Despite the fact that Sergio Leone had a career in filmmaking that spanned over twenty-five years, the actual body of work he is remembered for is quite small. Sergio Leone is, and forever will be, remembered for his contribution to the celebrated but often misunderstood era of the Spaghetti Western. So great was his impact within the sphere of the western that (with the sole exception of Once Upon a Time in America) it has overshadowed his entire career output both before and after - and it begins in 1964 with Fistful of Dollars.
Set in the 1870’s in a small border town called San Miguel, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, A Fistful of Dollars is the story of a mysterious stranger (Clint Eastwood) who arrives to find two rival gangs feuding for control of the town and it's lucrative bootlegging operations. A Mexican clan of liquor smugglers led by the three Rojos brothers on one side and an American gang of gun runners named The Baxters on the other. Realizing the opportunity at hand to exploit the situation for profit, the stranger plays both sides against each other in a bid to make some quick cash.
At the time the film was made the western was in a deep state of decline. Fifteen years previously the Western accounted for almost 45% of Hollywood’s output, but by 1964 that had dropped to less than 15%. Westerns had become very clean cut, very inorganic and American audiences were tuning out in droves. But Italy had enjoyed a great love affair with the American Western since the end of the fascist era, viewing the images of American frontier and men galloping around open plains as a very literal symbol of freedom.
A Fistful of Dollars was by no means the first Italian Western, or Spaghetti Western as they were dubbed, but it is certainly one of the most famous although no one realized what its impact would be at the time. The film was actually commissioned as a B-picture to be billed under another western titled Pistols Don’t Argue and nobody involved had any expectations for the film, least of all Clint Eastwood who would go on to become an international star on the back of this picture and its sequels. Eastwood wasn’t even first choice for Leone and was only chosen as something of a last resort after Henry Fonda, James Coburn and Jimmy Stewart were all deemed too expensive. In fact Eastwood himself only agreed to do the picture, for which he was paid $15,000, because he would get to go to Spain for six weeks. He had never been and thought it would be nice.
The film operated as a youthful shot in the arm of a tired genre that reaffirmed an edge that audiences felt was missing from the made for television, audience friendly pictures of upstanding protestant families living wholesome lives on the range. The grungy look, the cynical, almost macabre nature of the story and the incredibly stylish visuals struck a chord with audiences and the film became enormously successful. So successful in fact that Akira Kurosawa, who was awarded a percentage of the gross after a dispute was raised relating to the film’s similarities to Yojimbo, actually made more money from this film than from any of his own.
From the pop-art Rotoscope animation utilized to showcase the credits, to the magnificently quirky sound design, what Leone built with his scrappy, pragmatic, and improvised techniques was a new kind of storytelling for a genre that was played out. There was no sense of progress in San Miguel, no sense of a tie to the real world. The story existed in a vacuum and what sucked people into this self-contained universe was the style of the character and the manner in which his actions were presented. Even the idea of The Man With No Name was a fabrication by someone, somewhere preoccupied with the image of the film. In one of life’s little ironies, Eastwood’s character is in fact given a name in each of the man with no name westerns.
Leone often said that his intention with his westerns was to make ‘fairy tales for grown ups’ and that his films had been a creative response, as well as an exorcism, of the Hollywood images that colonized his head when growing up in a Roman suburb in the 1930’s and 1940’s. In cinematic terms, neo-realism - up to that point Italian cinemas most successful export - was supposedly a depiction of the real and the western was simply a myth. But A Fistful of Dollars was more than that. It was almost meta-cinema in that it took the myth of the west and turned it into something new and different, yet at the same time every bit as lacking in factual basis and just as unreal in terms of historical accuracy. The American western as seen on screen was already a myth. Leone came along and made myths about a myth.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Given the legacy of this magnificent trilogy, you would expect a wealth of extra material of the highest quality and this disc delivers. First off, you get a feature length comedy by noted film historian Sir Christopher Frayling, arguably the world's foremost authority on the Spaghetti Western and all things Sergio Leone. Additionally, Frayling further dissects the impact of the film further in A New Kind of Hero where his laid back style and fiercely intellectual analysis combine to engrossing effect.
We also here from Clint himself in A Few Weeks in Spain which contains his full responses to questions about the movie taken from an interview in 2003. Also included are restoration featurettes, a prologue, and various radio and TV spots.
There are omissions, however, most notably the Three Voices featurette where longtime friends, colleagues and admirers of Leone, Sergio Donati, Alberto Grimaldi, and Micky Knox share their memories of the diminutive Italian, which is a shame. If you're going to release it, why not release it all?
"A Fistful of Dollars" is on sale August 23, 2011 and is rated R. Action, Western. Directed by Sergio Leone. Written by Víctor Andrés Catena & Jaime Comas Gil & Sergio Leone. Starring Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volonte.
