A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS

Italy, 1964, 100 minutes, Colour.
Clint Eastwood, John Welles, Marianne Koch, Pepe Galvo.
Directed by Sergio Leone.

A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More were the original spaghetti Westerns. Conceived and directed by Sergio Leone, they featured the American television actor from Rawhide, Clint Eastwood. These films, plus The Good The Bad and The Ugly, were to give Eastwood the opportunity for appearing in many American films and go on to stardom and a career as a fine director. The characteristics of the spaghetti Western are atmosphere, their use of wide-screen and colour locations (often in Spain) and the use of studied close-ups. Musical scores by such composers as Ennio Morricone are also an excellent feature of these films.

There is a relationship between the Japanese Samurai films and the American West. The Seven Samurai was adapted as The Magnificent Seven. Rashomon was adapted as The Outrage. These are film by Akira Kurosawa. His Samurai film Yojimbo forms the basis for the adaptation of A Fistful of Dollars. Violent, interesting and exciting, these films are of historical interest for the Italian Westerns of the 60s and the very many derivatives and spin-offs from these originals. Leone himself was to go on to make Once Upon a Time in the West and A Fistful of Dynamite.

1. These Westerns by Sergio Leone were very popular, and almost became a cult. Why?

2. Was this an enjoyable Western? Why? What ingredients were best presented?

3. The Clint Eastwood figure - the man with no name? What impact did he make? How typical a character of the West was he? How well was he made the central character of the film?

4. There were many parody elements in this film. Were they well presented? Entertaining? Making a point?

5. How were the ordinary conventions of Westerns used? Effectively?

6. The Western with the single man, the anonymous hero? Was the man with no name a hero?

7. The town situation, the factions, the stressing that the man with no name was in the middle? What did he achieve?

8. The help of the innkeeper.

9. The technique of playing off two parties against themselves.

10. The villain - how villainous? Exaggerated? Too cruel? Cunning? A true villain of those times?

11. The sequence of the murder of the soldiers and the robbery of the gold - its impact in the film? As a moral comment on those involved?

12. The effectiveness of the climax - the confrontation of heroes and villains?

13. What were the motives of the nun with no name? How well did he relate to others? Was he too much a loner?

14. What was the final impression of this film?