If you canāt āborrowā your facts from books etc. then what can you do? I mean I donāt think (m)any people in here have actually spoken with any of the directors or have been on the set of a spaghetti western in production so how can you write anything then? Borrowing facts from all sorts of diverse sources and putting them together certainly isnāt plagiarism as long as they are presented in a new way and isnāt just copied word for word.
Quite right.
If Iām not allowed to consult my western library anymore, Iād better stop writing
It was Newton who said he was standing on the shoulders of giants, wasnāt he?
I believe it was at that very moment they started throwing apples at him ā¦ Ah the cost of being a genius.
Luckily, he was in the mood for fruit salad.
So was Adam, and see what happened to him
Iāve begun work on an article or overview of Giulio Petroni and his westerns. It kinda started on accident. I was originally going to write a rebiew of Night of the Serpent but I found myslef writing more about Petroni than Serpent. So I erased my work and started something different. Good progress so far.
oh wow, Iām looking forward to that one
Coming really good so far and Iām trying to use Scherpesque vocabulary. 
LOL
Something like this, I suppose:
EXACTLEY!!! I never knew Mary Poppins (?) was soo csimilar to Giulio Petroni!
Fine, Mary Poppins is a beautiful film. The musical equivalent to Django Kill. Maybe.
Yeah, Dick van Dyke is a good black clad anti-hero
Iām about to start work on my Leoen article. I shouldnāt be hard since Iāve found a way to cover his westerns and his trade marks all in the same.
oh get ready for some rough feedback, korano. youāre not only raising the stakes, but also youāre upping the ante
Iāl brace myself 
Before I post this, feedback would be great. The begining is where I think it needs most improvement.
The Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone
Us fans of the genre know of course any directors dabbled in the genre and we all have our individual favorites. But for people who know of the genre and arenāt necessarily fans, the one name that comes to mind isā¦ you guessed it, Sergio Leone. Leone is famous in the genre because he is the one who gave it itās style. He is the one who set the pace and tone. The creater of the silent stranger in westerns. And the man who gave world cinema the gift of Clint Eastwood.
Leoneās first directorial efforts, beyond assistant director, came in the sword and sandal films. But he was unheard of until he unleashed A Fistful of Dollars upon the world. Dollars is about a silent stranger whoās only true concern is about where his next paycheck is coming from. He arrives in a rundown Mexican town in the clutches of a family war between two rival dynaties. The Baxters and the Rojoās. The stranger manipulates both to his own end and leaves a rich man. Upon itās release, Fistful was one the biggest grossing Italian films of all time. Itās unprecedented success made Eastwood a star in Italy and upon itās US release, in America as well.
US critics hated Fistful because of itās highly styized feel and extreme violence. Although it seems tame by our modenr standards, it was very violent for itās time. This is one of the most important aspects of both Leoneās films, and the Spaghetti Western. Violence. Leone wanted to show how vile the people of hs film were and he even makes the hero only slightly less evil than the villains. Thus revolutionizing the western anti hero. But his violence was extreme. He met with censorship probles in one early scene. The stranger shoots it out with henchmen under the employment of the Baxters. Leone stations the camera at the strangerās hip so he see him shooting the henchmen from the point of view of his gun. It was against the rules back then to have the shot and the bullet hitting itās target in the same shot back then. Leone also increased the kill count. Among this all, he filmed gruesome beatings, and grotesquely disturbing massacres. He added more action and less talk. Leoen was bored of sll the talk in American westerns and wanted to speed things up. His characters say more by saying less. Instead, they give looks. Then they shot.
After the success of A Fistful of Dollars, the Italian studios wanted more. So Leone went about starting a sequel. The aptyl named, For a Few Dollars More. And with this film, Leone expanded on his style. The pace is slower and his trademark waiting and lulls before death are far more obious and evermore present. And he also included another good guy. This was absent from the first one. In this film, two bounty hunters team up to eliminate the outlaw El Indio and his gang for the large sum of bounty money which rests upon their heads. Eastwood returns to his role as the Man with No Name alongside black clad Lee Van Cleef. This film is one of the highest ranked Spaghetti Westerns of all time and if my info is correct, the second highest grossing Italian Western of all time.
With this film, Leone adds a new character. A partner to the main character. After this film, Their would neer be just one hero. Always two or more. But the adition of a new gunman not only adds more killing, but a chance for Leone to closer examine relationships. In his westerns, Leoneās heroes are always weary of each other. Never trusting each other and often double crossing. But human nature is hard to fight. And greed taints many hearts in the Italian West. Leoneās partners relationships develope as time goes on. They form respect and sometimes, trust. If only for a moment. They are closest when they are in combat as it is what they do best, kill.
And still the producers and Italian public wanted more. So Leone again came up with more. What resulted, is quite possibly the best western ever made, and maybe even the best film! The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Three gunmen battle it out in Civil War torn New Mexico for a coffin full of gold. GBU also features Leoneās partnerships. The partnership in this film is further explored and more complicated. But what is truely amazing about this film is Leoneās scope and vision. He creates a Civil War which has been called one of if not the most historically acurate depicition of the conflict ever put onto the screen.The musical score has since become extremely well known and is right up their with the Forgotten Pistolero of the most recognizably old western music.
With GBU, Leone has finally mastered his technique. He slows the pace evem more so than in For a Few but the quiteness and suspicion that he so skillfully films before his shootouts is far more exciting and spectacular than any action scene. Just the way the characters move and how they act is so beautiful. But his action comes swift and qick and is far less amazing than the build up but the shootings are the final act to every one of these great moments. The camera work in this film can be seen in all his other films. He mastered the crane shot and with his tedious attention to detail, he films even more spectacular scenes. The background action is key in these scenes. With this film, Leone films a low key and extremely simplistic story but on such a grand scale. he plot deals with a gold hunt but in between this, he films an entire Civil War. So ultimatley, it is his scale that makes Leone such a remarkable director.
After Leone had finished and released GBU, he had tired of the western. He had said all he wanted to say. He wanted to start a gangster epic but producers still wanted more westerns. Paramount offered Leone a large budget and Henry Fonda whom he had wanted to work with all his career. So the end result was his longest, slowest, and grandest western, Once Upon a Time in the West. But unfortunatley, he most flawed. But although these flaws are not overshadowed, the filmās strengths do deliever a satisfying end result. Anyway, the story is about a prositute whoās family is massacred by railroadmen. She soon meets and is befriended my two men, a mysterious stranger and an ecentric outlaw. Both protect her one has a score to settle with Frank, the head railroadman.
Once Upon a Time in the West is a perfect example of Leoneās admiration and love of the classic American western. And just as in his previous westerns, he references his favorites. Only this time, they nearly fill the 2 hour 45 minute runtime. Leone loved western and especially those of Irish American director, John Ford, whose grand, pictaresque, and extravagant storytelling abilities greatly influenced Leone. The first two dollars films are relativley low on obvious references (to my eye) but GBU and Once Upon a Timeā¦ a chalked full of said references. Gone with the Wind was something of an inspiration for the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Mostly because of itās Civil War setting. But beyond just referencing past westerns, Leone used them to help create his own mythic western landscape. Leoneās west is violent, cruel, and treacherous. But it is also epic, beautiful, and vast. With his minimal budgets, he created his own world. One where violence ruled. But it is not the violence that is so imortant. It is the tense, quiet, slow waiting before the violence that is so exciting. One major ingiredient in his world was music. As Sir Christopher Frayling states, it took the Italians to show what Horse Opera really meant. The spaghetti Western is an Opera of Violence. Where the beautiful music sets the tone. The emotion of a scene is not achieved souly through imagery, but through the music which truely captures emotion. So to sum up this thought, Once Upon a Time in the West is the best possible example of Leoneās west. And hat Leoneās west really is is a āviolent, long, dreamlike meditation upon the mythology of the American old West.ā
After it was released, Once Upon a Time in the West bombed both financially and critically. Leone would not direct another film for 3 years. Then he was offered to direct yet another western, Giuā La Testa or Duck, You Sucker as it is (infortunatley) known as. Leone rejected directorial duties and his assistant director, Giancarlo Santi, was originally to direct while Leone would produce. But the stars, James Coburn and Rod Steiger, refused to be denied the pleasure of working with the one and only Sergio Leone. So he ended up with directoial duties. Sucker is set in the Mexican Revolution. Two men, Juan Miranda and Sean, partner up and end up in the middle of the revolution. Sean wants to make a hero out of Juan but Juan only wants the money. Eventually, nobody wins.
Duck, You Sucker is Leoneās most political movie. This is quite obvious knowing it belongs to the political oriented Zapata Spaghetti Western sub genre. But the previous Zapataās seemed to glorify revolution and promoted social revolution. But Leoneās message here is decidedly different. At first look, it may seem as if he is glorifying revolution but by the end, it is obvious that he does not and did not glorfy the revolution at all. He shows them for what they are. They are horrible conflicts where people are massacred in droves, families are destroyed, and friends are betrayed. It is dirty, depressing, and violent. It is not something to take lightly and is quite horrible. Not something to be glorified. But all of the Leoneās westerns are political to some extent. As one Leone expert put it, "It was impossible to not be political in the 60ās. But Leone was far les concerned about politics than say Carlo Lizzani. Therefore, normal people, such as my self, will have a hard time spotting obvious political statements. But to put it plainly, it seems that rich and powerful are shown in a unfavourable light. They represent greed and corruption.
Once Leone eft his west behind, the Italian western started to ware itself down. The films were becoming very cliched, silly, and formulaic. Nothing new was going to be introduced and it eventually simply vanished. Leone spotted this early. He is known to have hated the Trinity movies. The comedies which had been misinterpreted and eventually led to the end of the genre. But Leone to show what these films had become. so he made My Name is Nobody with Tonino Valerii. He elegy on the end of the west and the western. A very appropriate godbye to his beloved genre. Leoneās films were never liked by critics but the public thorugholy enjoyed them. He is the man responsible for perfecting the Spaghetti style and his contribution to the Spaghetti Western and Western in general is comparable to Orson Welles to film noir. A true autuer of film.
by Korano
Korano good articel again! 
Maybe you should also mention āUn Genio, due compari, un polloā aka A Genius, two friends and a Dupe too. Not a highlight of the genre but Sergio was involved in that.
I think this is by far your best article to date Korano. Well done.
My only real suggestion would be to proof read it again. Typos may seem like a little thing but they make a big difference to how something reads.
Well thank you guys. I was reading it last night after I posted it and saw a lot of spelling errors. Iāll fix it. And soon post it. Hopefully by tonight. Right now, Iām trying to collect all of the best Leone zooms and widescreen shots. A very visual article is a good thing for a very visual director.