Still Need to Watch: The Colossus of Rhodes
Sergio Leone is one of those filmmaking legends that for some reason feels larger than life. He popularized the spaghetti western. He is as responsible for the onscreen persona of Clint Eastwood as anyone. He made some of the most iconic films in the history of cinema. Thankfully, he was also very fucking good at making movies.
“You see in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns and those who dig.”
6. Fistful of Dollars [1964]
It really is quite incredible to watch this film and see just how perfectly it establishes Clint Eastwood as both a star and his leading man persona. There is something genuinely surreal about the idea of things you can see Eastwood doing today [2021] in Cry Macho he was doing sixty years ago in this film is just crazy.
Eastwood is a man who cannot envision a better world. He hopes people improve themselves, but he takes the world as he believes it is. No need for context. No need for root causes. There are winners and losers. And he is a winner.
On top of that, the music and visuals of the film are just spellbinding. Put them together with what we could only now an Eastwood formula and you have yourself just a delightful picture.
5. For a Few Dollars More [1965]
It is actually genuinely quite stunning to watch a sequel to a film get double the budget and you can immediately tell just by how the film looks. I am sure the main players got bigger paychecks, but clearly so much more money went into the equipment and design and everything was just better off.
What is also great (and again, slightly jarring) is that this sequel did not entirely rest on its laurels and instead really made significant changeups to make this a more interesting film than the original. There are two distinct differences from the original film that made this one substantively better.
For starters, there is an effortlessness to the team-up between van Cleef and Eastwood that is irresistible. You just relish every moment they have on screen together and there is a rush of excitement when they start to team. Secondly, the villain is absolutely fascinating. He is a drug-induced haze trying to numb the memories of bad shit he has done??? This feels like something more mass appeal films should do??
4. Once Upon a Time in the West [1968]
The way this movie just takes its time to let you fully settle into the world and its characters is just so amazing. The way it invites the audience to sit back and just make you so comfortable is beautifully done. After the brutal killing of the McBain family, we spend so much time with characters keeping the world at arms length that the climax of the film is just an absolute gut punch. The montage of the Charles Bronson/Henry Fonda standoff with their previously unknown confrontation from the past was just one of the most thrilling moments in cinema ever.
3. Once Upon a Time in America [1984]
“…but you would lock me up and throw away the key…I’ve got to get to where I’m going…the top.”
The key to Leone’s final film is the opening sequence. Men in dark coats are on the hunt for Robert De Niro. They killed his presumed wife. They torture his friend. But all throughout there is minimal dialogue. Leone visually tells the majority of this opening vignette. The tension is on another level. De Niro is found drugged out of his mind in an opium den. The vultures swarm. And just when all hope seems lost, he manages to escape and takes a bus to nowhere.
When you are not on the inside of this country, the options left to the majority of those on the outside usually involve an intense combination of greed and violence. You have to kill your soul and become callous towards the desires and well-being of others. Robert De Niro sunk to the lowest depths and swam in a cesspool to make something of himself in the United States. And then you just destroy others and kill any chance of making a life for yourself that would be worth living.
2. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly [1966]
“I’ve never seen so many men wasted so badly.”
The Dollars Trilogy is one of the most satisfying “franchise” (ugh) viewing experiences as a fan of movies. You get to see Clint Eastwood progressively more and more confident and comfortable with his stardom and leading man persona. You get to see an auteur slowly but surely become more and more confident and skilled at their craft. And you also just get the undeniable pleasure of a series of films doubling their budget each time out and then noticeably seeing that on the screen.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly alters the setting significantly compared to what came before it. It sets the film squarely in the middle of the Civil War as the characters interact soldiers and camps from both sides. The characters of course do not care about the war. They care ultimately about their own survival and success. I am not entirely sure of what to make out of the setting choice. I see it as adding a somber and morbid tone to the action. The inevitable civil war that was meant to be the moment the United States decided slavery was necessary for the country to be founded is just so horrific in every way.
Obviously, the Civil War was required to get rid of slavery. In that sense, much like WW2 due to the nazis, it feels like a just war in a country’s history full of very demonstrably unjust military combat. It’s important to consider the context of how we got to these points in time. These wars proved necessary as a consequence of the decisions of the powerful to continuously choose the easy way out and profit and power time and time again. Until there was nowhere left to turn but war. “I’ve never seen so many men wasted so badly.”
In this cynical setting, you see what can drive men like Blondie, Angel Eyes, and Tuco to have no cause but their own. All for one and fuck the rest. The true United States story.
1. Duck, You Sucker [1971]
“I know what I am talking about when I am talking about revolutions! The people who read the books go to the people who can’t read the books, the poor people, and say, “We have to have a change.” So, the poor people make the change, ah? And then, the people who read the books, they all sit around the big polished tables, and they talk and talk and talk and eat and eat and eat, eh? But what has happened to the poor people? THEY ARE DEAD! That’s your revolution! Sh… so, please… don’t tell me about revolutions. And what happens afterwards? The same fucking thing starts all over again!”
Probably for no other reason than the Duck, You Sucker title, I never really sought out this film at all and pretty much forgot it existed. I finally watched it and was just completely blown away by its boldness. It is a pessimistic film about the world but not cynical in its portrayal of people. It is a film that understands there is something fundamentally wrong with the world but all attempts to sincerely make it better have been messy, are messy, and will be messy. It is a film that understands that it might be impossible to make any long-lasting, sustainable revolution. But there is still a sense of shared humanity that we can cling to and maybe there is some hope in that. If you have not watched this film, you OWE it to yourself to do so.
The Reel World 