I recently watched the Man with No Name trilogy
This series originally came out when I was a baby (pre- and post-born), and if my parents took me to it when it was in theaters, I have no memory of it.
What I do remember is my dad's copy of the album (remember vinyl?) and the haunting, wailing, chanting music that was used to score the films.
I never saw them growing up (this was pre-cable and pre-VCR), but I finally got around to watching them, and thought I'd review them here.
The first film–A Fistful of Dollars (2-disc edition here)
Clint Eastwood's character has no name. What he also doesn't have is a well defined sense of morals. Upon learning that the Mexican town in which he has arrived is dominated by two rival families–the Rojas and the Baxters–he decides to make money for himself by playing the two sides off against each other. He alternately hires himself out two both groups, sometimes at the same time.
And large numbers of people die as a result.
This was part of director Sergio Leone (operating under the absurdly Americanesque pseudonym "Bob Robertson")'s effort to reinvent the Western film genre using more morally ambiguous characters and even anti-heroes.
The film's point is somewhat blunted by the slight mistranslation of the title from Italian. In Italian the title would literally translate as "For a Fistful of Dollars"–i.e., that's why Clint Eastwood's character started the bloodbath in the first place, a grim statement about man's capacity for inhumanity.
The Man with No Name isn't completely sociopathic, however. He does do one, major, genuinely selfless thing in the movie, which is to help a captive family escape. When the mother in the family asks him why, he says that he knew someone like her once (his own mother?) but there was no one there to help.
Ironically, this proves to be his big mistake. Up to this point, the character has been a total, supercompetent, gun-slinging Mary Sue, who can not only shoot better than anyone else but who is also five steps ahead of the people on both sides.
To keep the character from being totally consumed by Mary Sueness, he needs to be taken down a peg, and when his act of kindness is discovered Eastwood is beaten to a pulp while one of the villains laughs maniacally.
Eventually one of the families massacres the other, and Eastwood–in an impressive and inventive final duel–brings a kind of belated justice to the conclusion.
At the end of the movie he rides off with his dollars (which are rather more than a fistful; he made out well from these two families) and the audience is left to contemplate the morality–or lack of it–of his actions.
This got an O (morally offensive) rating from the U.S. bishops' film review service.
Though I wonder if it would today. Back in the 1960s, when this came out, the kind of brutal violence that the film contains would have been quite a bit more shocking than today.
Actually, the violence is amazingly bloodless. It's basically "bang, you're dead." One shot per customer; no visible wounds; the victim falls over and doesn't move again. What's startling is that Eastwood will do it to three people right in a row–bang! bang! bang! And we get a hip-level camera shot, so it's rather like watching a first-person shooter game.
Also, if the title had been properly translated it would have been clearer that the filmmakers are showing what man can do for a fistful of dollars but they're not approving of it.
In other words, we've got a man's inhumanity to man story here.
I probably would have given it an L (limited adult audience) rating.
While Leone was trying to get away from some of the cliches of Westerns, he was only partially successful. The film embraces as many cliches as it eschews.
On the positive side, the film has beautiful visuals (who knew that Andalusia in Spain looks so much like the deserts of Northern Mexico and the American Southwest?), haunting music, an intricate plot with a good number of twists and surprises (which I have not spoiled), and something to think about: How justifiable–or not–are Eastwood's actions at different turns.
It's easy to see why it was popular (very popular), why it's considered an iconic film, a classic of the genre–and why it got a couple of sequels.
The film is based on Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, in which the main character is a ronin samurai. The two families in question have been terrorizing the entire district; the ronin takes them both down. He’s more like the sheriff cleaning up a western town; it’s clear that he’s doing what he’s doing for the common folk in the district, rather than for money.
I saw Leone’s version first, but I saw it with a Yojimbo fan who explained what was going on; consequently it hadn’t occurred to me that Eastwood’s character was just in it for the money.
Bruce Willis starred in “Last Man Standing”, which was set in the desert southwest in the gangster era but was basically the same story. It didn’t do very well, never seems to play on the cables, but did feature 9mm handguns that sounded like samurai swords being drawn when Bruce racked the slides, and a typically sinister Christopher Walken. I liked it.
And Yojimbo, in turn, was based on Dashiell Hammet’s “Red Harvest”.
I was surprised to see it reviewed here given the “O” categorization. How are Roman Catholics to view this? Can we, in good conscience, view an O film?
On films with lots of violence, one that I like, but am troubled by, is The Wild Bunch. It’s categorized as one that only a limited audience can watch, and most should avoid, and I see why, given as the violence is so over the top. Having said that, I think certain disturbing points about our admiration of gangsters can be picked up through this film, which is its point. The criminals themselves are not Butch and Sundance, and we can’t excuse our admiration of them easily.
Another interesting feature of “Dollars” is the laconic nature of the gunslinger. His sparse and terse dialogue only adds to the mystery of his morals. He doesn’t reveal much since he doesn’t say much. And as his character envolves during the sequels, the number of words he says decreases each time, thus adding to the mystery. Incidentally, although they are sequels, I think the 3rd part actually (and supposedly since Leone never meant for them to be q true trilogy) pre-dates the the other two.
WARNING: MAJOR PLOT GIVEAWAYS FOLLOW.
I have liked this movie since I was a boy in elementary school and often watched it on TV with my younger brother and our father, and have just watched it again. What appealed to my brother and I was that the movie begins with The Man with No Name seeing a small boy trying to see his mother; he is thrown out of the house by the Rojos. That provides the motivation for the subsequent actions of The Man with No Name (I believe he is called “Joe” by the coffinmaker). Most of the movie is about his efforts to reunite the family. He takes great risks and makes heroic sacrifices to reunite them, and gives them all his money that we know of.
When he is beaten by the Rojos, who want Marisol back, he doesn’t tell them where she and her family are; if all he wanted was money, why would he protect them? He then goes on to “clean up the town.” OK, so he does it in a very messy way, but he does put an end to all the killing in San Miguel. Yes, he does do it by killing or arranging the killing of all the Baxters and Rojos, but then he simply leaves San Miguel. Does he have any of the money he was paid by the Baxters and Rojos? We don’t know, but we do know that he gave Marisol and her family a lot, quite possibly all he had.
Did he make any material gain from his time in San Miguel? none that we know of. He is what he is, and what he had learned prior to his arrival in San Miguel was violence. In that sense his character is not admirable, but given that character, his actions are admirable. Well, perhaps his killing of the Rojos and Baxters is not admirable. On the other hand, if he had not killed the Rojos and Baxters, perhaps there would have been another Marisol before long. Remember, the “Sheriff” of San Miguel was one of the Baxters: there was no law whatsoever in San Miguel. Who would guess a hardened character like him would care enough to do what he did. Is there hope even for the likes of him?
This is one of my two favorite movies, the other being The Sound of Music, (?!) which my daughters love, and it has grown on me. Of course I detested it as a boy!
One final note. My father abhorred the violence and killing in this movie, and I think he more or less just stayed in the room while my brother and I watched it. We were never allowed to watch violent movies except this one, perhaps because my father understood how the opening scene appealed to us.
Curious, what rating does the USCCB give to the Lord of the Rings trilogy? There was quite a bit of violence in that, in it was far more graphic. (Not to mention TPOTC).
If the violence is not gratuitous – that is, it serves a valid plot point, then while it may not be for all audiences (mature only), I would not necessarily find it offensive.
Although not part of the dollar trilogy (but loosely akin to it), my favorite has always been High Plains Drifter.
c matt, the Lord of the Rings movies were all rated A-III (Adults), as was The Passion.
Certainly we can. The USCCB ratings certainly deserve Catholics’ attention in discerning what movies would be good for them to watch. However, individual reviews and ratings are assigned by laymen and have no disciplinary (much less doctrinal) force. They constitute pastoral advice, except they aren’t even given by pastors.
On the other hand, Catholics may never watch films that are given a rating of F by SDG.