12/26/15: Daisy, in the Snow, With Violence

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70mm, auteur theory, Best of 2015, bounty hunters, Bruce Dern, Channing Tatum, cinema, Dana Gourrier, Demian Bichir, Ennio Morricone, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Fred Raskin, Gene Jones, isolation, James Parks, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Ford, Kurt Russell, Lee Horsely, Michael Madsen, Movies, mystery, paranoia, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Richardson, Samuel L. Jackson, suspense, The Hateful Eight, Tim Roth, Walton Goggins, Western, writer-director, Zoe Bell

Since the dawning of the ’90s, few filmmakers have so ably embodied the “love ’em or hate ’em” aesthetic as Quentin Tarantino has. If you’re in Camp QT, you consider him to be a bona fide auteur, a stubborn iconoclast whose complete love of everything under the sun has led to some of the most unforgettable, indelible films of the last 20-some years, films which have burrowed their way into the very fabric of pop culture in ways that few other films have. If you’re a fan, there are few things in life quite like getting the next Tarantino flick: his unique blend of ultra-violence, cutting dialogue and fractured narratives are the rare “art” films that play to all four walls of the multiplex, immersing viewers in an almost overpowering sense of watching films that are vitally, potently, alive. That’s one side of the coin.

If you’re not a fan, however, you’ll tend to lean a different way towards QT. On the flip side of the coin, Tarantino is a ridiculously self-indulgent enfant terrible who confuses style for substance (or, worse, doesn’t care) and is, at best, ruthlessly unaware of the problematic nature of some of his material. At worst, critics can call QT racist, misogynistic, homophobic (in Tarantino’s cinematic universe, male-on-male sexual assault is still the scariest thing that can happen to a guy), vain, a windbag, a thief or, worse yet, the luckiest hack in the biz. That’s the other side of the coin.

The thing is, Tarantino is both sides of the coin: the artist and the ego-maniac; the wish-fulfiller who appropriates cultural elements as needed, yet gives avenue for satisfying revenge, in return; the misogynist who creates fascinating, three-dimensional female characters only to put them through hell and back; the gore-hound who understands restraint. He’s a guy who loves movies, all kinds of movies: the good and the bad, the forward-thinking and the repulsively backwards, the trash and the art…this ability to bring absolutely everything to the table, for better or worse, is what makes Tarantino films actual events. In a world where everything is carefully crafted to reach the widest possible paying audience, QT feels like one of the few who’s willing to say “Fuck it” and just do what he feels like.

This exceptionally long-winded preamble is by means of bringing us to Tarantino’s newest film (his eighth, overall), the star-studded, ultra-violent, relentlessly grim and audaciously funny old-school Western, The Hateful Eight (2015). Coming on the heels of another film with a decidedly Western setting, Django Unchained (2012), Tarantino’s current offering couldn’t be further from his previous one. This is a huge, sweeping film (shot and screened in 70mm, for the first time in 40 years), that kind that looks to John Ford for inspiration even as it utilizes legendary Spaghetti Western composer Ennio Morricone for the exquisite score. It’s a film that trades in the hard-edged wish-fulfillment of Django and Inglorious Basterds (2009) for the kind of weary fatalism more associated with Cormac McCarthy. It’s a film that takes an awful lot of chances, many of which fall flat as a bad souffle. It’s also a minor masterpiece and proof positive that Tarantino remains one of our most interesting, surprising and uncompromising cinematic voices. Love it or hate it, there’s no way to ignore (or deny) The Hateful Eight.

Encompassing six chapters and some three-hours of run-time, The Hateful Eight takes its time in the early stretches, yet pays off patient viewers by the final third. Beginning with a stage-coach racing across the pristine, snow-covered desolation of Wyoming, ahead of a crippling blizzard, the film wastes no time in blowing minds with Robert Richardson’s jaw-dropping, wide-screen cinematography. From the very first shot, this is a film that announces its epic intentions and then (for the most part) fulfills them: you have to admire that sort of conviction.

The stagecoach contains two of the titular Eight, along with the driver, OB (James Parks), who’s probably the least hateful person in the entire film. The passengers, however, are a different story: John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell, channeling latter-day John Wayne) is transporting vicious murderer/casually-virulent racist Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh, absolutely feral and quite wonderful) to the town of Red Rocks so she can hang. Ruth is a bounty hunter and pretty much the antithesis of every Russell role ever: he’s mean, has a hair trigger, revels in watching his wards hang and genuinely enjoys smacking the shit out of Daisy, which he does as frequently as possible. Daisy, for her part, is pretty much just an awful human being, spitting, cussing and hocking loogies (and nasty insults) at anyone within easy reach.

Along the way, the merry company picks up another couple members of that illustrious Eight: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson, in the apex of his history with Tarantino) and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins, simply phenomenal). Warren (a former slave-turned-Union soldier-turned bounty hunter) and Mannix (a former Confederate raider/outlaw supposedly turned sheriff of Red Rocks) are seeking shelter from the impending storm and the stagecoach presents a much better option than freezing to death.

Arriving at renowned half-way spot Minnie’s Haberdashery, the five uneasy companions find the place all but vacant, save for an additional four individuals: foppish, smarmy, Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth, having a blast); surly, silent cow-poke, Joe Gage (Michael Madsen, with a ridiculous hairpiece); aging, nasty former-Confederate General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern, impish as ever); and “Mexican” Bob (Demian Bichir, completely surprising and consistently wonderful), the guys who’s in charge of the way-station.

Snowed in, the eight strangers (plus poor OB), must strike up an increasingly unsteady live-and-let-live arrangement, as they wait for the blizzard to pass and the road to Red Rocks to reopen. As several characters make a point of saying, however, transporting a live, desperate criminal is a lot more dangerous than transporting a dead one. Will Ruth’s insistence on seeing Daisy swing prove his downfall? Are these various varmints and rascals really strangers or is there more going on here than meets the eye? As suspicions grow and lies begin to surface with disturbing regularity, one thing becomes quite clear: there will be blood…lots of it.

Posited as a bracing combination of John Ford and Agatha Christie, The Hateful Eight definitely stands as Tarantino’s most straight-forward (barring a few customary flourishes) narrative, a film that’s more mystery than fractured narrative, ala Pulp Fiction (1994). It’s also his most accomplished, fully realized film, a work that displaces the aforementioned Pulp Fiction as the pinnacle of his career (at least to this humble reviewer). It’s by no means a perfect film, as I’ve mentioned earlier. In fact, let’s address those issues right now.

Many of Tarantino’s stylistic quirks fall flat: the narrator is completely ill-advised (for many reasons) and manages to change the tone instantly, while some of the effects (the slo-mo on Jackson during one scene, for example) just don’t work: they pull us out of the story completely rather than accentuating what’s going on.

The constant racial slurs and casual misogyny become all but unbearable, over time. Unlike the “necessary evils” of Django Unchained or Death Proof (2007), the virulence in The Hateful Eight seems to exist only as shorthand for how awful these people are. These are “hateful” individuals, ergo it’s only understandable that they’re all racist (pretty much to a person). Likewise, Daisy is a really shithead, so no harm/no foul when Ruth constantly clocks in her in the face. One can make the case that Tarantino is just presenting these aspects and letting the audiences decide but why did Daisy’s truly awful racial slurs and subsequent beatings always produce the biggest crowd reactions? Hateful people deserve to get beat down, obviously…but you have to show how hateful they are first, right?

The film is slightly too long. Not drastically too long, mind you (even at three hours) but slightly too long: there are pacing issues, late in the film, that make it seem longer than it is and the finale features more false endings than a Terminator film. This wouldn’t really be a problem except that it’s obvious Tarantino would rather sacrifice flow and pacing instead of trimming any of his goodies.

And now, to reference the dear, departed Roger Ebert: let me find my other list. The Hateful Eight is a beautiful, exquisitely made film, maybe one of the loveliest of the last few decades. There’s an art and poetry to Richardson’s imagery that is, to beat a dead horse, simply stunning. When viewed in the theater, in glorious 70mm, The Hateful Eight feels more cinematic and epic than anything I’ve seen in my three-decades of going to theaters. Toss in the “Overture” and the “Intermission” and it’s clear this isn’t just something to have on in the background: this is an honest to god event.

Ennio Morricone’s score is simply amazing, possibly his single best work since The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. When that impossibly epic theme kicked in, blasting out of the surround speakers, I actually teared up. This is what films should feel like: they should rattle every one of your senses, smack around in your skull like a pinball and rocket out of your over-loaded brain cavity like a gilded rainbow.

The performances, to a tee, are sheer perfection. Even though several of the characters are nothing more than broad stereotypes (Bichir’s take on Bob is so ridiculously, sublimely cliched that he was able to bring the packed crowd to a road by nothing more than his intense pronunciation of Spanish swearwords, while Roth’s Oswaldo is one feathered-cap away from a Musketeer), every single actor commits to their roles with a dedication that borders on the psychotic.

To be frank, The Hateful Eight has one of the most fascinating groups of characters since…well…since Pulp Fiction. From Kurt Russell’s “John Wayne as a wife-beater” impersonation to Jackson’s stellar, multi-facted turn as Major Warren (Jackson finally gets to lead a Tarantino flick AND play Sherlock Holmes…a two for one!) to Leigh’s spiteful Daisy, these are characters that either Ford or Peckinpah would have killed for.

Chief among greats, however? Walton Goggins knockout portrayal of the former rebel/current (maybe?) sheriff is a study in contradictions that actually works, leading to one of the great “odd couple” match-ups of recent years. Goggins has been proving himself, more and more, over the years but The Hateful Eight should stand as proof that he need prove himself no more: Goggins has fully arrived and it’s glorious to behold.

Biggest surprise here? The Hateful Eight is genuinely, subversively funny, maybe Tarantino’s most inherently humorous film since Basterds. Going in, I expected this to be a fairly grim, relatively po-faced film: nothing could be further from the truth. Whether indulging in some of that patented “talk about nothing” that Tarantino revels in or setting up sight-gags that pay off outrageous returns (never before has one filmmaker wrung so much merriment out of people being shot in the face), this is primo, tongue-in-cheek Tarantino all the way.

Ultimately, how does QT’s newest stack up with what came before? Obviously, individual results may vary but I honestly think this is his best film yet. While there’s plenty of room for continued discussion here (folks can and should continue to examine Tarantino’s insistence on racist characters, particularly in light of this film), there should be no debate as to the actual merits of the film: this is a modern classic, from start to finish. All one has to do is take a look at the film’s disparate elements (that iconic score, the groundbreaking cinematography, all-in performances, intricately-plotted storyline) that so that: whether judged on its parts or as a whole, The Hateful Eight is as rock-solid as the icy ground its characters trod.

Love him or hate him, one thing is abundantly clear: The Hateful Eight is not a film that you’ll forget anytime soon. Is it the best film of 2015? I think it might be. As mentioned before, however: individual results may vary.

10/11/14 (Part Two): Who Goes There?

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31 Days of Halloween, aliens, Arctic setting, auteur theory, based on a short story, Charles Hallahan, classic films, cult classic, David Clennon, Dean Cundey, Donald Moffat, dopplegangers, Ennio Morricone, favorite films, Film auteurs, horror films, isolation, Joel Polis, John Carpenter, Keith David, Kurt Russell, paranoia, Peter Maloney, remakes, Richard Dysart, Richard Masur, sci-fi, sci-fi-horror, scientists, shape-shifters, T.K. Carter, The Thing, Thomas Waites, Wilford Brimley

Although we horror film fanatics tend to be a fairly diverse bunch, there are still a handful of films that are pretty much accepted as canon by discerning viewers. This doesn’t, of course, mean to speak for everyone: many fans who call themselves horror fanatics have no interest in the genre’s history, past or anything more academic than watching the newest collection of gore scenes. I’ve long argued that horror is a genre and field as worthy of deep exploration as any other but it doesn’t change the fact that many viewers are still just after a visceral, momentary experience.

For every “casual” fan of the genre, however, there are plenty of what could best be described as “rabid” fans, folks who live, breathe, eat and sleep the stuff, tearing into everything from silent, black and white films to the newest CGI spectacles. For these fans, there are a few films that have managed to stand out from the crowd, proving endlessly influential and sources of much repeat viewings and continued exploration: Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978), the classic Universal monster films, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Peeping Tom (1960), Psycho (1960) and The Exorcist (1973) are but a small handful of the films that would probably show up on most hardcore horror fans “Best of” lists. One would be remiss, of course, if they didn’t also include one of the single most influential, popular and well-made horror films of the ’80s: John Carpenter’s ferocious, ground-breaking and utterly essential sci-horror masterpiece, The Thing (1982).

Although I’m pretty sure that almost everyone is, at the very least, familiar with the basics behind The Thing, the plot is pure simplicity. A team of American scientists at a remote research base in the frozen Arctic come into contact with something decidedly not of this world after they run into a group of Norwegian scientists who are violently pursuing a seemingly innocent dog. What at first seems like an extreme case of “snow madness” is soon revealed to be something much more terrifying: the dog is actually a grotesque, shape-shifting alien organism. The creature is cunning, quick and extremely hungry: with the Norwegians out of the picture, the Americans become the new snack du jour. As resourceful, gung-ho chopper pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell, in one of his most iconic roles) takes command of the increasingly paranoid and frightened group, he’s faced with a real devil’s dilemma: since the monster can look and act like any of them, how do the men really know which of them are from planet Earth and which are from a location just a little further away in our galaxy?

Full disclosure: I’ve been a pretty nutso fan of Carpenter’s classic ever since I first saw the movie, an impression that hasn’t changed one iota in all the years since. To be frank, The Thing is just about as perfect as a film gets, a classic case of intention meeting craft in a perfect creative spark. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to appreciate different aspects of the film: when I was younger, I was all about the ooky effects, rewatching the key setpieces so often that I practically had the creature’s movements memorized. Now that I have a few years under my belt and have become a little more jaded regarding special effects in films, I find myself focusing more on the film’s exquisite use of location and the exceptional ensemble cast: I still dig the ever-lovin’ shit out of the effects scenes, don’t get me wrong, but the subtler aspects of the film are the ones that really push it from something special to something essential.

There’s so much about The Thing that exemplifies the film as one of the very apices of the horror film genre, a perfect storm of disparate elements. There’s Carpenter’s sure-handed, expert direction, of course: the auteur is one of the very best filmmakers for combining action and horror into one Voltron of awesomeness and he has a rare eye for background detail that adds immeasurable tension to every frame of the film. The film was shot by Dean Cundey, the masterful cinematographer responsible for everything from Halloween to D.C. Cab (1983) and Jurassic Park (1993): the film looks absolutely gorgeous and Cundey is expert at making the principal characters seem as small and insignificant against the unforgiving immensity of the Arctic wasteland as possible. The score was done by the iconic Ennio Morricone, the creator of some of the most legendary, unforgettable film scores in the history of the medium. While Carpenter’s self-made synth scores have always a particular highlight of his films, Morricone’s epic, sweeping score really adds a new layer to the proceedings. The groundbreaking practical effects work was done by industry pioneer Rob Bottin and would go on to influence at least the next generation of effects creators, if not more.

And then, of course, there’s that cast. Jeez…what a cast. Taking a cue from Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), Carpenter stocks his film with some of the best character and genre actors in the biz, ensuring that no one comes across as generic “cannon fodder.” Kurt Russell…Wilford Brimley…Richard Masur…Keith David…Richard Dysart…Donald Moffat…each and every performer brings their A-game to the proceedings, adding up to one hell of an ensemble performance. The shining star of the group, of course, is Russell: while he’s been behind some of the most iconic action heroes in cinema (any conversation about kick-ass heroes that doesn’t include Snake Plissken is fundamentally flawed from the jump), MacReady is easily one of the highlights. We first meet Russell’s character as he plays computer chess: when the machine beats him, MacReady pours his bourbon down its access panel, shorting the computer out. Classic Kurt, in other words. Regardless of what’s happening on-screen, Russell is always the magnetic, undeniable center of everything: MacReady is one of the great screen creations and much of the credit for this must go to Russell’s inspired performance.

In fact, the cast is so perfect that my one quibble with the film’s actors has always been the same: I’m disappointed that there are no strong female characters here, ala Alien or Aliens (1986). There are certainly room for them, as the previously mentioned examples state. While some have pointed out that an isolated research station wouldn’t be co-ed, this has always seemed like a rather spurious assumption: after all, women have been successfully integrated into many such films (Aliens pretty much makes and ends this argument, thanks not only to Ripley’s character but the other female space marines, as well).

Integration complaint aside, The Thing really is a perfect film. It’s unbelievably tense, expertly crafted, looks amazing and is an absolute blast to watch. So many of the film’s setpieces have been burned into my brain over the years that it’s hard to imagine a world without them: the dog transformation…the hot wire and the blood…the defibrillator gone horribly amok…the spider-head…the cynical, utterly badass ending…the jaw-dropping reveal of the UFO…to be honest, a good 80% of the film plays like a highlights reel, similar to an award-winning band that scores eight hit singles out of ten on their album. I attempted to watch The Thing with as critical an eye as possible, this time around, but my earlier impressions were all just reaffirmed: this thing really is one of the all-time classics. I can’t even knock the film down a few points for being a remake of the Howard Hawk’s classic The Thing From Another World (1951), since it’s one of the few remakes to not only do justice to the original but to improve upon it in pretty much every way: Carpenter’s film has never felt like a cash-grab to me, like other remakes. The Thing has always seemed like a complete labor of love, pure and simple.

As someone who constantly finds myself re-examining and re-evaluating my impressions and opinions on films, I find that my “Best of” lists are, likewise, in constant flux. One thing that’s always remained constant, however, is my love and appreciation for Carpenter’s film. I’m not sure that I’ve ever left The Thing off of a list, to this point, and I can all but guarantee that I probably never will.

5/31/14 (Part Four): The Boys Are Back in Town

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1960's films, A Fistful of Dollars, bounty hunters, cinema, Clint Eastwood, Col. Douglas Mortimer, cult classic, El Indio, Ennio Morricone, favorite films, film reviews, films, flashbacks, For a Few Dollars More, Gian Maria Volonte, iconic film scores, Italian cinema, James Bond, Klaus Kinski, Lee Van Cleef, Mario Brega, Monco, Movies, Sergio Leone, spaghetti Westerns, The Bad and The Ugly, The Good, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, the Man with No Name, the myth of the Old West, the Wild West, trilogies, Westerns

Crafting a sequel to a successful, popular film is no easy feat. If the followup is too much like its predecessor, it has no individual identity, seeking only to remind audiences of the original material, usually in a watered down manner. If the sequel is nothing like the original film, however, either in content or tone, then filmmakers run the risk of losing their crossover audience: audiences who flocked to see dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993) might not have been so eager to see the followup if it featured kittens instead of velociraptors. The key, then, is to make the new film work for the same reasons the old one did: if you can tap back into an audiences’ emotions, you can produce a new film that will be just as successful, in its own way.

In many cases, the most successful sequels that don’t directly continue a larger storyline (The Godfather, etc.) are the ones that make subtle tweaks to the original property, while still maintaining the core feel/vibe. One of the best examples of this is the difference between Ridley Scott’s original Alien (1979) and James Cameron’s sequel, Aliens (1986). Both films are very good at what they do, for very different reasons. Scott’s film is a claustrophobic horror film that is equal parts “haunted house in space” and savage childbirth nightmare, whereas Cameron’s film is a fast-paced, tense and adrenaline-soaked action film about space marines destroying the living shit out of vicious alien foes. Two very different films but each wildly successful, in its own way and for its own reasons. In this spirit, then, we can see For a Few Dollars More (1965), Sergio Leone’s sequel to his iconic A Fistful of Dollars (1964), as being a wildly successful attempt to tweak the formula from the first film. While A Fistful of Dollars was a small film about one man and his interactions with a particularly lethal town, For a Few Dollars More is a much bigger, more epic story, prefiguring the Civil War epic that is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966), Leone’s magnum opus. It also ends up being a surprisingly big-hearted buddy picture, albeit one where Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef end up being the buddies. Huzzah!

The film begins with a nifty opening sequence that features someone on horseback getting gunned down in an extreme long shot, before another classic Ennio Morricone score kicks in. While the opening sequence isn’t quite as dynamic as the black-and-red James Bond nod of the first film, the song, itself, is pure gold, hinting at the titanic awesomeness that would arrive the following year with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. An inter-title introduces us to the concept of the bounty killer (“Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price”) and we’re off to the races. Right off the bat, For a Few Dollars More has a larger, more expansive feel than its predecessor: Leone has a few more things to say, this time around, and he’s going to make damn sure we’re listening.

In short order, we meet Col. Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef), a man so completely badass that he makes his own railway schedule: “This train doesn’t stop in Tucumcari,” a nervous agent tells Mortimer. “This train’ll stop in Tucumcari,” Mortimer drolls back. And he’s right, of course, because he’s Lee Van Cleef: you try arguing with the dude. We then see Mortimer, as unhurried and cold as the Angel of Death himself, take out a bounty with a specially modified rifle. This guy, we see, is not the kind of fella you want to fuck with. As Mortimer gets a lead on his next bounty, he learns that someone else has been asking after the reward…some guy named Monco…some guy that we’d probably recognize better as…The Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood). And now, kids, we’re really off to the races.

After we see Eastwood handily collect his bounty via well-timed karate chops and a blazingly fast six-gun, we also get to see him practice a little good ol’ fashioned frontier justice. Approaching the worthless sheriff who did nothing to either capture the fugitive outlaw or prevent his gang from attempting to shoot him in the back, Monco looks the guy in the eye and deadpans, “Aren’t you supposed to be courageous and, above all, honest?” Without looking him in the eye, the sheriff responds back in the affirmative. Eastwood then takes the star off the sheriff’s chest, tosses it to a couple of guys hanging around outside, says “You need a new sheriff,” and rides out of town. In a word: badass.

At this point, with our principals firmly established, we meet the third point to this triangle: the vicious, blood-thirsty El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte). El Indio is a monstrous figure, a villain whose modus operandi involves gunning down people after his pocket watch has finished playing its delicate melody. Through a series of flashbacks, we get a gradual sense of the backstory behind the watch, leading to a pretty huge revelation in the final act. Indio is a complex man, equal parts brutish thug, calculating schemer and charming leader. He also has a $10000 bounty on his head, a reward which both Col. Mortimer and Monco have their eyes on.

After dancing around each other for a bit, Mortimer and Monco gradually settle into an uneasy partnership, one defined by an almost student/teacher relationship: Mortimer is the old-guard and Monco is the upstart young guy who will, eventually, take his place in the history books. There’s a genuine depth to Mortimer and Monco’s relationship that pays off in some surprisingly emotional ways throughout the film, while still allowing the titanic actors behind the performances to have their respective field days. It’s like a spaghetti Western version of Godzilla vs Monster Zero (1965), with Eastwood and Van Cleef subbing in for Godzilla and Rodan.

After Monco is “convinced” to infiltrate Indio’s gang (“One of us will have to join Indio’s band.” “Why are you looking at me when you say ‘one of us’?”), the two come up with a plan to take down Indio and his gang, including Klaus Kinski as a notoriously bad-tempered hunchback named Juan Wild. Things don’t go according to plan, of course, and Mortimer and Monco end things the way they began them: with steel reserve, a sneer and a whole lot of hot lead.

Right off the bat, For a Few Dollars More exists in a much more expansive universe than the first film. For one thing, we actually get to travel around a bit and see more of the Wild West than the dusty town of San Miguel. As Mortimer, Monco and El Indio continue their deadly game, audiences get to experience a much fuller dose of Leone’s vision of the West, a vision that’s every bit as interesting as John Ford’s, as far as I’m concerned. Leone’s vision is a romantic, fantastical one, informed as much by tall-tales and campfire stories as it is by actual historical precedent. At one point, as we get our first glimpse of the “impenetrable” El Paso bank, I found myself wondering if actual Old West banks bore any resemblance to the eye-popping, baroque edifice that Leone portrays in the film. I’m pretty sure they didn’t but I sure do like Leone’s idea better.

While A Fistful of Dollars was full of great one-liners and some truly ironic moments, For a Few Dollars More is a much more intentionally funny, “good-natured” film. At one point, a young boy tries to entice Monco into staying at a particular hotel by telling him that an attractive landlady runs the place. When Monco asks if she’s married, the boy shrugs and says, “Yeah, but she don’t care.” The initially throwaway bit pays off, later, when we see the landlady swooning over Monco. “He’s tall,” she says dreamily, which produces a nice moment when her husband storms off, in a huff, revealing him to be exceptionally short. It’s a pretty great gag and seamlessly integrated into the film. There’s another truly funny scene where Mortimer and Monco try to exert authority over each other by shooting their respective hats down the street: the two titans are so evenly matched that they eventually give up and just go have a drink. If only all conflicts could be resolved this way, eh?

Like the first film, For a Few Dollars more looks and sounds beautiful: the wide-open vistas are as stunning as ever and Morricone’s score is phenomenal, leaps and bounds above the already notable Fistful of Dollars score. Leone uses the score to much greater effect in the followup, culminating in one of the greatest scenes ever committed to celluloid. When Indio is broken out of jail, he gets revenge on the man who ratted him out by having his wife and baby killed right before his eyes. As is usual for Indio, he offers the poor guy a “chance” to fight him: when the music from his pocket watch stops, they can both come out blazing. In a fantastic use of sound, the music from the watch starts off as tinny and diegetic before becoming part of the score, where the music warps into a massive, Gothic processional, drenched in church organs, before returning to tinny and diegetic as the music stops and El Indio blasts his victim straight to Hell. It’s a massively impressive scene, one that didn’t really have any precedents in A Fistful of Dollars but will have plenty of competition in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Acting-wise, this is another home-run, featuring typically iconic performances from Eastwood and Van Cleef and another great turn from Volonte. Whereas Volonte’s Ramon Rojo, in A Fistful of Dollars, was akin to a rabid dog, his performance as El Indio is much fuller and more subtle. In many ways, Indio comes across as a really good Bond villain, sort of an Old West Blofeld. In fact, the James Bond parallels from the first film really come home to roost in this one, especially during the bit where Indio and his second-in-command, Nino (Mario Brega) prepare to doublecross their own gang. There’s one moment where Indio says, “It’s done now: prepare to get out of here” where I fully expected to see SPECTRE baddies running around while their lair collapsed. If this sounds like some kind of faint praise, believe me: it’s not.

Ultimately, For a Few Dollars More is that rare sequel that actually manages to expand on and improve on its predecessor. While I’ll always love the smaller, more intimate feel of A Fistful of Dollars, there no way I can deny how much fun it is to see Leone playing in a larger sandbox. The second film in the trilogy leads us perfectly into the last, where everything becomes much bigger, more epic and more badass. While there’s an undeniable joy in seeing Eastwood and Van Cleef face-off in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, there’s something just as cool about seeing them team-up to administer a little good, ol’ fashioned ass-kicking. You can keep The Expendables (2010): who needs a whole team when you have the two biggest badasses in the universe?

5/31/14 (Part Three): Better Make it Three Coffins

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1960's films, A Fistful of Dollars, Akira Kurosawa, cinema, Clint Eastwood, cult films, Eastwood, Ennio Morricone, favorite films, feuding families, film reviews, films, foreign films, Gian Maria Volonte, gunfighters, iconic film scores, Italian cinema, James Bond, John Wayne, Marianne Koch, Movies, Ramon Rojo, Sergio Leone, Shakespearean, spaghetti Westerns, the Man with No Name, the myth of the Old West, the Wild West, trilogies, Westerns, Wolfgang Lukschy, Yojimbo

As a kid, I was raised on a pretty steady diet of movies…I can’t really recall a time when we were at home and not watching something, to be honest. My parents had fairly wide-ranging tastes, although certain things were pretty sacrosanct: Westerns, musicals and crime films always ruled the roost in our little castle. In particular, my parents loved John Wayne and Clint Eastwood films. Growing up, I was never particularly into Wayne: I’d seen almost all of his films by the time I was a teenager, I believe, but very few aside from El Dorado (1966) and North to Alaska (1960) ever stuck out for me. As I get older, I find myself with a little more appreciation for his body of work, although he’ll never be close to my favorite Western star. Eastwood, however…Eastwood was a different story.

To not put too fine a point on it, I absolutely idolized Clint Eastwood growing up. Not just enjoyed his films, mind you, but voraciously devoured them, sometimes watching the same movies over and over again to the point of rote memorization. There was a certain inherent badassness to Eastwood that always hit me right in the primal center of my brain: I didn’t just love his movies…I wanted to be this dude! It didn’t matter what the films were…Westerns, war movies, cop thrillers, chimpanzee road movies…I loved ’em all, man. The Dirty Harry series will always have a special place in my heart but, for my money, Eastwood was the most unstoppable during his classic run of mid-’60s-’70s Westerns. To this day, I can watch any or all of these at the drop of a hat: A Fistful of Dollars (1964); For a Few Dollars More (1965); The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966); Hang ‘Em High (1968); Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970); Joe Kidd (1972); High Plains Drifter (1973); and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). For this decade+ timeframe, beginning with Sergio Leone’s unbeatable Dollars trilogy, Eastwood, as far as I’m concerned, was the single greatest action star in the world. But it all began with a humble little spaghetti Western called A Fistful of Dollars.

The setup for A Fistful of Dollars is almost Shakespearean in its simplicity: a mysterious, nameless man (Clint Eastwood) wanders into a lawless town and ends up in the middle of a seemingly eternal struggle between two feuding families. In this case, the town is San Miguel and the families are the Baxters and Rojos and each one controls a vital aspect of the town – the Baxters run all of the guns and the Rojos take care of the liquor. As The Man With No Name knows, any town with liquor and guns has got money…and he wants in on the action. Soon, the stranger is pulling strings every which way, inching both clans towards a fiery Armageddon that will see him sop up the remains like soup from the bottom of a bowl. Caught between Sheriff John Baxter (Wolfgang Lukschy) on one end and the feral Ramon Rojo (Gian Maria Volonte) on the other, the stranger is able to find a friend in the enigmatic saloon-keeper, Silvanito (Jose Calvo)…always a good thing when you need someone to watch your back. He even finds a cause, in a way, as the stranger seeks to reunite Ramon’s captive Marisol (Marianne Koch) with her husband and young son. It’s just business as usual in San Miguel, where a man can either get rich…or dead.

Right off the bat, astute viewers will note that the plot of A Fistful of Dollars bears a striking resemblance to Akira Kurosawa’s iconic Yojimbo (1961). While this is pretty obvious, I’ll go a little further out on the branch and suggest another possible influence: the James Bond films, which began with Dr. No (1962). While this may seem a bit odd, think about it for a minute. Consider the highly stylized credit sequence, which features stark red and black silhouettes. Compare The Man with No Name’s offhand, cool demeanor and way with a (subtle) wisecrack to Sean Connery’s portrayal of the British super-spy. Think about the effortless way in which the stranger executes highly complex plans, sort of like Rube Goldberg devices minus the bowling balls. While the James Bond similarities will really come to the forefront in the followup, For a Few Dollars More, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point them out in this one. Truth be told, I’ve been a gonzo fan of both the original Bond films and the Dollars Trilogy for so long, by this point, that I’m a little surprised I didn’t make the connection earlier.

New revelation aside, my biggest takeaway from yet another viewing of A Fistful of Dollars is how really unbeatable the film is. In fact, the only Western that might be better than this is For a Few Dollars More. And, of course, the only one better than that would have to be The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (RIP Mr. Wallach), which looks down on most films from a godly height, Western or otherwise. There isn’t really any aspect of Leone’s classic film that doesn’t work splendidly well, as far as I’m concerned. Eastwood is the perfect hero/anti-hero (although his actions to help Marisol and her family seem to tip him more in the “hero” direction for this outing). The story is streamlined and quick-paced, full of lots of natural wit and some truly funny moments, much of it thanks to Eastwood’s spot-on delivery of some pretty classic quips. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, full of the huge, wide-open vistas that would make The Good, The Bad and The Ugly such an epic film. And that score…yeesh, who could ever forget about Ennio Morricone? Although he’ll always be best known for the iconic score for the final Dollars film (wah wah….wa wa waaaah…), the threads are here and they’re pretty damn glorious.

When all of the elements come together (that amazingly vibrant cinematography, the stirring score, the sight of Clint squinting, cheroot in mouth, finger itching to pull the trigger), they create a sensation that I can best describe as a purely cinematic experience. My adrenaline starts to pump, I mutter things at the screen and, before long, I’m throwing my fists in the air like it was an Iron Maiden concert: I’ve had the same, basic experience when watching these films for the best 30 or so years, without fail. Unlike other beloved films from my childhood that currently have as much relevance as month-old milk (I’m thinking specifically of Clerks (1994), which I can’t even sit through nowadays), my opinion on A Fistful of Dollars (and the Trilogy, in general) has never changed. I loved the film back then and I still love it now. Although I’m able to articulate my feelings a little more eloquently these days (“Clint Eastwood kicks ass!” has been replaced by examinations of the cinematography, dialogue and musical score), I still arrive at the same conclusion: this film kicks ass.

While it’s impossible to completely quantify what works so well about A Fistful of Dollars, I’ll close with one of my favorite moments in the film. Towards the end, as we near the final shootout, Silvanito has been taken hostage by the Rojos and severely beaten. There’s little hope of rescue for him: after all, it’s not like him and the stranger are comrades…they’re just a couple of guys who don’t have any reason to kill each other. Silvanito has no reason to believe the stranger will come to save him, even though he’s kept his mouth shut and given the Rojos nothing regarding the Man with No Name. Suddenly, the stranger appears in the street, stepping from behind a plume of dynamite smoke. Eastwood stands there, wearing that classic serape and hat, a cheroot between his teeth and steel flint in his eyes. Silvanito looks up, just then, squinting to see through swollen eyes. He sees Eastwood and a small smile creases his weary face: help has arrived after all…all hope is not lost. As Eastwood strides forward, my heart soars, like it always does. There is about to be a stomping and it’s going to be an especially righteous one.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what movies are all about. You could argue, of course, but you would be wrong. So very, very wrong.