Once Upon a Time in the West...
Mar. 8th, 2008 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaOne of Sergio Leone's late Westerns constructed specifically as an homage to American film Westerns.
One of the first things I noticed was the pervasiveness of clocks, which isn't really a surprise, since clocks play a role in films like High Noon and 3:10 to Yuma both as a tool of amplifying suspense, and as a symbol of the inevitablity of fate.
But in Once Upon a Time... the trains are always late, (I want to make a cheap crack about 'what do you expect in an Italian Western?') and most the clocks don't even have hands on them. Many are partial clock faces, without even a full set of numbers, painted on walls. Which both takes apart the construct of time in films like High Noon and Yuma, but also highlights the artificiality of Leone's fable.
Like many of Leone's films, the conflict is triangulated by extra characters. There is a railroad magnate, his lead thug named Frank, and a landowner who are all betting on who can make the most money out of the RR. Railroad Magnate just wants to get to the Pacific Ocean. He's dying of tuberculosis of the bones, which means he's a cripple, or as Frank puts it, "Outside your train you're like a turtle without his shell" and totally unsuited for the conflict or the landscape. He keeps throwing money at the problem, and since he has a lot of it, this tends to be a fairly effective solution.
Except that Westerns are usually about the depravity of money and how it destroys things, not what necessarily about the positive things it builds. The lead thug, Frank, realizing his boss' weakness, starts thinking maybe he could be the guy calling the shots. He's really an outlaw sort who has become a hired gun for The Man who intimidates landowners into giving cheap deals to the RR. And that, in part, is what this movie is about: the close of the frontier (via the RR) and what happens to all these Western 'types' (like the outlaw) as their sphere's for operations narrow. (Crime becomes organized as civilization becomes more complex.)
The landowner actually dies at the beginning of the film, leaving his land and legacy to his newly arrived bride, (formerly a whore from New Orleans) who also becomes wrapped up in the conflict, not just because she's now the landowner; but because she is female, and viewed as a commodity that is both rare and vulnerable.
But despite its somewhat antiquated politics (there is a twisted seduction scene between Frank and the woman in which he gives the typical 'baddie' monologue about how it'd be a shame to kill her because she's so hot and likes men; but during which she totally responds) the subtext about the feminine is surprisingly positive.
Ultimately the movie revolves around limited resources. It's not the LAND that's valuable, it's the WATER on the land upon which the (steam) RR depends. And water in this movie is something that is clearly equated with the feminine and is the piece of the action everyone longs for. (There is a particularly moving death in which one of the characters crawls towards a water hole for one last taste of water before he dies. The resemblence to wildlife at water holes is intentional and touching.)
The film makes an argument for the eternal feminine. At one point when the Woman is threatened by one of the various thugs (there's another thug called 'Cheyenne' and another outlaw called 'Harmonica' more on him later,) she tells him he can rape her and even bring in the rest of the brigands to share the spoils, "but all it takes is a little soap and water and I'm the same as I was before."
Politically, this attitude towards rape is disturbing and inappropriate. But symbolically it puts her beyond their reach. Like water she is something that cannot be grasped. She evades their touch and their attempts at violence and ownership. And to me this was the most interesting aspect of the film: both because women are so rare both in Westerns and in actual Western expansion, but also because it acknowledges this need this desire, this thing (water/the feminine) that men (humans) cannot live without. And this is one of the dustiest Westerns I have ever seen.
It is also one of the more familiar Western landscapes I've encountered in Westerns. I kept thing "this looks like Grand Junction!" and indeed, portions were filmed in nearby Moab. (Along with Arizona and Spain.)
It also features a different cast than the Dollars trilogy, though Henry Fonda seems to be channeling Eastwood in his portrayal of hired thug Frank, a role, it turns out, that was first offered to Eastwood, but Eastwood turned down. (Which makes sense. Eastwood plays ambiguous characters, but never outright baddies, and Frank is one of the worst kind of baddies: one with a sadistic imagination as the unforgettable image involving an arch with a bell prooves later in the film. Frank is also too chatty for an Eastwood character. Eastwood has admitted himself that he's not good with dialogue and I would argue that's part of the reason he's become an icon: there's more visual aspect to his roles than verbal.)
Anyway, it was an interesting film, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. The whole thing seemed a bit silly at times, especially the homage portions, and the inevitability of the Leone touch to things like the ultimate stand-off. There are moments when I wanted to roll my eyes and say, "Here we go again!" (which probably means I'm almost off Westerns as a subject of inquiry and ready for a new obsession).
But there are also moments of unforgettable cinematic brilliance, not only represented in several unforgettable images (like the arch & bell), but also in certain genre-fuck moments like an unbelievably brutal assassination attempt of the RR Magnate on a moving train. (The boot! OMG, the boot! And the tap,tap,tap at the window. Aaagh!) There is also an amazing opening eight minute sequence that involves three outlaws waiting for a train, and the way it elevates the mundane: a squeaky windmill, a bothersome fly, a drip from a leaky water tower, into something sumblime... this opening sequence is seriously an amazing piece of cinema.
Which brings me to the final aspect of commentary, the character called 'Harmonica' who squeaks out this weird combination of notes on a harmonica that is irritating, haunting, and not really complete enough to be called a tune. Halfway through the film it started sounding awfully familiar. It was then I realized that it is sampled in The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds. Note: the harmonica itself, and the tune it plays, turn out to be something sinister. (Backing up my read of The Orb song, which everyone approaches as being a cute pastiche, as having a more serious subtext, specifically a reference to the alien annhiliation that is a part of the Western landscape. I've been convinced ever since I heard the song with the bit about the colors of the sunset ("you don't see sunsets like that anymore") as being about nuclear sunsets, which my mother (who grew up, in part, in Utah) describes vividly. It's also part of much more serious, 'spacey' album.)
Okay, one more thing: I think one of the 'hooks' that really worked with me regarding Westerns is the revenge narrative. I love revenge narratives. They are very common in Westerns and less so elsewhere. (Maybe comic books?) I think I like the idea of someone stepping outside the boundaries of civilization, sanity, and the law to take their fate into their own hands is very appealing to me.
Mind you, revenge doesn't usually work out for them, or bring them the fulfillment or wholeness they seek; but that doesn't stop some part of me from admiring or at least empathizing with this extremity. One may be fortune's fool, but one would rather not be her bitch.
One of the first things I noticed was the pervasiveness of clocks, which isn't really a surprise, since clocks play a role in films like High Noon and 3:10 to Yuma both as a tool of amplifying suspense, and as a symbol of the inevitablity of fate.
But in Once Upon a Time... the trains are always late, (I want to make a cheap crack about 'what do you expect in an Italian Western?') and most the clocks don't even have hands on them. Many are partial clock faces, without even a full set of numbers, painted on walls. Which both takes apart the construct of time in films like High Noon and Yuma, but also highlights the artificiality of Leone's fable.
Like many of Leone's films, the conflict is triangulated by extra characters. There is a railroad magnate, his lead thug named Frank, and a landowner who are all betting on who can make the most money out of the RR. Railroad Magnate just wants to get to the Pacific Ocean. He's dying of tuberculosis of the bones, which means he's a cripple, or as Frank puts it, "Outside your train you're like a turtle without his shell" and totally unsuited for the conflict or the landscape. He keeps throwing money at the problem, and since he has a lot of it, this tends to be a fairly effective solution.
Except that Westerns are usually about the depravity of money and how it destroys things, not what necessarily about the positive things it builds. The lead thug, Frank, realizing his boss' weakness, starts thinking maybe he could be the guy calling the shots. He's really an outlaw sort who has become a hired gun for The Man who intimidates landowners into giving cheap deals to the RR. And that, in part, is what this movie is about: the close of the frontier (via the RR) and what happens to all these Western 'types' (like the outlaw) as their sphere's for operations narrow. (Crime becomes organized as civilization becomes more complex.)
The landowner actually dies at the beginning of the film, leaving his land and legacy to his newly arrived bride, (formerly a whore from New Orleans) who also becomes wrapped up in the conflict, not just because she's now the landowner; but because she is female, and viewed as a commodity that is both rare and vulnerable.
But despite its somewhat antiquated politics (there is a twisted seduction scene between Frank and the woman in which he gives the typical 'baddie' monologue about how it'd be a shame to kill her because she's so hot and likes men; but during which she totally responds) the subtext about the feminine is surprisingly positive.
Ultimately the movie revolves around limited resources. It's not the LAND that's valuable, it's the WATER on the land upon which the (steam) RR depends. And water in this movie is something that is clearly equated with the feminine and is the piece of the action everyone longs for. (There is a particularly moving death in which one of the characters crawls towards a water hole for one last taste of water before he dies. The resemblence to wildlife at water holes is intentional and touching.)
The film makes an argument for the eternal feminine. At one point when the Woman is threatened by one of the various thugs (there's another thug called 'Cheyenne' and another outlaw called 'Harmonica' more on him later,) she tells him he can rape her and even bring in the rest of the brigands to share the spoils, "but all it takes is a little soap and water and I'm the same as I was before."
Politically, this attitude towards rape is disturbing and inappropriate. But symbolically it puts her beyond their reach. Like water she is something that cannot be grasped. She evades their touch and their attempts at violence and ownership. And to me this was the most interesting aspect of the film: both because women are so rare both in Westerns and in actual Western expansion, but also because it acknowledges this need this desire, this thing (water/the feminine) that men (humans) cannot live without. And this is one of the dustiest Westerns I have ever seen.
It is also one of the more familiar Western landscapes I've encountered in Westerns. I kept thing "this looks like Grand Junction!" and indeed, portions were filmed in nearby Moab. (Along with Arizona and Spain.)
It also features a different cast than the Dollars trilogy, though Henry Fonda seems to be channeling Eastwood in his portrayal of hired thug Frank, a role, it turns out, that was first offered to Eastwood, but Eastwood turned down. (Which makes sense. Eastwood plays ambiguous characters, but never outright baddies, and Frank is one of the worst kind of baddies: one with a sadistic imagination as the unforgettable image involving an arch with a bell prooves later in the film. Frank is also too chatty for an Eastwood character. Eastwood has admitted himself that he's not good with dialogue and I would argue that's part of the reason he's become an icon: there's more visual aspect to his roles than verbal.)
Anyway, it was an interesting film, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. The whole thing seemed a bit silly at times, especially the homage portions, and the inevitability of the Leone touch to things like the ultimate stand-off. There are moments when I wanted to roll my eyes and say, "Here we go again!" (which probably means I'm almost off Westerns as a subject of inquiry and ready for a new obsession).
But there are also moments of unforgettable cinematic brilliance, not only represented in several unforgettable images (like the arch & bell), but also in certain genre-fuck moments like an unbelievably brutal assassination attempt of the RR Magnate on a moving train. (The boot! OMG, the boot! And the tap,tap,tap at the window. Aaagh!) There is also an amazing opening eight minute sequence that involves three outlaws waiting for a train, and the way it elevates the mundane: a squeaky windmill, a bothersome fly, a drip from a leaky water tower, into something sumblime... this opening sequence is seriously an amazing piece of cinema.
Which brings me to the final aspect of commentary, the character called 'Harmonica' who squeaks out this weird combination of notes on a harmonica that is irritating, haunting, and not really complete enough to be called a tune. Halfway through the film it started sounding awfully familiar. It was then I realized that it is sampled in The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds. Note: the harmonica itself, and the tune it plays, turn out to be something sinister. (Backing up my read of The Orb song, which everyone approaches as being a cute pastiche, as having a more serious subtext, specifically a reference to the alien annhiliation that is a part of the Western landscape. I've been convinced ever since I heard the song with the bit about the colors of the sunset ("you don't see sunsets like that anymore") as being about nuclear sunsets, which my mother (who grew up, in part, in Utah) describes vividly. It's also part of much more serious, 'spacey' album.)
Okay, one more thing: I think one of the 'hooks' that really worked with me regarding Westerns is the revenge narrative. I love revenge narratives. They are very common in Westerns and less so elsewhere. (Maybe comic books?) I think I like the idea of someone stepping outside the boundaries of civilization, sanity, and the law to take their fate into their own hands is very appealing to me.
Mind you, revenge doesn't usually work out for them, or bring them the fulfillment or wholeness they seek; but that doesn't stop some part of me from admiring or at least empathizing with this extremity. One may be fortune's fool, but one would rather not be her bitch.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-11 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 12:52 am (UTC)I haven't seen the two other films, I will get to them one day.
I wouldn't recommend this film to someone who doesn't like Westerns, since a good part of the enjoyment is recognizing the references to other films.
I also live in the West, and have only recently come to like Westerns via Clint Eastwood. I distinguish between Eastwood's Westerns and everyone elses. His work in the Western really redefined the genre.
That being said, Rawhide the 1950s television series in which he got his start, is surprisingly good.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-12 06:28 am (UTC)