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western #11, 'unforgiven.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., scott • 1 min read

This is the first of the Westerns we have watched so far that I actually owned, so, obviously I liked this one going into it.

Eastwood responds to the Western genre that helped make his career. Even going so far as to say it basically encapsulates everything he feels about the genre.

It is slow and taut, filled with great characters played brilliantly by gifted actors.

If Cooperstown was for actors instead of baseball players, Gene Hackman would only have to screen The Royal Tenenbaums and Unforgiven back to back and he would have my vote to get in without any further conversation.

It doesn’t deal with the Native American issues, but it pulls back the curtain a bit on the rest of what lies implicit in the Western genre.

As is the case with much of Eastwood’s directorial work, the story turns the myth of redemptive violence on its head. There is always a cost.

Great movie, all around.

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western #2, 'a fistful of dollars.' [another day, another movie.]

By • On • In Uncategorized • 1 min read

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.

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