Fistful of Dollars (1964)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)-Taken from longer piece on The Man with No Name Trilogy
Leone’s second film as a director was A Fistful of Dollars (’64), although he was credited as Bob Robertson to fool Italian movie goers into thinking it was a Hollywood production. Fistful was made on a small $200,000 budget and was based on an Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (’61), a fact that delayed US release of the film until 1967 due to legal issues with Kurosawa’s studio. The story of a lone gunman who pits rival gangs against each other to save a small town, Fistful was an enormous hit across Europe and is largely credited with not only creating the Clint Eastwood movie personae, but embodying the first post-modern Western. Together Leone and Eastwood fashioned the character out of whole cloth, with the director using his limited English to instruct Eastwood to “watch me” while he pantomimed what he wanted. For his part, Eastwood brought his gun, holster and hat from his TV show, the jeans that became his staple and urged Leone to remove dialogue, honing it to the essence of necessity. Finally, Eastwood’s poncho was purchased by Leone in Spain to add the finishing touches on what became known as The Man with No Name.
The film was shot in the Spanish desert by a multi-lingual cast and crew, without sound and with each actor speaking his native language, then dubbed in post-production. In many ways, this silent shooting allowed Leone to create his template after shooting, layering on rich sound effects and Ennio Morricone’s original and magnificent score, but more on that later. Free from the distraction of native sound allowed Leone to take his time building up tension and suspense, then releasing a thunderous burst of violence. Often seeming more violent than they actually are, the films broke new ground in showing a killer pulling the trigger in the same shot as the victim (not allowed under the US Production Code), allowing blood to ooze from bullet wounds and fists to violently break skin in fistfights. The film is certainly not for the faint of heart, but in the between times opposite the violence there is a poetry of faces and enough panoramic vistas to challenge Ansel Adams.
Where Leone broke down the generic codes of the American Western was mainly in character and story. The man with no name, for instance, the ‘hero’ of the film, is morally ambivalent, essentially out for himself, even as he saves the town from the gangs. His silence mutes any potential heroism under a cloud of uncertainty. Simply put, he doesn’t’ telegraph his motives, so the veiweris left to wonder whether he’s acting purely in self-interest or benevolently. Eastwood is pitch perfect as the knowing and stoic loner. Christopher Frayling, Leone’s biographer and an expert on Italian Westerns, noted that Leone helped spin the traditional American convention that “the hero was always the best shot”, to what became the backbone of the “Spaghetti Western,” that “the best shot is always the hero.”
Leone, borrowing liberally from Yojimbo, creates a triangulation of conflict in the 2 gangs and the man with no name, twisting the traditional good versus evil story by engineering the conflict as a moneymaking enterprise. Eastwood’s character becomes the trickster as he dupes both sides into killing each other through a series of misunderstandings that cause chaos and confusion. When he speaks it is often wise cracks that spur on the combatants to more violence. Eastwood’s wisecracking trickster would become the template for future action stars like Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone and Leone’s take on traditional Western storytelling and mythmaking would influence a generation of filmmakers. Utilizing flashbacks and dreamlike imagery Leone further distanced himself from Hollywood traditions, even as he commented on and paid homage to greats like John Ford and Howard Hawks, but more on that later!
Little was expected of A Fistful of Dollars, but it was an immediate hit in Italy and other parts of Europe, even becoming the highest grossing Italian film up to that point. The Italian film industry for a long time had ridden waves of similar films in 4 to 5-year cycles, then slumped as the cycle exhausted itself. Such was the case when Fistful opened, as the sword and sandal muscleman epics had run out of steam. Fistful launched the next wave, disparagingly dubbed Spaghetti Westerns by international critics, and Leone didn’t wait long before creating his next masterpiece in what would become the first note of a 4 film symphony.
Because Eastwood was forbidden from making films in the US by his Rawhide contract, Fistful of Dollars made perfect sense, even with a meager $15,000 payday. Although the film wouldn’t be released in the US for nearly 4 years, due to the aforementioned legal action in Japan, its success brought about a quick opportunity to re-team Leone, Eastwood and Fistful baddie Lee Van Cleef for something of a sequel called For a Few Dollars More, made in 1965.
Leone’s second film as a director was A Fistful of Dollars (’64), although he was credited as Bob Robertson to fool Italian movie goers into thinking it was a Hollywood production. Fistful was made on a small $200,000 budget and was based on an Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (’61), a fact that delayed US release of the film until 1967 due to legal issues with Kurosawa’s studio. The story of a lone gunman who pits rival gangs against each other to save a small town, Fistful was an enormous hit across Europe and is largely credited with not only creating the Clint Eastwood movie personae, but embodying the first post-modern Western. Together Leone and Eastwood fashioned the character out of whole cloth, with the director using his limited English to instruct Eastwood to “watch me” while he pantomimed what he wanted. For his part, Eastwood brought his gun, holster and hat from his TV show, the jeans that became his staple and urged Leone to remove dialogue, honing it to the essence of necessity. Finally, Eastwood’s poncho was purchased by Leone in Spain to add the finishing touches on what became known as The Man with No Name.
The film was shot in the Spanish desert by a multi-lingual cast and crew, without sound and with each actor speaking his native language, then dubbed in post-production. In many ways, this silent shooting allowed Leone to create his template after shooting, layering on rich sound effects and Ennio Morricone’s original and magnificent score, but more on that later. Free from the distraction of native sound allowed Leone to take his time building up tension and suspense, then releasing a thunderous burst of violence. Often seeming more violent than they actually are, the films broke new ground in showing a killer pulling the trigger in the same shot as the victim (not allowed under the US Production Code), allowing blood to ooze from bullet wounds and fists to violently break skin in fistfights. The film is certainly not for the faint of heart, but in the between times opposite the violence there is a poetry of faces and enough panoramic vistas to challenge Ansel Adams.
Where Leone broke down the generic codes of the American Western was mainly in character and story. The man with no name, for instance, the ‘hero’ of the film, is morally ambivalent, essentially out for himself, even as he saves the town from the gangs. His silence mutes any potential heroism under a cloud of uncertainty. Simply put, he doesn’t’ telegraph his motives, so the veiweris left to wonder whether he’s acting purely in self-interest or benevolently. Eastwood is pitch perfect as the knowing and stoic loner. Christopher Frayling, Leone’s biographer and an expert on Italian Westerns, noted that Leone helped spin the traditional American convention that “the hero was always the best shot”, to what became the backbone of the “Spaghetti Western,” that “the best shot is always the hero.”
Leone, borrowing liberally from Yojimbo, creates a triangulation of conflict in the 2 gangs and the man with no name, twisting the traditional good versus evil story by engineering the conflict as a moneymaking enterprise. Eastwood’s character becomes the trickster as he dupes both sides into killing each other through a series of misunderstandings that cause chaos and confusion. When he speaks it is often wise cracks that spur on the combatants to more violence. Eastwood’s wisecracking trickster would become the template for future action stars like Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone and Leone’s take on traditional Western storytelling and mythmaking would influence a generation of filmmakers. Utilizing flashbacks and dreamlike imagery Leone further distanced himself from Hollywood traditions, even as he commented on and paid homage to greats like John Ford and Howard Hawks, but more on that later!
Little was expected of A Fistful of Dollars, but it was an immediate hit in Italy and other parts of Europe, even becoming the highest grossing Italian film up to that point. The Italian film industry for a long time had ridden waves of similar films in 4 to 5-year cycles, then slumped as the cycle exhausted itself. Such was the case when Fistful opened, as the sword and sandal muscleman epics had run out of steam. Fistful launched the next wave, disparagingly dubbed Spaghetti Westerns by international critics, and Leone didn’t wait long before creating his next masterpiece in what would become the first note of a 4 film symphony.
Because Eastwood was forbidden from making films in the US by his Rawhide contract, Fistful of Dollars made perfect sense, even with a meager $15,000 payday. Although the film wouldn’t be released in the US for nearly 4 years, due to the aforementioned legal action in Japan, its success brought about a quick opportunity to re-team Leone, Eastwood and Fistful baddie Lee Van Cleef for something of a sequel called For a Few Dollars More, made in 1965.