High Plains Drifter

The incredible Western Countdown at Wonders In The Dark started on Sept 30, 2013. Essays for the top 50 films will be posted on the website from Monday - Friday. So far, the first week has been completed with five essays posted on the site, with my essay at #47.

50. Destry Rides Again.

49. True Grit (2010).

48. Track of the Cat.

47. High Plains Drifter.

46. No Country for Old Men.

Spaghetti Westerns

WHEN film critics and historians refer to the spaghetti western, they tend to mean four films directed by Sergio Leone: his "Dollars" trilogy with Clint Eastwood, and his epic, "Once Upon a Time in the West."

Alex Cox’s words certainly ring true as I made this association and only equated Spaghetti Westerns with Leone. But as Alex Cox points out in his NY Times article there are many other films that fall under this label:

But the spotlight on one director has tended to obscure the rest of the Italian western subgenre, which may include as many as 500 films. (A tiny fraction will be on display this month in a series at Film Forum in the South Village.)

Sam Juliano attended many films at this Film Forum spotlight and inspired by Sam’s experience, I decided to finally plug a gapping hole in my cinematic viewing. An initial search revealed that there are easily 20-30 Spaghetti Westerns that are readily accessible either via youtube or Mill Creek Entertainment’s DVD packs. So as a first pass, I decided to restrict my viewing to 11 essential films, which included revisiting four of Leone’s films:

A Fistful of Dollars (1964, Sergio Leone)
For a Few Dollars More (1965, Sergio Leone)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966, Sergio Leone)
Django (1966, Sergio Corbucci)
A Bullet for the General (1966, Damiano Damiani)
Arizona Colt/Man from Nowhere (1966, Michele Lupo)
The Great Silence (1968, Sergio Corbucci)
Sabata (1969, Gianfranco Parolini)
Duck, You Sucker (1971, Sergio Leone)
Four of the Apocalypse (1975, Lucio Fulci)
Keoma (1976, Enzo G. Castellari)

”Man with no Name” trilogy

One of the most remarkable aspects about Sergio Leone’s trilogy is that the films grow in scale and ambition with each installment which also nicely builds on the previous film's virtues. In the first film, A Fistful of Dollars, Clint Eastwood’s nameless character rides solo and manages to take on two clans on his own. His character gets a rival/partner in the form of Lee Van Cleef in the second film For a Few Dollars More while three characters are featured in the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly when Eli Wallach joins Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. The three films are appropriately expanded in length to allow each additional character to get a decent amount of screen time. A Fistful of Dollars is 99 min long, For a Few Dollars More clocks in at 132 min and the extended cut of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a staggering 179 minutes long. Also, Ennio Morricone’s music gets more elaborate in composition with each film and reaches a cinematic high in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It is hard to imagine how Leone’s films would feel without Morricone’s music, which is an essential component of the trilogy, especially in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The score for that film could easily be used to represent all western films because the music perfectly evokes the sentiment of a hero riding for a showdown against his enemy.

Clint Eastwood vs Lee Van Cleef

While Clint Eastwood perfectly embodies a rugged unshaven man who has seen off many villains in his time, Lee Van Cleef forms a polar opposite to Eastwood’s character. In For a few Dollars more, The Good, the bad and the ugly and Sabata, Lee Van Cleef plays a character that emits a cool dignified persona even moments before he kills someone. His character is “the bad” in Leone’s film but even when his character is on the side of good such as in For a few Dollars More or Sabata, it is with a shade of grayness. One is never sure when his character could flip sides.

The other Sergio..

If there were film lovers that had not heard of Sergio Corbucci before, then Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained will certainly ensure a new phase of discovery for Corbucci’s works. Corbucci’s Django and The Great Silence are certainly landmark films in the spaghetti western subgenre. Once can even see the influence that Django had in Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado. In Django, Franco Nero’s title character always pulls a coffin behind him. That leads to many jokes from other characters that Django is smart to bring his coffin with him. However, the coffin is not empty and contains Django’s machine gun. Desperado echoes this coffin in a different manner by featuring machine guns enclosed in guitar cases.

Django and The Great Silence are brutal uncompromising films which are not shy to leave the hero battered up. Django is left for dead and has his hands hands crushed but still manages to fire some final shots to extract his revenge. But no such justice is dished out in The Great Silence where the villain played by Klaus Kinski finishes off the hero. An alternate “happy ending” was created for The Great Silence because as the per the DVD, not all global audience could accept an unhappy ending.

The Great Silence is also a remarkable because it is a rare Western film that is shot mostly in snow. There is something lonely and beautiful about seeing a cowboy riding on a horse against a vast snowy mountain landscape.

Even though Keoma was directed by Enzo G. Castellari and released a decade after Django, it feels similar to Corbucci’s Django in terms of violence and brutality. It is not surprizing that an alternate title for Keoma was Django Rides Again. Keoma distinguishes itself from Corbucci’s film by incorporating an element of the Civil War and by making the title character a half-breed who has to fight his own family as well.

Shades of Gabbar

Sholay, one of the most loved Indian films ever made, is a curry western inspired by Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns and also from The Magnificent Seven which in turn was a remake of The Seven Samurai. A memorable component of Sholay is the villainous character of Gabbar Singh played to perfection by Amjad Khan. No villain in Indian cinema has ever dwarfed Gabbar, which is why it was a real surprize to observe Fernando Sancho’s character of Gordo in Arizona Colt.

Gordo is a ruthless villain with a twisted sense of humor similar to Gabbar’s. However, Gordo is far from a fully developed Gabbar but in an alternate cinematic universe, Gordo would be Gabbar’s right hand man and be able to carry out Gabbar’s sinister tasks.

Under the Mexican Sun

A Bullet for the General and Duck, You Sucker are set in Mexico against a backdrop of revolution and political upheaval.

And finally....Robert Pires

Lucio Fulci’s Four of the Apocalypse shares some of the rugged terrain and savagery found in Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil. But Four of the Apocalypse eases up on the violence for some stretches of the film before finishing up with one final act of revenge followed by a customary ride off into the sunset.

On an unrelated note: Fabio Testi’s character in the film looks eerily similar to Robert Pires.

Top 5

There was plenty to admire and enjoy in all the 11 films but the following would be my preferred top 5:

1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: A complete film that features a stellar story, great acting and some memorable sequences, including an incredible final showdown between all 3 characters.

2. For a Few Dollars More: The rival and partnership between Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef’s characters make this an unforgettable film.

3. The Great Silence: Ruthless, brutal and poetic.
4. Keoma
5. Django

Snapshots of War

Stage One: Man to Man Combat

In ancient times war was an accepted part of life. Be it over a matter of land or a girl, a man gathered his group to avenge and fight for his cause. While the weapons were not as lethal as those in modern warfare, the savagery was not any less. Chopping and hacking was aplenty ensuring maximum blood. The one thing that made the ancient form of warfare stand out was that everyone fighting on both sides knew the reason for their war and in most cases knew their opponents.

Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol shows an example of the persistent state of war in ancient times. While the film is about the rise of Genghis Khan and his conquests in ancient Mongolia, many of the elements of war could apply to other nations in ancient times like the Nordic or Moghul India. In Mongol love and war keep equal pace at times and when the blood letting starts, the family and loved ones have to be left behind until the next battle, which is always around the corner.

Stage Two: Trench warfare

As the weapons used to kill other men got more sophisticated and advanced, the distance between the fighting soldiers also increased. The hand to hand combats were replaced by the trench warfare, where opposing armies lay in hiding before firing bullets over to the other side. In such cases, a solider never really knew if he managed to kill someone or not and even if he did kill someone, didn’t find out the identity of his enemy. In Kon Ichikawa’s masterpiece Fires on the Plain one of the Japanese soldiers utters this very relevant truth when he hears the American soldiers in the distance. He peeks to get a look at a passing group of American soldiers in trucks and comments that was his first look at the enemy despite being in combat for months. It is hard to imagine that men fought other men with neither side speaking the same language. In fact, they didn’t need to communicate as they let the bullets do all their talking. Fires on the Plain takes place in Philippines between the American and Japanese soldiers and also highlights another changing aspect of warfare in that two nations would fight in a third nation’s turf, a much more common aspect of war starting from WWII onwards.

War is a savage thing no matter how much one tries to defend its reasons. Kon Ichikawa captures this animal nature of war perfectly in his film while also accomplishing the rare feat of objectively showing the war from the perspective of the soldiers, the everyday men forced into combat. There is no jingoism in the film with none of the soldiers ever talking about the “good of the nation” as each person is only trying to survive and do what they believe is right, even if that means eating another man’s flesh.

Stage Three: Remote warfare, espionage and propaganda

World War II combined both past and even futuristic aspects of war. On one hand, trench warfare was still common but so was the use of aerial bombing, with the two atomic bombs signaling the future nature of combat. But World War II also ushered in a new stage of espionage and its spy game routines led directly to the cold war. Information became just as important as weapons and the cat-mouse game certainly ensured that the war was a complicated affair.

In ancient times, there was no need to sell war to ones citizens. But in the modern civilized world, war had to be sold to its citizens as men and women had to be given a reason why war was necessary. So propaganda became a very common currency during WWII, on both sides of the fighting.

Valkyrie combines the espionage and propaganda elements that took place during WWII. The film shows a true story about an assassination attempt of Hitler. Even though one knows that the characters attempt will end in failure, the film is still a gripping watch.

Stage Four: The inner war and path to recovery

Ok, the war is over. Now what? Can the horror be erased from the soldiers minds? Can the warring leaders actually enjoy the peace and listen to soothing music? Unfortunately, history has shown that peace can never be achieved with war. It never was and it never will. But this does not stop nations from trying to achieve peace with wars. After the war is over, the soldiers are left to fend on their own. In some cases, the men are fine and integrate into society. In other cases, the men can’t shut off the inner demons and look for a new war. Gran Torino can add its name to the list of movies where the men are never really free from their war. Even though the main character Walt (Clint Eastwood) appears to be at peace with his killings in the Korean war, when things get ugly he does reveal that he is still haunted by his demons and heads towards a very un-Hollywood like resolution in hopes of achieving peace for himself and his neighborhood.

Stage Five: Filming the war

Ever since Apocalypse Now, there have been directors who have aimed to film the most realistic war movie by ensuring their audience gets the grim details of war and feels the blood for themselves. Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder tries to parody such a director who aims to make the most realistic war film ever! In his quest for perfection, the director (Steve Coogan) take his cast to a jungle far away from the comforts of a studio set. But things don’t go as per plan and the cast hilariously find themselves in a real war. While the film does a very good job of assembling some excellent characters such as the sleazy film executive (Tom Cruise), the shallow agent (Matthew McConaughey), the fake war writer (Nick Nolte) and the actors aching to dive into their characters (Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr.), it comes across as a missed opportunity for something greater.

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Ratings out of 10 for films seen in this series:

Fires on the Plain (1959, Japan, Kon Ichikawa): 10
Mongol (2007, Russia/Mongolia/co-prod, Sergie Bodrov): 8.5
Gran Torino (2008, USA, Clint Eastwood): 8
Valkyrie (2008, USA, Bryan Singer): 7.5
Tropic Thunder (2008, USA, Ben Stiller): 5

Letters from Iwo Jima & The Departed

For the longest time I have wondered what it would be like to watch a movie in an empty theatre. In the past, I have been to some shows where there were only a handful of people (6-8) but I had never been the only person in a theatre. Well I almost got my chance to be the only audience member at Monday night's 9:50 pm show of Letters from Iwo Jima at the local multiplex. Now, I had expected the theatre to be not busy given the screening time and day but I never expected it to be empty. So I was completely shocked to find that I was the only person present in theatre #10 at exactly 9:50 pm. I looked up towards the projection room to see if they were indeed planning on carrying ahead with the show. No sooner did I take my seat, the screen readjusted and the movie trailers started.

9:57 pm -- after 3 movie trailers, the film starts and still no one else had come. Eerie. At this point, I felt this experience brought true meaning to the words "home theatre" -- I had my very own personal multiplex theatre. Not a single sound to disturb my movie watching experience. However, I had trouble focusing on the movie. It seemed I had difficulty overcoming the theatre's emptiness.

10:05 pm -- another man walks into the theatre. He too is shocked by the emptiness and finds a seat a few rows above me. He seemed to respect the utter silence perfectly and I hardly heard him chewing his popcorn. And so it was just the two of us for the next 2+ hours watching this film. Atleast for 7 minutes of the film, I had my own theatre :)

Onto the film itself....

Prior to seeing the movie, I had a gut feeling that it would not be that great. But seeing how much I loved Clint Eastwood's Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, I felt I should give this a go. For some reason, I decided to skip Flags of our Fathers and wanted to watch ..Iwo Jima first. In the end, my gut feeling was correct. The movie is not that great. But I have to give credit where it is due.Given the current political climate, I think it is very brave that Eastwood made a war movie from the other point of view. It is not very often you get to see a human face to the enemy from an American film, let alone Hollywood. Looking at Hollywood's history of war films, it would appear that everyone is American's enemy. The Germans, Japanese, Russians, Vietnamese, Arabs, etc have all been villains at some point in Hollywood's shining war film history. Yes, in the past some American directors tried showing the 'horror' of war but it was always from an American point of view -- those films just showed the occasional American character who turned 'insane' and tried to kill his own American people.

Eastwood's feature is completely in Japanese with Japanese actors. Like most war movies, you get an assorted array of innocent, brave and weak characters. The films just changes the locales and language from previous Hollywood war movies. Of course, one could argue that war brings our similar behaviour on both sides and there is never any winner in a war. One side may bomb the other and claim victory but the real damage comes at the expense of mere citizens who are representing a nation, even though they may not believe in that nation's ideals. I do plan on seeing Flags of our Fathers to complete both angles of the story but I want to pretend that movie does not exist and only focus on this Japanese version for now.

..Iwo Jima is shot very well and the sounds + cinematography really gave a bleak view of the situation. The visuals are very grayish (bordering close to black and white) with the only color in the film shown in scenes of Iwo Jima in 2005 (when the letters of the soldiers were discovered) and when the bombs go off in 1944 Iwo Jima. I did feel there were a few forced scenes in the movie. Now, I am almost willing to blame those scenes on Paul Haggis. Even though I loved his Crash, I do feel he may be trying to insert his emotionally rigged scenes in films. I blame some of the worst scenes of Casion Royale on his writing as well. Now, this could be an incorrect assumption on my part as I have no idea which scenes he wrote in both Casino Royale and in..Iwo Jima. In particular, one scene in ..Iwo Jima reminded me of a moment from The Shawshank Redemption -- in ..Shawshank there is a scene when Tim Robbins's character plays classical music over the prison loud-speakers. All the inmates pause and listen to this musical piece. I was reminded of this scene when all the Japanese soldiers pause and listen to the words of a letter an American mother wrote for her son. This scene felt forced and was not the only one in the movie. Overall, disappointed with the movie. Rating 7.5/10

The Departed (Director, Martin Scorsese): Rating 8.5/10

This movie has been in the theatres for a long time. At first I didn't want to see this because I quite liked Infernal Affairs and was not happy that Hollywood had decided to remake it. But I finally changed my mind and saw this on Friday, Feb 9. I can't remember every scene of Infernal Affairs but I do remember how I was hooked onto that movie's intelligent cat and mouse game -- the Hong Kong film was dark, gritty and very well done. So I was quite surprized to find how different The Departed feels. Scorsese's film has a very light hearted undertone to it. The first 30 min or so are filled with bits of humour. On top of that, the setting of Boston and presence of Irish music & humour changes the mood of the film for the better. Although, it was strange to find a lot of the characters Boston accent off in some scenes. At times, the characters accent was perfect only to disappear in the next.

The Departed does get the cat and mouse game kicked in high gear after an hour or and it is indeed well done. The body count only rises in the end and even then it happens in a flash. The entire 2+ hour is packed with witty (and sometimes smart-ass) conversations but the body counts happens without any words or warnings. The suddeness of the scenes brought surprize and even some confused laughs from the audience. Another surprizing aspect of the film is the love story. One can notice the difference between Matt Damon's and DiCaprio's characters just by their interactions with the sole female interest. Jack Nicholson's character's love life is also briefly shown. The lingering relationship scenes in a gangster movie felt right out of a Michael Mann movie.

In the end, I am glad I finally saw this movie and liked it but I am not convinced this is the masterpiece as it being hailed.