The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (Sergio Leone, 1966)

Spaghetti Westerns 🎬
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Well, it’s needless to say that it’s timeless piece of art and it’s almost impossible to touch the mark it made not only on spaghetti western cinema but on overall cinema as well. On my site when I ran a contest for movie reviews, this gem was reviewed most number of times. I liked one which focused on the character development of this movie. You can give these articles a look if you have…! :slight_smile:

http://www.most-wanted-western-movies.com/good-bad-ugly.html[/url]
[url=http://www.most-wanted-western-movies.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-a-classic-character-development.html]http://www.most-wanted-western-movies.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-a-classic-character-development.html[/url]
[url=http://www.most-wanted-western-movies.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-an-unmatchable-classic-western-movie.html]http://www.most-wanted-western-movies.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-an-unmatchable-classic-western-movie.html[url]http://www.most-wanted-western-movies.com/good-bad-ugly.html[/url]

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Nice looking site you have there Satty

Btw, were there any Bollywood westerns made? :wink:

Would probably be “curry westerns” in that case :smiley:

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[quote=“Lindberg, post:122, topic:307”]Nice looking site you have there Satty

Btw, were there any Bollywood westerns made? :wink:

Would probably be “curry westerns” in that case :D[/quote]

They do exist and I seem to remember them being called Kebab westerns or Masala westerns. Something like that lol.

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[quote=“Col. Douglas Mortimer, post:123, topic:307”]Kebab westerns[/quote]That would be turkish western.

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I stand corrected!

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Thanks for your appreciation for my site Lindberg :slight_smile:
and yes, there are plenty on bollywood westerns i.e. currie westerns…a few notables are:

[ul][li]Sholey[/li]
[li]Kabeela[/li]
[li]Khote Sikey[/li][/ul]

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At first here’s another link to a fantastic review

http://fistfulofpasta.com/index.php?go=reviews/gtbtuss

Followed (nothing is for nothing) by a translation request.

In my german copy of de Fornari’s Leone book the original title is translated this way:

Il buono (Der Gute) (The Good)
il brutto (der Böse) (the Ugly)
il cattivo (der Verschlagene) (the Bad)

Is there any possibility to translate it like this?

Whereas in contemporary german reviews the italian title was given as

Der Gute, der Brutale, der Böse

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Van Cleef, the bad, sure is ‘verschlagen’, which means, if I’m not mistaken, sly, arrant, cunning (always in a negative sense), but that’s not what the title says, the Italian ‘cattivo’ simply means bad (it’s the direct opposite of buon(o), good)

The problem is the word ‘brutto’, which has several meanings, such as ‘ugly’, ‘dirty’, ‘nasty’

I don’t have too much time tonight or tomrorrow, so I’ll say a bit more about it on friday

One question for the Germans: what is the exact meaning of ‘brutal’ (talking about a character or his behaviour) ?

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“Brutal” is simply the same as the english brutal. “Gewalttätig” is another similar adjective.

People are “brutal”, but also films with violent contents are often called “brutal” in Germany.
The SW, which is called mostly Italowestern in Germany (a preferable term), was often called Brutalowestern by critics in a disparaging way.

An italo-american friend of mine had translated brutto also with ugly, but I have read the brutal translation meanwhile at least 3 times.

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Brutto (1) is usually used in relation to appearances (una brutta ragazza = an ugly girl) or weather (tempo brutto = bad weather)
This use is irrelevant here

It’s also used (2) in relation to a person’s character, but in this sense it’s usually written bruto :
un typo bruto/brutto = a brute person, a violent person (a synonym in Italian is: brutale)
It may also mean (3) ‘dirty’, in a literal as well as a metaphorical sense, so una brutta persona, or simply un brutto, una brutta, maybe a dirty, ugly-looking, stinking, rotten person, with a bad character, unsportive, who plays dirty, is not a good sport

While I was writing the GBU review I spoke to an Italian native speaker and he told me that ‘brutto’ to most people has a connotation of ‘uncivilised, unfashionable, not calculating’; somebody who is brutto and somebody who is catttivo, are both bad, nasty persons, but a ‘cattivo’ knows exactly what he’s doing, while a ‘brutto’ might be a rude, unthinking, hot-headed hooligan (he told me that most Italian would rather be called cattivo than brutto!)

I think Leone used brutto in a sense that is a combination of (3) + (2)

Now let’s look at ugly, the wikionary says:
ugly

a) Displeasing to the eye; not aesthetically pleasing.
b) Displeasing to the ear or some other sense.
c) Offensive to one’s sensibilities or morality.
He played an ugly trick on us.

Synonyms(displeasing to the eye): hideous, homely, repulsive, unattractive, uncomely, unsightly
(displeasing to the ear or some other sense): displeasing, repulsive, unattractive
(offensive to one’s sensibilities or morality): corrupt, immoral, vile

I think Tuco certainly is ‘ugly’ in sense c), but also brutal

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Then “the ugly/der häßliche” is the preferable translation to “the brutal / der brutale”:

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For those with access to Turner Classic Movies, GBU will air on Apr. 9 @ 8p / 7p C and again on May 30 @ 5p / 4p C. I missed their March showing but their prints are usually first class.
For more info: [url]http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=17943&rss=mrqe[/url]

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I never actually knew how Tuco recognized Angel Eyes at the Union encampment… Like he was a famous outlaw…

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One of the very fews flaws in this films production. One error I saw was when Tuco is interrogating the hotelier. If you look in the holsters of Tuco’s bandido’s, you see that the butts of their guns are those of double action colt revolvers not introduced till about 30 years after the Civil War. But it is hard to spot.

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[quote=“Rififii, post:133, topic:307”]I never actually knew how Tuco recognized Angel Eyes at the Union encampment… Like he was a famous outlaw…[/quote]Isn’t that obvious. When Angel Eyes invites Tuco for “dinner” inside he says “it’s good to see old friends”. So they knew each other before just like Angel Eyes Recognises Blondie in the beginning.

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I guess I expected something better…

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There is also a scene in the uncut version that explains how Angel Eyes gets into the encampment. One of the few deleted scenes that when reinserted ties a loose end to the plot.

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Where can I find a wav or mp3 of Blondies line"…so many men wasted so badly"?
I ripped the audio from my DVD but when I play it back,it sounds like 12 seconds of screeching.
Also,i looked at various wav websites.Of the ones that include lines of dialogue from GBU,none have the line I’m looking for.

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I think just about everybody agrees that “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” is the greatest Spaghetti Western of all time (except some poor souls who have yet to have seen the light). I think one the main reasons for its popularity is because of the way Sergio Leone manages to create (almost excessivly) long scenes and still keeps the audiences attention. The climax is a calssic example: The scene must go on for, what? Five minutes? And yet, against all odds, its still unbeliviably suuspenseful.

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So, I’m a quite poor soul, who obviously hasn’t seen the light yet…

Maybe I have to work myself deeper into the matter?