Movie Notes: A Fistful Of Dollars

June 7th, 2008

= 4 stars

Starring Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volonte, Marianne Koch
Directed by Sergio Leone

Synopsis

The “Man With No Name” (Clint Eastwood) wanders into a chaotic western town where two rival gangs live in uneasy balance. The lone cowboy enacts his own brand of outlaw justice.

The Good

• A strong shot of the Eastwood lone gunman persona, squinting through the desert heat and quick on the draw, paired with cunning intelligence.
• The wide open spaces of the lawless west are framed by evocative music by Ennio Morricone.
• Leone’s minimal directing style still communicates exactly what must be understood for each scene. There’s a quick camera zoom on a mother and child to show their emotional connection, and a spinning camera focused on the hot sun as a character dies.
• Satisfying movie morality: the hero comes out of nowhere, sizes up the situation, and brings justice to the community. Once it’s known what the hero is up to, wimpy lesser characters come to his aid. The bad guys are punished.

The Bad

• This “spaghetti western” was an Italian remake of Yojimbo (a Kurosawa film I still haven’t seen). Granted, that film was based on old American westerns from the fifites. So it’s a bit derivative and slightly odd as a western filtered through Japanese and Italian cinema.

Conclusion

It took me a while to get into this flick but once I understood where it was coming from, I really enjoyed it, enough to line up the other spaghetti western “Man With No Name” series in my NetFlix queue: A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.

IMDB: A Fistful Of Dollars
Wikipedia: A Fistful Of Dollars
Rotten Tomatoes: A Fistful Of Dollars 94%