I wasn’t sure what I was going to think about A Fistful of Dollars. Directly adapting a brilliant film like Yojimbo without ever successfully getting the rights to do so is sketchy at best (Kurosawa sued and won, receiving 15% of the film’s take).
Yet, somehow, Sergio Leone is a good enough director that he made it work. There are certainly scenes and moments that just made me want to watch the original again (yes, already), but there was enough new delights thrown in that A Fistful of Dollars is a pretty good film in its own right.
There is a scene during the climax, where they use shots of only boots to set up the tension for the final gunfight. It’s been replicated and parodied so many times since that it has become cliché and is usually annoying. Yet it is done so well here that I was impressed and drawn in by it even though I live on the other side of the overuse. It was wonderful.
Eastwood really is a great Americanization of the wandering samurai character. When our nameless hero confronts the gang of douchebags in town, asking them to apologize to his horse for scaring it, he captured everything that was great about Mifune’s performance in Yojimbo. Basically, if you view it as an homage, it rocks, if you view it as ripping him off, it sucks. Eastwood’s personal character in the years since makes me lean toward homage, but I could just be blinding myself.
The one complaint about the actual filmmaking is that the dubbing was utterly terrible. I’m not sure if this was perhaps caused by the particular master used on the dvd, does anyone else know what I am talking about with the dubbing? It really was terrible, and it would be surprising if it was released that way originally, especially in a film that is otherwise so meticulously crafted. Also, the day for night shots were a little silly as well, but they were limited by their era.
However, the rest of the film is pretty great; the use of close-ups, Ennio Morricone’s score, Eastwood’s scowling mug being unleashed on the world at large.
It is still difficult to get past the fact that they totally ripped off Kurosawa, but it’s a great film otherwise.
Jesse
Leone wouldn’t be the last person to shamelessly rip off Kurosawa and go on to make a pile of money, nor even the most successful. The plot premise from “A New Hope” and the C3-P0/R2-D2 duo are lifted directly from “The Hidden Fortress.” Imagine if Kurosawa had been able to drink George Lucas’ milkshake.