No I don’t think there is either.
I think what happened is Hossein invited Leone to play a cameo as the hotel clerk. Leone tried out acting the scene, decided he looked terrible (hence Carla Leone being able to quote him to this effect) and so Hossein brought Cris Huerta in for the part. Hossein most likely then offered Leone the chance to direct a scene instead which became the dinner scene (or maybe they had already been planning that anyway).
I said that before, that scene which Leone most likely directed, I’m sure it would be the same if directed by Hossein.
Nah - I disagree. That dinner scene has Leone all over it. Hossein can definitely be classed as an auteur able to stamp his mark on a film he directs, but this scene bears the Leone hallmark rather than the Hossein one. Having said that, it still fits beautifully within the film so is not jarring at all.
To be truthful, I would never have known there had been a change of director for that one scene - let alone a change to Sergio Leone, no less - if I hadn’t been made aware of it. Armed with that knowledge, I get what Novecento is saying about the dinner scene being very “Leone”, but then again I wonder how much of that is down to the power of suggestion after the fact (for me, I mean; I’m not suggesting Novecento or anyone else wouldn’t have been able to discern Leone’s hand at the tiller as opposed to Hossein’s with no prior knowledge of the switch). It’s like that scene in Sin City directed by Quentin Tarantino; seems obvious when you know, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell without bring told.
Ha ha - very diplomatically put.
Ultimately it’s always going to be subjective - the fact that film making is such a collaborative effort makes it even more so than in other arts. Nonetheless, it’s always fun to try to discern the auteur (providing that there is one) behind a film or a scene.
Yes, it fits, but I don’t see any reason why not Hossein could have directed it himself. And actually, I suppose that Leone only directed it like Hossein wanted it to be directed.
I would never let another director direct a scene in one of my films, unless he directs it exactly to my wishes. That is btw how second unit directing is mostly done.
And it is definitely not a scene superior to other scenes of the film.
But Leone wasn’t a second unit director; he had been invited to direct a single scene as a special case. I’m sure Hossein approved of what Leone did, but do you really think Leone could have resisted making it his own? The other cases where Leone did a similar thing (the intro to “A Genius…” and several scenes in “Nobody”) similarly bear the Leone stamp. Sure it’s all subjective, but when you know, it is pretty obvious. Leone was the epitome of an auteur; what you say would have been true for a different director who was not an auteur so to speak.
There is also then the question of who did the editing (Marie-Sophie Dubus) and under whose guidance which of course ultimately controls the style, but you can of course only work with the material you are given while paying attention to the purpose of it being shot that way.
Yes, why not?
We don’t know what the reasons were for that directing job, and we don’t know how it actually happened, but in the other 2 films Leone was the producer, and in the case of My Name Is Nobody the real director of the film, the one who made it, despite Valerii directing most of its parts.
Actually I think its very odd that Leone directed that scene, and I still have some doubts if it really is true. Even if Hossein has said so … ehmm … did he btw? I don’t remember but he probably did.
Well we know Leone was on set at one point and you can listen to Hossein talk about it on the German DVD (don’t know about other releases). I don’t recall ever having read/heard anything by Leone about it.
Pretty sure Hossein mentions it in the Arrow blu-ray interview also.
Yes, he definitely does, in an interview segment which Arrow entitled Remembering Sergio.
From Robert Hossein himself (transcript of the subtitles):
"I was an admirer and friend of Sergio Leone and had seen all his films.I was even meant to be in Once Upon a Time in the West but I was under contract with Gaumont at the time. So I made Madame with Sophia Loren in Italy. What I really regretted was not missing out on that film, but not having been able to work as an actor for him.
"I admired him greatly and saw him often. We had one thing in common - neither of us liked flying. So we went by train. Can you imagine, going all the way to Almeria? So we travelled together. Sergio wanted to shoot in Almeria. That was where he always filmed and where I met him. He came along and wanted to film a sequence himself. He filmed the sequence with the meal. He shot it magnificently. He’s a great director."
I remember seeing a picture somewhere with Hossein included in the billing for OUATITW.
This is from a topic I posted in the Town Hall, but I’ll post it here as well. I am working on a Film/Cultural Studies course at university, with a focus on French cinema. I’m going to be looking at “Contempt”, “Leon: The Professional” and “Cemetery Without Crosses”. For the latter film, I would like someone to help me obtain an accurate translation of the French version into English (I’ll be comparing it with the Italian and English versions).
The French audio, synced with Arrow Video’s transfer, can be viewed here: - YouTube
I also have an subtitle file that roughly matches the French version, but was poorly-worded in terms of grammar and sentence construction. I’ve cleaned them up somewhat, but it should still be corrected for accuracy. Once I’ve fixed the timing, I’ll upload it so anyone can peruse it alongside the film - if possible, I’d like the translation to be complete before the end of this week.
That’s a pretty big ask. Granted there isn’t that much dialogue relative to less visual films, but it would still be a pretty big undertaking.
As I’ve said, I’ve cleaned the subtitles so that they’re legible. I’ve also corrected some mistakes to make it more accurate to the dialogue (using Google Translate), but if possible I’d still like someone who understands the language to look through both the film and my subs to ensure there aren’t errors.
I have seen this movie twice in a few weeks, and find it very appealing due to for example the unusual tight mood and atmosphere, wonderful suitable spanish guitar music and sparse dialogue. Regarding the dinner table scene it seems to be a clear anomaly compared to the rest of the movie so it would at least appear logical if Leone was responsable for that scene, even if that maybe was not the case.
Leone was responsible for it. I remember Hossein talking about it in an interview. However, the idea that Leone appears as a cameo in the film is not true (although he may have been asked to do it and declined).
I remember it the way that they shot the scene but Leone thought his acting was so bad that they didn’t use it. The role was played eventually by Cris Huerta who looks bit like Leone. So people remembered wrong or got confused about the this part.