 --> 01:33:32,567
Of course we don't
believe it for a moment.

895
01:33:51,891 --> 01:33:58,922
Speaking of Morricone, this musical
theme here in the prison camp

896
01:33:59,011 --> 01:34:03,641
is truly one of his most beautiful
and haunting themes.

897
01:34:05,251 --> 01:34:12,089
When we've been used
to the kind of weird sounds

898
01:34:12,171 --> 01:34:17,689
that he has produced
throughout the body of Leone's work,

899
01:34:17,771 --> 01:34:23,960
to find this kind of lyrical,
almost Puccini-esque tune playing

900
01:34:24,291 --> 01:34:25,883
is really quite wonderful.

901
01:34:25,971 --> 01:34:28,405
And, of course, it is a precursor

902
01:34:28,491 --> 01:34:35,681
of the much more lyrical
Morricone style of his later works -

903
01:34:35,771 --> 01:34:41,641
and of course he worked for a good many
conventional Hollywood films

904
01:34:41,731 --> 01:34:43,687
in his subsequent career.

905
01:34:43,771 --> 01:34:50,688
But it is, and it will recur
subsequently in this sequence.

906
01:35:10,211 --> 01:35:12,520
Ah, the poison food bit.

907
01:35:14,211 --> 01:35:20,241
Again, the use of these conventions
rather casually in these movies

908
01:35:22,211 --> 01:35:26,568
is, I think, acceptable and amusing.

909
01:35:26,651 --> 01:35:35,684
Again, it's Leone's bow to the heritage that
he both loved and wanted to transcend,

910
01:35:35,771 --> 01:35:39,605
which is that of the American B-movie.

911
01:35:51,811 --> 01:35:57,169
I love the coldness
with which Van Cleef plays

912
01:35:57,251 --> 01:36:03,360
against the excitable warmth of Tuco.

913
01:36:04,811 --> 01:36:09,168
It's a real nice emotional contrast
in this scene.

914
01:36:12,851 --> 01:36:17,049
Throughout I think Angel Eyes is...

915
01:36:18,251 --> 01:36:24,201
There's something
in his utter unforgiving nature

916
01:36:24,291 --> 01:36:27,328
that's really deeply scary in this movie,

917
01:36:27,411 --> 01:36:35,568
and I think he adds
sort of an element of almost profundity.

918
01:37:28,131 --> 01:37:32,761
Here comes the Morricone theme
sneaking back in.

919
01:37:53,491 --> 01:38:01,045
This sequence is, again, another direct
reference to Nazi concentration camps,

920
01:38:01,131 --> 01:38:07,127
many of which,
as Leone was volubly aware of,

921
01:38:07,211 --> 01:38:13,002
contained orchestras which were
composed of the inmates of the camp

922
01:38:13,091 --> 01:38:21,408
and who, to use the title of a television
show about one of those orchestras,

923
01:38:21,491 --> 01:38:25,245
were obliged to play for their lives.

924
01:38:44,331 --> 01:38:52,363
And you'll see in this orchestra
a young soldier weeping with anguish

925
01:38:52,451 --> 01:39:00,244
over the fact that he knows his music is
covering the sounds of this brutal beating.

926
01:39:00,851 --> 01:39:08,041
But in The New York Times review
of this movie, written by Renata Adler -

927
01:39:08,131 --> 01:39:14,445
her review was entitled
"The Burn, the Gouge and the Mangle" -

928
01:39:14,531 --> 01:39:21,084
she wrote that "anyone who'd voluntarily
stay in the theatre beyond this scene

929
01:39:21,171 --> 01:39:26,325
is not someone I should care to meet
in any capacity ever."

930
01:39:26,411 --> 01:39:30,165
Meaning that she found this scene
of Tuco's torture

931
01:39:30,251 --> 01:39:34,324
by Angel Eyes and Wallace, his associate,

932
01:39:34,411 --> 01:39:39,724
to be just beyond the beyond
in terms of brutality.

933
01:39:39,811 --> 01:39:47,968
And to her it is the controlling image
of this movie, which she utterly despised -

934
01:39:49,531 --> 01:39:55,925
ignoring the fact that in these cutaways
to the listening prisoners

935
01:39:56,011 --> 01:39:58,605
and in particular to the orchestra

936
01:39:58,691 --> 01:40:05,608
an enormous amount
of answering compassion is expressed.

937
01:40:06,851 --> 01:40:12,960
You can't deny
that this is a truly brutal scene.

938
01:40:13,051 --> 01:40:19,206
On the other hand,
we're talking 1966 and we're in 2003,

939
01:40:19,291 --> 01:40:23,409
and though it's ugly

940
01:40:27,211 --> 01:40:37,724
I don't think it exceeds anything like
our current standards of brutality.

941
01:40:43,331 --> 01:40:45,606
This is the shot I was referring to earlier

942
01:40:45,691 --> 01:40:53,803
of the young soldier
who is all too aware of what his role is

943
01:40:53,891 --> 01:40:58,043
in covering this brutality.

944
01:40:58,771 --> 01:41:01,968
And the tear is significant.

945
01:41:02,811 --> 01:41:05,723
And so is his reaction here.

946
01:41:12,851 --> 01:41:20,439
I think also the Adler review is totally
unaware of the irony portrayed here -

947
01:41:20,531 --> 01:41:24,240
the sheer beauty of the music

948
01:41:24,331 --> 01:41:31,169
in contrast to the brutality of the action
inside the headquarters of the camp.

949
01:41:33,571 --> 01:41:39,282
I don't think it's a scene
of pure brutality or pure sadism.

950
01:41:52,931 --> 01:41:58,005
The avidity of that close-up
is kind of remarkable too.

951
01:42:08,491 --> 01:42:10,561
Nobody can withstand this torment,

952
01:42:10,651 --> 01:42:18,331
and of course Tuco must give up
the partial information he has

953
01:42:18,411 --> 01:42:21,483
about the whereabouts of the gold.

954
01:42:46,931 --> 01:42:54,042
Interesting here, in that the ostensible
hero is not going to be tortured.

955
01:42:55,851 --> 01:42:58,445
What's going to happen is that, of course,

956
01:42:58,531 --> 01:43:04,561
Angel Eyes is going to try
and make common cause with the hero.

957
01:44:28,051 --> 01:44:33,648
Nice moment there, where Angel Eyes
recognises, perhaps for the first time,

958
01:44:33,731 --> 01:44:39,886
that this is the most adept gun in the West
and that he has taken on a partner

959
01:44:39,971 --> 01:44:46,649
who, in the end, would be
infinitely more dangerous than Tuco.

960
01:44:53,451 --> 01:44:57,410
This is a reference
to the Brady wartime photographs

961
01:44:57,491 --> 01:45:01,848
that are extremely significant in terms
of the visual design of this picture.

962
01:45:01,931 --> 01:45:06,209
I mean, he pored over Brady photographs,
Leone did,

963
01:45:06,291 --> 01:45:12,161
in order to get a sense
of Civil War battlefields,

964
01:45:12,251 --> 01:45:17,200
even though there were very few
Civil War battlefields in the Far West.

965
01:45:17,291 --> 01:45:22,126
He did find one such
minor engagement in Texas.

966
01:45:22,211 --> 01:45:25,248
He was very proud
of the fact that he'd found that

967
01:45:25,331 --> 01:45:31,440
because official histories that he had read

968
01:45:31,531 --> 01:45:38,130
had not made much reference
to the war in the West -

969
01:45:38,211 --> 01:45:41,601
which was, admittedly, a minor theatre.

970
01:45:41,691 --> 01:45:46,685
But he was very proud of the fact
that there was historical justification

971
01:45:46,771 --> 01:45:53,449
for setting at least some Civil War combat
in the American West.

972
01:46:37,891 --> 01:46:43,966
Tuco has become, in effect, useless now
to Angel Eyes and his confederate -

973
01:46:44,051 --> 01:46:45,848
or confederates -

974
01:46:45,931 --> 01:46:52,723
and he's obviously being taken
away for the last time

975
01:46:54,451 --> 01:47:00,242
and this is a train journey,
ostensibly, to his death.

976
01:47:04,531 --> 01:47:08,285
Here is another of the restored scenes,

977
01:47:08,371 --> 01:47:14,526
and it's a little bit more enigmatic
why the sequence that we're about to see

978
01:47:14,611 --> 01:47:22,291
was cut out of the American release print,
because it involves an actual shoot-out

979
01:47:22,371 --> 01:47:28,128
and one that features the star of the film,
Clint Eastwood.

980
01:47:28,211 --> 01:47:34,525
And it's not a particularly lengthy thing -
it's a little under two minutes.

981
01:47:37,451 --> 01:47:44,129
I guess you could argue that it perhaps
doesn't particularly advance the plot,

982
01:47:44,211 --> 01:47:46,600
but what it does advance

983
01:47:46,691 --> 01:47:54,928
is something of the relationship
between Angel Eyes and Blondie.

984
01:47:55,011 --> 01:48:05,808
In other words, they have
established a more cynical

985
01:48:05,891 --> 01:48:13,650
and mutually-using
and also wary relationship,

986
01:48:13,731 --> 01:48:17,167
as compared
to Blondie's relationship with Tuco.

987
01:48:17,251 --> 01:48:20,561
..four, fiive, six.

988
01:48:21,011 --> 01:48:24,048
Six. Perfect number.

989
01:48:25,611 --> 01:48:31,527
That is to say it's the perfect number
because he carries a six-shooter.

990
01:48:40,731 --> 01:48:43,291
Were he not quite such an evil figure,

991
01:48:43,371 --> 01:48:47,728
you could imagine those two guys
having an actual friendly relationship -

992
01:48:47,811 --> 01:48:50,769
which indeed they did have
in Fora Few Dollars More,

993
01:48:50,851 --> 01:48:54,969
which is really quite
a lovely male relationship

994
01:48:55,051 --> 01:49:01,604
between Lee Van Cleefs character
and Clint's character in that earlier movie.

995
01:49:04,691 --> 01:49:10,288
In that picture the Van Cleef character
is a very haunted character

996
01:49:10,371 --> 01:49:16,560
because he's searching for revenge
for a particularly evil depredation

997
01:49:16,651 --> 01:49:22,009
against the woman he loves,
who was his sister, actually.

998
01:49:24,291 --> 01:49:29,570
So this is, for Van Cleef,
I guess you'd say kind of a reversion

999
01:49:29,651 --> 01:49:32,484
to what he had typically played
in American westerns,

1000
01:49:32,571 --> 01:49:38,760
which was usually as a second
or third gunman - but not a good guy.

1001
01:49:38,851 --> 01:49:46,007
Probably his best role as a sympathetic
character was in Fora Few Dollars More.

1002
01:50:15,051 --> 01:50:21,923
The unfortunate but yet totally evil
sergeant is played by Mario Brega,

1003
01:50:22,011 --> 01:50:29,486
who was, again, part of Leone's
more or less regular company in his films.

1004
01:50:34,651 --> 01:50:37,484
The scene that we're coming up to now,

1005
01:50:37,571 --> 01:50:44,727
which involves Tuco getting himself
cut loose from his captor,

1006
01:50:47,371 --> 01:50:50,647
was for Eli -

1007
01:50:52,051 --> 01:50:59,127
whose guardian angel Clint was
apparently not around for this sequence -

1008
01:51:00,131 --> 01:51:03,203
was a pretty dangerous sequence,

1009
01:51:04,611 --> 01:51:10,368
which we will shortly see.

1010
01:51:12,051 --> 01:51:17,250
Obviously the way to break his chain

1011
01:51:17,331 --> 01:51:23,679
is to hope that a train will come along
and break the chain.

1012
01:51:25,491 --> 01:51:27,686
The trouble from Eli's point of view

1013
01:51:27,771 --> 01:51:35,280
is that he was very very close
to the passing train

1014
01:51:35,371 --> 01:51:40,320
and in the first take of the sequence

1015
01:51:44,571 --> 01:51:46,641
was uncomfortably too close,

1016
01:51:46,731 --> 01:51:53,682
and so Leone had to dig a somewhat
deeper trench for him to be in.

1017
01:51:53,771 --> 01:52:02,281
He survived the first take
by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin,

1018
01:52:02,371 --> 01:52:10,085
and then got himself into a more
comfortable situation for the second take.

1019
01:52:10,171 --> 01:52:12,162
But, as Clint kept saying,

1020
01:52:13,451 --> 01:52:19,481
Italian filmmaking was a rough-and-ready
occupation in those days.

1021
01:52:19,571 --> 01:52:21,721
In fact, on the earlier Leone pictures

1022
01:52:21,811 --> 01:52:27,807
they had no amenities of the kind
that American stars are used to.

1023
01:52:27,891 --> 01:52:30,963
There weren't even any honey wagons.

1024
01:52:31,051 --> 01:52:37,365
If you had to relieve yourself, you went
out behind a rock in Almeria, Spain.

1025
01:52:38,371 --> 01:52:41,363
Things were somewhat better

1026
01:52:41,451 --> 01:52:44,284
by the time they were making
Good, Bad and the Ugly,

1027
01:52:44,371 --> 01:52:48,887
but still you had to keep yourself alert.

1028
01:52:57,011 --> 01:53:02,563
The casual brutality of a scene like that

1029
01:53:03,971 --> 01:53:06,690
is something that was
certainly a Leone specialty.

1030
01:53:06,771 --> 01:53:14,280
It certainly fitted
with his vision of American life.

1031
01:53:14,371 --> 01:53:16,839
One of the things
that happened with Leone

1032
01:53:16,931 --> 01:53:20,719
was that he had idealised
and romanticised Americans

1033
01:53:20,811 --> 01:53:23,848
based on his reading
of American popular fiction.

1034
01:53:23,931 --> 01:53:26,889
Then he encountered Americans
as a young guy

1035
01:53:26,971 --> 01:53:29,804
when the Americans invaded ltaly,

1036
01:53:29,891 --> 01:53:35,090
and found, as he said, that Americans
were less romantic and less idealistic.

1037
01:53:35,171 --> 01:53:40,120
They were perfectly happy
to participate in the black market,

1038
01:53:40,211 --> 01:53:46,810
they were perfectly happy to exploit
women as prostitutes in war-torn ltaly.

1039
01:53:46,891 --> 01:53:52,682
So his vision of America darkened
and his vision of Americans darkened.

1040
01:53:52,771 --> 01:54:02,407
And that is something of what went into
his creation of films like this one

1041
01:54:02,491 --> 01:54:05,324
and the previous Dollarfilms.

1042
01:54:06,091 --> 01:54:08,525
He, I don't think, ever entirely lost

1043
01:54:08,611 --> 01:54:14,641
his visionary love
of the expansiveness of America,

1044
01:54:14,731 --> 01:54:19,202
but he came to take what he thought of
as a more realistic view

1045
01:54:19,291 --> 01:54:21,964
of the American character.

1046
01:54:23,771 --> 01:54:31,769
And certainly the characters played
by Angel Eyes or Wallace, his assistant,

1047
01:54:32,971 --> 01:54:39,206
are examples of Leone's
increasing postwar cynicism.

1048
01:54:57,891 --> 01:55:01,167
Now here we are in a disused hotel.

1049
01:55:02,571 --> 01:55:06,564
One of the things that's interesting
about this movie in particular

1050
01:55:06,651 --> 01:55:13,568
is how people keep getting detached
from where they're supposed to be.

1051
01:55:13,651 --> 01:55:20,807
They kind of wander about
and wander back into relationships

1052
01:55:20,891 --> 01:55:26,284
that you would think would be over
in the normal course of existence.

1053
01:55:27,051 --> 01:55:32,330
That's kind of what's gonna happen
subsequent to this sequence.

1054
01:55:32,411 --> 01:55:40,841
In other words, how it is that Eli Wallach
happens to wander to the very same town

1055
01:55:40,931 --> 01:55:46,881
that Clint and Lee Van Cleef
are also wandering toward.

1056
01:55:47,211 --> 01:55:50,283
Yeah, they're still pursuing the gold

1057
01:55:50,371 --> 01:55:54,922
and we imagine perhaps that this town
is somehow on the road to the cemetery

1058
01:55:55,011 --> 01:55:57,809
where that gold is buried,

1059
01:55:57,891 --> 01:56:07,050
but it's very coincidental
and kind of non-intentional.

1060
01:56:09,651 --> 01:56:14,167
It has already been established
that Eli Wallach stinks like a pig

1061
01:56:14,251 --> 01:56:20,201
from his prison and other experiences
at the hands of Angel Eyes,

1062
01:56:20,291 --> 01:56:24,682
so this is kind of a nicely motivated
little moment here.

1063
01:56:24,771 --> 01:56:30,323
And it leads to, I think,
one of the best gags in the picture.

1064
01:57:18,011 --> 01:57:23,768
Yeah - he was in fact
the first close-up we saw in this picture.

1065
01:57:38,011 --> 01:57:41,481
Never use one bullet where four will do.

1066
01:57:46,771 --> 01:57:50,127
When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk.

1067
01:57:52,291 --> 01:57:55,044
Again, we've certainly
seen that sequence before,

1068
01:57:55,131 --> 01:58:01,206
where the bad guy - or the more bad guy -
talks instead of shooting,

1069
01:58:01,291 --> 01:58:05,443
but it's a nicely staged little sequence.

1070
01:58:43,251 --> 01:58:47,449
One of the things that, of course,
is notable about ltalian westerns

1071
01:58:47,531 --> 01:58:52,241
is that most dialogue
is not recorded on the set.

1072
01:58:52,331 --> 01:58:56,210
At most they would use
whatever sound they took

1073
01:58:56,291 --> 01:59:05,927
as guide tracks for subsequent dubbing
of the actual soundtrack for the film.

1074
01:59:06,011 --> 01:59:10,004
And that was probably
largely true in this movie.

1075
01:59:14,411 --> 01:59:18,882
Clint, on the first picture, Fistflul ofDollars,

1076
01:59:18,971 --> 01:59:24,648
was utterly convinced
that ltalians would lose the guide tracks,

1077
01:59:24,731 --> 01:59:30,124
so that they would be in a difficult position
should they want to dub it into English.

1078
01:59:30,211 --> 01:59:37,686
And in fact that happened, and Clint had
kept his script and had kept careful notes

1079
01:59:37,771 --> 01:59:42,322
of the changes that had occurred -
as they always do on films -

1080
01:59:42,411 --> 01:59:46,290
when dialogue
was actually recorded in scenes.

1081
01:59:46,371 --> 01:59:50,762
So he was in possession
on A Fistflul ofDollars

1082
01:59:50,851 --> 01:59:54,082
of the only authentic record...

1083
02:00:28,411 --> 02:00:31,767
I get dressed, I kill him, be right back.

1084
02:00:31,851 --> 02:00:34,240
That's a great line there.

1085
02:00:51,611 --> 02:00:54,125
It doesn't matter. I'll kill them all.

1086
02:00:58,691 --> 02:01:02,479
We have the sense
that that may well happen.

1087
02:01:18,731 --> 02:01:24,647
I love the way the war just keeps casually
intruding upon these guys' adventures.

1088
02:01:24,731 --> 02:01:28,929
You know, they're sitting around
and the next thing you know

1089
02:01:29,011 --> 02:01:35,723
a huge cannonball is landing in the middle
of this already virtually ruined town.

1090
02:01:36,771 --> 02:01:39,922
And I think that is a statement
that Leone is making -

1091
02:01:40,011 --> 02:01:44,926
it's about the provisionality
and accidental qualities of modern life.

1092
02:01:45,011 --> 02:01:55,159
That a lot of living and dying
in the modern violent world...

1093
02:01:55,251 --> 02:02:00,484
And we must remember that the Civil War
was, in some sense, the first modern war,

1094
02:02:00,571 --> 02:02:04,769
the first war where
truly mass killing was taking place.

1095
02:02:04,851 --> 02:02:11,643
And this notion of the provisionality of life,

1096
02:02:11,731 --> 02:02:14,848
the casualness with which
it can be taken from us,

1097
02:02:14,931 --> 02:02:20,324
is something that was very much
on his very European mind -

1098
02:02:20,411 --> 02:02:25,849
and the European mind had certainly
been conditioned by the horrors of WWWll.

1099
02:02:25,931 --> 02:02:35,363
So this is a sequence that I think,
particularly in the way it's set up,

1100
02:02:35,451 --> 02:02:43,449
although it kind of works out as
a conventional street-shooting sequence,

1101
02:02:43,531 --> 02:02:47,843
certainly starts out as something
that has a little bit more to say

1102
02:02:47,931 --> 02:02:56,930
about the casual way
in which life can be snuffed out.

1103
02:03:27,331 --> 02:03:31,643
I don't think that Leone,
in his previous two westerns,

1104
02:03:31,731 --> 02:03:36,521
had all the wherewithal
that he had in this film

1105
02:03:36,611 --> 02:03:43,528
to do the kind of coverage that he rather
obviously did in sequences like this.

1106
02:03:43,611 --> 02:03:51,040
But I think - and it's certainly true
of his later, more epic films,

1107
02:03:51,131 --> 02:03:55,682
the Once Upon a Time films, as it were -

1108
02:03:55,771 --> 02:04:06,124
he certainly by then had the wherewithal
to do as much coverage as he wanted

1109
02:04:06,211 --> 02:04:11,808
and to put the film together
very much in the editing room.

1110
02:04:27,931 --> 02:04:36,123
One of things you do notice
in this walk-down against the bad guys -

1111
02:04:36,211 --> 02:04:40,284
and there is certainly a reference here,
I think, to High Noon,

1112
02:04:40,371 --> 02:04:48,961
in which, in that case, one lone lawman
has to take on a gang of about this size.

1113
02:04:50,251 --> 02:04:52,640
It certainly is a reference to that.

1114
02:04:52,731 --> 02:05:01,924
But I think there's more humour
in the way that Leone stages this scene

1115
02:05:02,011 --> 02:05:05,208
than, say, Fred Zinnemann did
in High Noon.

1116
02:05:05,291 --> 02:05:09,648
I think there is a kind of
post-modernist awareness

1117
02:05:09,731 --> 02:05:18,048
that you can't quite take these
highly conventionalised sequences

1118
02:05:18,131 --> 02:05:26,084
as seriously, as melodramatically as was
previously the case in classic westerns.

1119
02:05:26,171 --> 02:05:28,241
Funny line here.

1120
02:05:28,331 --> 02:05:30,765
"Idiots."

1121
02:05:30,851 --> 02:05:32,842
It's foryou.

1122
02:05:37,771 --> 02:05:44,119
Again, notice the way, whenever
there's a zinger like "Idiots. It's for you",

1123
02:05:44,211 --> 02:05:46,167
Morricone's score pops in there

1124
02:05:46,251 --> 02:05:57,446
just to give a nice little ironic, humorous
emphasis to the humour of the line.

1125
02:06:13,731 --> 02:06:19,840
Where Eli is taking him is really
to the moral centre of this movie.

1126
02:06:19,931 --> 02:06:23,207
It's something I've obviously
alluded to before,

1127
02:06:23,291 --> 02:06:31,562
but it is to a meaningless
and brutal conflict

1128
02:06:31,651 --> 02:06:34,643
in which two armies
are drawn up on either side of a river

1129
02:06:34,731 --> 02:06:40,124
and they are contending
for the bridge that controls the river.

1130
02:06:40,211 --> 02:06:42,964
There are new shots in this sequence

1131
02:06:43,051 --> 02:06:46,964
that were cut from
the original American release print.

1132
02:06:47,051 --> 02:06:53,843
The sequence in particular, I think,
is a reference to World War l,

1133
02:06:53,931 --> 02:06:56,081
not to World War Il in this case,

1134
02:06:56,171 --> 02:07:02,167
because what we're seeing is an
enormously elaborate system of trenches,

1135
02:07:02,251 --> 02:07:04,162
and that was a trench war,

1136
02:07:04,251 --> 02:07:10,520
and it was a war in which
the slaughter in the trenches

1137
02:07:10,611 --> 02:07:15,082
had become, as we historically
look at World War l,

1138
02:07:15,171 --> 02:07:18,083
an unconscionable waste of lives.

1139
02:07:18,171 --> 02:07:23,450
But it was a waste of lives
in a static warfare

1140
02:07:23,531 --> 02:07:28,161
in which neither side could advance
particularly or retreat particularly,

1141
02:07:28,251 --> 02:07:31,448
and yet men in their hundreds
of thousands were killed

1142
02:07:31,531 --> 02:07:37,401
for these pitiful advantages -
50 yards, 100 yards -

1143
02:07:37,491 --> 02:07:41,086
which was then taken back
by the other side in the next day or two.

1144
02:07:41,171 --> 02:07:45,449
So this is a direct reference
by Sergio Leone

1145
02:07:45,531 --> 02:07:56,886
to the waste of earlier modern warfare -
that is to say, World War I warfare.

1146
02:07:56,971 --> 02:08:02,682
World War Il was not, of course,
particularly a war of trench warfare.

1147
02:08:10,731 --> 02:08:12,881
So you want to enlist.

1148
02:08:13,811 --> 02:08:16,609
You gotta take a test to prove it.

1149
02:08:24,971 --> 02:08:27,166
Well, show me.

1150
02:08:30,891 --> 02:08:35,442
What he is really saying implicitly,
and will shortly say explicitly,

1151
02:08:35,531 --> 02:08:45,645
is that he who will survive this war
is the man who can keep himself drunk,

1152
02:08:45,731 --> 02:08:48,803
and thus half oblivious to its waste.

1153
02:08:49,411 --> 02:08:53,529
You've got a career.
At the least I'd say you'll make colonel.

1154
02:08:53,611 --> 02:08:56,171
- Really?
- Sure.

1155
02:08:56,251 --> 02:08:58,367
Like it says in the manual,

1156
02:08:58,451 --> 02:09:03,730
you've got every qualifiication to become
an expert in the use ofweapons.

1157
02:09:03,811 --> 02:09:07,724
For this, sir,
is the mostpotent weapon in war.

1158
02:09:10,291 --> 02:09:13,488
The fiighting spirit's in this bottle.

1159
02:09:31,371 --> 02:09:33,726
It's an interesting concept, that one -

1160
02:09:33,811 --> 02:09:41,889
the drunken commander of
a rather large unit in a rather large battle.

1161
02:09:43,931 --> 02:09:47,719
I'm not particularly familiar
with the drunken -

1162
02:09:47,811 --> 02:09:52,839
or at least drunk-on-duty -
officer in war films.

1163
02:09:52,931 --> 02:09:58,244
So it's kind of an interesting,
novel conceit on Leone's part.

1164
02:10:23,611 --> 02:10:30,050
See, what this officer
in his drunkenness understands

1165
02:10:30,131 --> 02:10:36,650
is that these are guys
who are kind of picaresque heroes -

1166
02:10:36,731 --> 02:10:44,319
that is to say, heroes
who are on an adventurous quest,

1167
02:10:44,411 --> 02:10:49,531
the goal of which
is less important than the quest itself.

1168
02:10:49,611 --> 02:10:57,370
The journey being
of more interest than the goal.

1169
02:10:57,451 --> 02:11:02,809
And I think that's a true enough
Leone characterisation

1170
02:11:02,891 --> 02:11:06,361
of what's going on with these guys.

1171
02:11:42,371 --> 02:11:47,320
It's a court-martial offence to imagine, to
dream ofblowing it up. A serious crime.

1172
02:11:47,411 --> 02:11:52,166
Even to think ofdestroying
that bridge isjust...

1173
02:11:54,371 --> 02:11:57,204
Why not really blow it up, Captain?

1174
02:11:58,131 --> 02:12:01,203
Now there's a good idea.

1175
02:12:01,291 --> 02:12:04,681
And, of course, that's what the freelance

1176
02:12:04,771 --> 02:12:08,286
or picaresque character in a movie
can always do.

1177
02:12:08,371 --> 02:12:16,403
I mean, without allegiance
to any larger group or larger ideology,

1178
02:12:16,491 --> 02:12:19,961
he - or they, in this case -
can just look at the situation

1179
02:12:20,051 --> 02:12:24,920
and say "Why don't we just
think outside the box on this one?"

1180
02:12:25,011 --> 02:12:29,880
And that's, of course,
what is going to happen.

1181
02:12:31,011 --> 02:12:39,043
There the first explosions
betoken the daily attack

1182
02:12:40,331 --> 02:12:45,280
over this, you know, insane situation.

1183
02:12:48,251 --> 02:12:55,248
This is a sequence in the film
that took Sergio and his company

1184
02:12:55,331 --> 02:12:58,050
away from where they were used
to shooting in Spain,

1185
02:12:58,131 --> 02:13:02,647
which was in Almeria in the flat,
hot, desert-like plains of the south,

1186
02:13:02,731 --> 02:13:04,528
into the north of the country

1187
02:13:04,611 --> 02:13:08,843
where, logically, you could find
a river in a mountain gorge

1188
02:13:08,931 --> 02:13:11,650
and all the things
he needed for this sequence.

1189
02:13:16,611 --> 02:13:22,083
I think you will see in this sequence and
in its management of very large forces -

1190
02:13:22,171 --> 02:13:31,125
much larger forces than either
in the Dollarfilms or earlier in this film -

1191
02:13:31,211 --> 02:13:37,207
that Leone, who had served a long, long
apprenticeship as an assistant director,

1192
02:13:37,291 --> 02:13:44,129
often working for American directors
like Raoul Walsh and Robert Wise in ltaly,

1193
02:13:44,211 --> 02:13:46,202
where American companies came

1194
02:13:46,291 --> 02:13:51,923
because it was cheaper
to shoot epics in ltaly,

1195
02:13:52,011 --> 02:13:56,084
where the salaries were low
and the unions nonexistent.

1196
02:13:56,171 --> 02:14:01,803
And he learned his craft. He really knew
how to handle large-scale forces.

1197
02:14:01,891 --> 02:14:03,882
It was not just practical experience.

1198
02:14:03,971 --> 02:14:07,327
If you look at this sequence,
you can certainly see

1199
02:14:07,411 --> 02:14:15,807
references to classic war films -
certainly some shots that put me in mind

1200
02:14:15,891 --> 02:14:20,567
of some of the shots in Milestone's
All Quiet on the Western Front,

1201
02:14:20,651 --> 02:14:24,200
or Kubrick's Paths ofGlory.

1202
02:14:24,291 --> 02:14:32,005
You know, these are kind of
classic pieces of filmmaking by Leone.

1203
02:14:34,411 --> 02:14:37,926
A big difference here, I think,

1204
02:14:38,011 --> 02:14:46,567
is that as the two objective observers,
if you will, Tuco and Blondie, watch,

1205
02:14:48,291 --> 02:14:54,446
Clint speaks what amounts
to the essential moral -

1206
02:14:54,531 --> 02:14:56,761
certainly of this sequence.

1207
02:14:56,851 --> 02:15:01,447
Cos he speaks,
as you will very shortly hear,

1208
02:15:01,531 --> 02:15:11,964
of the simple waste of men over
a meaningless object of contention.

1209
02:15:13,451 --> 02:15:17,239
I've neverseen so many men
wasted so badly.

1210
02:15:20,451 --> 02:15:27,801
Is it possible that Blondie
has all along been a secret moralist?

1211
02:15:27,891 --> 02:15:34,967
I don't know, but I think there is that
movement in the character Clint's playing,

1212
02:15:35,051 --> 02:15:47,122
that he is perhaps a better man than he
knows or wants to publicly acknowledge.

1213
02:16:01,931 --> 02:16:07,130
What would happen
ifsomebody were to blow up that bridge?

1214
02:16:07,211 --> 02:16:09,281
Yeah.

1215
02:16:09,371 --> 02:16:12,727
Then these idiots
would go somewhere else to fiight.

1216
02:16:12,811 --> 02:16:14,688
Maybe.

1217
02:16:15,891 --> 02:16:22,205
There is the crazy logic of what's going
to happen in the next few minutes.

1218
02:16:23,331 --> 02:16:27,768
Obviously, if you remove
the object of contention,

1219
02:16:27,851 --> 02:16:35,963
you will remove the thing
that's blocking their way to the cemetery.

1220
02:16:40,851 --> 02:16:44,480
In this sequence -
and I think it may be just there,

1221
02:16:44,571 --> 02:16:50,601
where we saw Clint and Eli
having to duck down from that explosion -

1222
02:16:53,051 --> 02:16:59,763
Clint had felt that they were too close
to where the explosives were going off

1223
02:16:59,851 --> 02:17:04,606
and had proposed to Eli
that they move back at least a few steps,

1224
02:17:04,691 --> 02:17:06,807
to be out of harm's way.

1225
02:17:06,891 --> 02:17:10,725
And that proved to be the case.

1226
02:17:10,811 --> 02:17:15,043
Although whether it was this sequence
or a subsequent sequence I'm not certain.

1227
02:17:15,131 --> 02:17:18,885
Could have been both of them.
But, again, it proved Clint's point -

1228
02:17:18,971 --> 02:17:25,763
that making movies ltalian-style
could be dangerous.

1229
02:17:41,291 --> 02:17:45,569
Take a slug ofthis, Captain.
And keep your ears open.

1230
02:17:50,131 --> 02:17:55,569
See, again, that's one of the advantages
of the freelance life -

1231
02:17:55,651 --> 02:17:59,326
these guys aren't under anybody's orders.

1232
02:17:59,411 --> 02:18:04,246
These guys can do whatever they want
to advance their own particular needs.

1233
02:18:04,331 --> 02:18:06,526
So they're going to do two things.

1234
02:18:06,611 --> 02:18:09,887
One large, good thing,
which is to blow up the bridge

1235
02:18:09,971 --> 02:18:17,082
and end this endless,
bloodthirsty, life-draining battle,

1236
02:18:17,171 --> 02:18:19,890
but that will also, of course,
clear their way

1237
02:18:19,971 --> 02:18:24,362
toward their own
more personal and private goal.

1238
02:18:46,291 --> 02:18:50,364
The point that's being made
in this sequence

1239
02:18:50,451 --> 02:18:56,970
is a point Charlie Chaplin, oddly enough,
had made almost 20 years earlier

1240
02:18:57,051 --> 02:18:59,167
in Monsieur Verdoux,

1241
02:18:59,251 --> 02:19:08,842
where his character Verdoux
was killing women for their money

1242
02:19:08,931 --> 02:19:13,686
and is caught and makes
a defence of himself in the trial,

1243
02:19:13,771 --> 02:19:19,687
and says "My crimes are paltry
compared to the crimes of nations,

1244
02:19:19,771 --> 02:19:26,404
which are blowing up one another" -
by that time with atomic weapons -

1245
02:19:26,491 --> 02:19:31,087
and doing it, as he says,
very scientifically.

1246
02:19:34,251 --> 02:19:41,726
Leone specifically referred
to that business in Monsieur Verdoux,

1247
02:19:41,811 --> 02:19:48,080
saying that he was trying to say
the exact same thing in this sequence -

1248
02:19:48,171 --> 02:20:01,642
that the crimes that Blondie and Tuco
are certainly overtly pursuing

1249
02:20:01,731 --> 02:20:11,561
are nothing compared to the nearly
genocidal murders they move through

1250
02:20:11,651 --> 02:20:16,805
and here, at the bridge,
get intimately involved with.

1251
02:20:49,611 --> 02:20:56,005
This is, of course,
one of those lengthy processes

1252
02:20:56,091 --> 02:21:06,239
by which vast objects are wired
for their ultimate destruction.

1253
02:21:07,931 --> 02:21:13,130
The point here is, of course, to intercut it
with the more intimate scenes

1254
02:21:13,211 --> 02:21:15,725
of the colonel

1255
02:21:18,531 --> 02:21:21,887
coming to his last.

1256
02:21:23,451 --> 02:21:27,729
What's good about
the structure of this sequence

1257
02:21:27,811 --> 02:21:39,086
is that while these guys
are arranging to blow up the bridge,

1258
02:21:40,971 --> 02:21:49,720
a point is being made - that they know
that the colonel is gonna die,

1259
02:21:49,811 --> 02:21:52,928
and it's in a funny way
their little gift to him,

1260
02:21:53,011 --> 02:22:05,765
that they will take care of destroying
the object that has destroyed him.

1261
02:22:07,211 --> 02:22:10,408
So it's kind of a nice irony
they're working on here

1262
02:22:10,491 --> 02:22:15,246
and it comes to a nice conclusion
when the bridge finally goes up

1263
02:22:15,331 --> 02:22:19,768
and it's virtually the last thing
the colonel hears.

1264
02:23:10,371 --> 02:23:16,526
Now, it is important to understand that
this bridge had to be blown up twice.

1265
02:23:16,611 --> 02:23:25,724
The verbal signal that Leone had arranged
with his explosives guy

1266
02:23:25,811 --> 02:23:28,803
he accidentally uttered

1267
02:23:28,891 --> 02:23:34,329
before his cameras were entirely ready
to record that destruction.

1268
02:23:35,491 --> 02:23:37,959
So it went unrecorded,

1269
02:23:38,051 --> 02:23:42,010
and there was a delay
of at least a week or ten days

1270
02:23:42,091 --> 02:23:45,606
while the whole bridge had to be rebuilt.

1271
02:23:45,691 --> 02:23:48,410
Leone was, of course, furious

1272
02:23:48,491 --> 02:23:54,964
as only he could be furious,
in a slightly comical, ltalianate way,

1273
02:23:55,051 --> 02:23:57,611
but it was a miserable misunderstanding.

1274
02:23:57,691 --> 02:24:05,564
And although the budget was fair-sized on
this movie, it certainly delayed shooting.

1275
02:25:14,211 --> 02:25:21,162
Kind of a comic arrangement
of Clint and Eli in that sequence.

1276
02:25:28,251 --> 02:25:32,642
And now, after all those weeks
and months, it's over.

1277
02:25:35,891 --> 02:25:39,600
The armies have magically withdrawn.

1278
02:25:41,891 --> 02:25:49,002
The way is clear
for them to head for Sad Hill

1279
02:25:49,091 --> 02:25:54,609
and the long-awaited conclusion
to this movie.

1280
02:25:54,691 --> 02:25:58,730
But not before there is
a lovely little sequence

1281
02:25:58,811 --> 02:26:02,599
that we're shortly going to encounter.

1282
02:26:35,851 --> 02:26:39,048
I think, as a director,

1283
02:26:39,131 --> 02:26:46,606
that Clint learned something about
spaciousness and spectacle from Leone.

1284
02:26:49,091 --> 02:26:55,087
He always liked that. He uses the word
"spectacle" when he talks about Leone.

1285
02:26:55,171 --> 02:27:02,521
And I think he did acquire
some sense of that from Leone.

1286
02:27:02,611 --> 02:27:06,365
Now here's one of Leone's
bare, ruined choirs.

1287
02:27:06,451 --> 02:27:12,208
It's a church that's been bombed
out of any useful existence,

1288
02:27:14,171 --> 02:27:23,807
but it becomes the setting for, I think, one
of the nicest little sequences in the film.

1289
02:27:23,891 --> 02:27:30,888
Again, one of those sequences that
the critics of the time persistently ignored.

1290
02:27:30,971 --> 02:27:33,041
But what we have here is a place

1291
02:27:33,131 --> 02:27:37,966
where obviously some skirmish
in the larger battle had taken place,

1292
02:27:38,051 --> 02:27:46,686
and Clint comes along
and finds this very young dying soldier.

1293
02:27:49,331 --> 02:27:55,406
He recognises that this kid
is not gonna live for long.

1294
02:27:59,331 --> 02:28:03,927
He covers him with his own coat,

1295
02:28:04,011 --> 02:28:09,927
which is an act that has
certain Biblical overtones to it,

1296
02:28:10,011 --> 02:28:19,488
and more than that, shares with
the dying soldier his trademark cigar.

1297
02:28:20,771 --> 02:28:27,529
Just recognise that, when he finally
acknowledged Tuco's humanity

1298
02:28:27,611 --> 02:28:33,561
back there after the mission sequence,
he also shared his cigar with him.

1299
02:28:33,651 --> 02:28:36,848
So it is a symbolic act,

1300
02:28:37,651 --> 02:28:40,290
and, you know,

1301
02:28:42,291 --> 02:28:50,960
there's a quality in this thing
that we have not seen

1302
02:28:51,491 --> 02:28:59,250
in any of Clint's previous work for Leone,
this compassionate moment.

1303
02:29:00,251 --> 02:29:07,407
And, just incidentally there,
he picks up the other symbolic item

1304
02:29:07,491 --> 02:29:14,249
from his previous Leone work,
which is his famous serape,

1305
02:29:14,331 --> 02:29:18,768
and prepares for what I think
is one of the best gags in the movie.

1306
02:29:18,851 --> 02:29:21,126
Maybe one of the best Clint gags ever.

1307
02:29:21,211 --> 02:29:26,888
You know, the famous guy with
the .44 Magnum, a toter of big guns,

1308
02:29:26,971 --> 02:29:31,965
here fires absolutely
the biggest gun of his career

1309
02:29:32,051 --> 02:29:35,043
with uncanny accuracy, one might say.

1310
02:29:35,131 --> 02:29:40,649
You have to remember that there is
a magical element in Leone's filmmaking.

1311
02:29:40,731 --> 02:29:43,245
The magical use of that gun

1312
02:29:46,851 --> 02:29:49,240
is terrific.

1313
02:29:49,331 --> 02:30:00,481
And the second shot, for heaven's sakes,
brings Tuco to Sad Hill.

1314
02:30:00,571 --> 02:30:02,880
And it's a wonderful shot -

1315
02:30:02,971 --> 02:30:05,769
the notion of the gun
stunning him and rolling,

1316
02:30:05,851 --> 02:30:07,887
and he's rolling right into the place

1317
02:30:07,971 --> 02:30:13,364
that these guys have been trying
to get to for most of the movie.

1318
02:30:16,691 --> 02:30:21,401
And this is a sequence
that meant a lot to Leone.

1319
02:30:21,491 --> 02:30:28,920
He had guys out digging graves for
well over a week to set up this sequence.

1320
02:30:29,011 --> 02:30:32,162
Incidentally, there's the dog again.

1321
02:30:33,691 --> 02:30:47,560
Because he wanted to show the endless,
screen-filling depth of war's horror.

1322
02:30:47,651 --> 02:30:51,326
I mean, it's just grave
after grave after grave.

1323
02:30:51,411 --> 02:30:56,565
Now, he had brought his previous film,
Fora Few Dollars More,

1324
02:30:56,651 --> 02:31:04,331
to a conclusion like this one,
in a kind of graveyard shoot-out.

1325
02:31:08,531 --> 02:31:15,562
But this is the masterpiece
of that kind of filmmaking.

1326
02:31:18,971 --> 02:31:23,806
Where Eli has come to in this sequence
is, I suppose, a plaza

1327
02:31:23,891 --> 02:31:31,320
that was intended to be the central
ceremonial place of this graveyard.

1328
02:31:31,411 --> 02:31:33,971
I imagine somebody might've imagined

1329
02:31:34,051 --> 02:31:40,286
that they would do Memorial Day services
in this central plaza.

1330
02:31:41,731 --> 02:31:51,527
But it's the circle in which the three
principals will become entrapped

1331
02:31:51,611 --> 02:31:54,489
for the conclusion of this movie.

1332
02:32:12,171 --> 02:32:17,723
I think a lesser director would have done
a lesser amount of running around

1333
02:32:17,811 --> 02:32:21,167
in this sequence, but...

1334
02:32:25,771 --> 02:32:32,165
I don't know. As I say, with a Leone film,
especially the later, grander Leone films,

1335
02:32:32,251 --> 02:32:39,521
you really have to let the man set
his own pace and do what he wants to do.

1336
02:32:39,611 --> 02:32:44,560
It's amazing to me, as long as they were
cutting this film for its initial release,

1337
02:32:44,651 --> 02:32:47,085
you could've cut a lot of this sequence

1338
02:32:47,171 --> 02:32:53,804
without consequence to
the narrative understanding of the film.

1339
02:32:53,891 --> 02:32:57,930
Some of the other cuts do interfere
with our understanding of the film.

1340
02:32:58,011 --> 02:33:01,720
But that didn't happen.

1341
02:33:01,811 --> 02:33:07,249
This sequence plays
at its extensive length.

1342
02:33:07,571 --> 02:33:11,610
And we are now arrived
at where he thinks he has to be -

1343
02:33:11,691 --> 02:33:14,603
at the grave of Arch Stanton.

1344
02:33:18,131 --> 02:33:20,201
One of the things you have to say

1345
02:33:20,291 --> 02:33:26,639
about this supposedly shrewd
and knowing character that Eli is playing

1346
02:33:26,731 --> 02:33:29,006
is he's really very innocent.

1347
02:33:29,091 --> 02:33:32,083
He basically believes everything
everybody tells him,

1348
02:33:32,171 --> 02:33:35,049
usually to his ultimate sorrow.

1349
02:34:17,491 --> 02:34:19,607
Clint's theme.

1350
02:34:19,691 --> 02:34:22,922
Oh, and look, he's got the serape on.

1351
02:34:26,851 --> 02:34:29,160
That's not accidental.

1352
02:34:30,331 --> 02:34:33,004
He has never worn it before in this movie.

1353
02:34:33,091 --> 02:34:40,167
And also the little sheepskin vest that
he wore under it in the previous movies.

1354
02:34:40,251 --> 02:34:47,441
He is back now, in this sequence,
to his full mythic height.

1355
02:34:49,171 --> 02:34:54,165
This is the Man With No Name,
fully costumed...

1356
02:34:57,291 --> 02:34:58,883
Oops.

1357
02:34:59,771 --> 02:35:03,923
See, nobody's quite paying attention,
they're so busy digging,

1358
02:35:04,011 --> 02:35:06,844
realising their greedy ambitions.

1359
02:35:06,931 --> 02:35:10,128
So everybody
has sneaked up on everybody.

1360
02:35:37,531 --> 02:35:42,810
The crossing has been wonderful with Eli.
They're parodistic crossings,

1361
02:35:42,891 --> 02:35:47,089
which we've seen a number
of times before in the movie.

1362
02:36:54,691 --> 02:36:56,568
Wonderful visual here.

1363
02:36:56,651 --> 02:37:00,929
They're in a circle
and they've formed a kind of a triangle.

1364
02:37:01,931 --> 02:37:09,246
And we are at the shoot-out.

1365
02:37:09,331 --> 02:37:13,006
But I love the geometry of the sequence.

1366
02:37:15,691 --> 02:37:18,808
Something really rather classical about it.

1367
02:37:30,251 --> 02:37:34,847
And, again, this is a sequence

1368
02:37:34,931 --> 02:37:40,722
that becomes almost a kind
of signature piece for Leone,

1369
02:37:40,811 --> 02:37:49,810
in that it takes a very long time
and a lot of lookin'

1370
02:37:49,891 --> 02:37:55,090
before the action of the piece
can possibly begin.

1371
02:38:16,171 --> 02:38:19,208
The triangle re-formed
and re-formed again...

1372
02:38:19,291 --> 02:38:22,601
It's a beautifully covered sequence.

1373
02:38:24,811 --> 02:38:29,805
And novel, in that
there are not an awful lot of westerns

1374
02:38:29,891 --> 02:38:34,282
with a three-way face-down
at their conclusion.

1375
02:38:34,371 --> 02:38:36,248
usually two is plenty.

1376
02:38:36,331 --> 02:38:43,646
usually the extra male or men have been
dispensed with in an earlier sequence

1377
02:38:43,731 --> 02:38:49,442
so that there can be a final confrontation
between good and bad.

1378
02:38:49,531 --> 02:38:55,720
But this movie, from its very title, tells us
that there are three types of guy in this -

1379
02:38:55,811 --> 02:38:58,006
the good, the bad and the ugly.

1380
02:38:58,091 --> 02:39:02,767
So they have to come
to this triangular shoot-out.

1381
02:39:36,731 --> 02:39:40,565
A long time.
A lot of wide shots, a lot of close-ups,

1382
02:39:40,651 --> 02:39:46,647
just like we said at the very beginning
of the film - basic Leone style.

1383
02:39:50,091 --> 02:39:54,562
And there we have
a close-up and long shot all in one.

1384
02:40:27,011 --> 02:40:29,445
I love the freedom of Morricone's music.

1385
02:40:29,531 --> 02:40:33,444
I mean, there's mariachi music
going there, modern stuff.

1386
02:40:33,531 --> 02:40:39,049
He's not wedded
to the classical western thematic material.

1387
02:40:39,131 --> 02:40:46,321
It's movie music that refers us to the
present as much as it does to the past.

1388
02:40:46,411 --> 02:40:49,369
It's extraordinarily effective.

1389
02:40:58,651 --> 02:41:04,123
It's just wonderful,
the amount of time he takes in this.

1390
02:41:04,731 --> 02:41:09,441
The increasing tightness of the close-ups
on the gun and in particular the eyes.

1391
02:41:09,531 --> 02:41:13,080
That's really masterful moviemaking.

1392
02:41:14,371 --> 02:41:16,566
And then the rhythm there...

1393
02:41:38,211 --> 02:41:40,202
Perfect.

1394
02:41:44,691 --> 02:41:46,966
He's even an efficient killer -

1395
02:41:47,051 --> 02:41:50,600
he gets the guy right into the grave
with his last shot

1396
02:41:50,691 --> 02:41:54,366
and then arranges his hat on his chest.

1397
02:44:21,971 --> 02:44:26,681
Would you say that what we have here
is a kind of a motif?

1398
02:44:34,571 --> 02:44:40,282
A circle. We are describing a huge circle
in the course of this movie.

1399
02:44:40,371 --> 02:44:45,923
We have just seen the shoot-out in
the circle, the noose is a sort of a circle.

1400
02:44:46,011 --> 02:44:55,010
But the fact is that one time or another
everybody has their heads in a noose

1401
02:44:55,091 --> 02:44:59,209
and they're standing
on a perilous platform -

1402
02:44:59,291 --> 02:45:04,240
in this case a pretty wobbly one,

1403
02:45:04,331 --> 02:45:08,324
but probably no more unstable
than being on a horse.

1404
02:45:08,411 --> 02:45:14,566
And here we are, back at virtually
the beginning of the movie

1405
02:45:14,651 --> 02:45:20,248
and this great vast circle
is about to be closed finally.

1406
02:46:02,731 --> 02:46:04,926
The only problem, of course,

1407
02:46:05,011 --> 02:46:09,960
being how in the world is Eli
going to get his share of the loot

1408
02:46:10,051 --> 02:46:13,566
considering the circumstances he's in?

1409
02:46:32,931 --> 02:46:35,923
Again, you've got to mention
religious imagery.

1410
02:46:36,011 --> 02:46:41,131
That's a very shaky cross
that he's standing on, but it is a cross,

1411
02:46:41,211 --> 02:46:51,405
and it says probably something about
Leone's spirituality, shall we say?

1412
02:46:58,651 --> 02:47:03,406
I think there's something in the
relationship between Blondie and Tuco

1413
02:47:03,491 --> 02:47:08,360
that reflects Clint's relationship
with Leone.

1414
02:47:08,931 --> 02:47:16,963
You know,
the excitable small-in-stature man

1415
02:47:17,051 --> 02:47:21,329
and the big, quiet guy who...

1416
02:47:22,931 --> 02:47:26,560
Both were locked in a relationship
that was mutually beneficial,

1417
02:47:26,651 --> 02:47:31,486
but which had by this time
become a pretty shaky one.

1418
02:47:31,571 --> 02:47:35,359
And it's fair to say
that as Clint rides off in this last sequence

1419
02:47:35,451 --> 02:47:40,320
that he is riding out
of Leone country permanently.

1420
02:47:40,411 --> 02:47:47,681
But this is the end of one of
the great modern movie collaborations.

1421
02:48:36,211 --> 02:48:41,205
Magical. That shot is nothing but magical.

1422
02:48:46,451 --> 02:48:50,603
I think it's fair to say -
and nice to be able to say -

1423
02:48:50,691 --> 02:48:58,609
that despite the public difficulties Leone
stirred up with Clint in his later career,

1424
02:48:58,691 --> 02:49:01,410
that at the very end of Leone's life

1425
02:49:01,491 --> 02:49:06,326
Clint was in Rome,
Leone got in touch with him,

1426
02:49:06,411 --> 02:49:14,523
they shared very warm
and extensive meals together,

1427
02:49:14,611 --> 02:49:18,286
and came to a kind
of peaceful understanding

1428
02:49:18,371 --> 02:49:25,083
only a matter of months before Sergio
died prematurely of a heart condition.

1429
02:49:26,931 --> 02:49:30,401
So a kind of a peace

1430
02:49:30,491 --> 02:49:36,202
finally comes over this - by this time -
somewhat contentious relationship.

1431
02:49:36,291 --> 02:49:44,721
And Clint, of course, dedicated his great
western, Unforgiven, to Sergio Leone

1432
02:49:44,811 --> 02:49:46,767
and to Don Siegel,

1433
02:49:46,851 --> 02:49:54,087
the two directors he regarded as
his great mentors in his directing career.

1434
02:49:54,811 --> 02:49:57,564
And that's a great Leone shot

1435
02:49:57,651 --> 02:50:03,442
of the human figure being just absorbed

1436
02:50:03,531 --> 02:50:10,642
into the timeless and speechless
and enigmatic landscape.

1437
02:50:46,251 --> 02:50:50,244
Visiontext Subtitles by Michael Callaghan

1438
02:51:13,811 --> 02:51:15,802
EN