Monday, July 26, 2004

Once upon a time in the west

When I was a kid, the word 'movie' was a synonym for some tortuous tale of a gun-totin', whiskey swillin', cigar smokin' unshaven loner who blasts the world away with his 6-gun (Or a sawed-off shotgun, for that matter). And of course, the best of these were The Good, The Bad and The Ugly or a For a Few Dollars More - both directed by Sergio Leone. I saw both these films with my dad in Bangalore's theatre Bluemoon (non-existent today) and ever since then, I was a convert.

Last week, I saw Leone's most acclaimed, but least famous film - Once Upon a Time in the West. And I was blown away once again. It's simply awesome, can't talk about it enough.

Once Upon a Time is lower on testosterone and higher on feel and mood when you compare it to the more famous Clint Eastwood starrers . And it's a telling commentary on how the world moved on as the railways moved from the Eastern coast to the Western coast in the US. The movie's full of intoxicating close-ups, stunning landscape pans, heavy on ambience and even normal scenes are choreographed to echo some bygone western classic. The opening sequence with the credits for example is a tribute to High Noon.

Whatever they say these days in film appreciation workshops (I've been to one) - those sphagetti westerns, as they've come to be called since Sergio Leone filmed them all in Italy, are definitely classics. Just see one of them, and you'll know why.

Here's an excellent site about Sergio Leone and his films http://www.fistful-of-leone.com



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