Classic American Western vs Spaghetti Western

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21

If you want to compare US westerns with SWs, you should only compare films which were made in the same time span. And there you already find enough cynicism or dirtyness or pessimism.
SWs were different, in parts very different from US westerns, but the US westerns of the 60s are often already different from a typical 50s western. The genre was always progressing from the beginning on, thematically as well as aesthetically.
In the 50 there was still a massive censorship, which just did not allow the kind of violence or nudity shown in the late 60s. The SWs of the late 60s would not have been possible to make in Italy 10 years before. That enough forbids to compare directly films of the 50s with films from 1965 onwards.

The comparison at the top of the thread in in parts true, in other parts not, it is a generalization (like stated), but the older US western was already a bunch of films too diverse to be accurately described without more differentiation. As a result the above comparison at the top of this thread mostly only reflects the usual cliches and is is neither really true for the US western nor for the SW.

For example there were always also US westerns portraying dirty, unshaved men, but it wasn’t done for the sake of itself. It became a style in 60s westerns, but if you check some US westerns you find it already there, before the Spags were shown in the USA.

And yes, there were already psychological westerns before 1960, there were pessimistic westerns, there were dirty looking westerns, there were quite violent scenes (comparatively), there were already westerns questioning the myths, and there was at least already one anti western in the 40s.

And actually SWs, even if that is too often claimed, are no anti-westerns, and are usually featuring no anti-heroes, but it still was a new kind of film and its protagonists were a new kind of hero. More violent, more selfish, but they still do the things the hero usually does.
And the hero of the 60s US westerns was not too far away from that. The real anti hero came in several 70s US westerns like Little Big Man, McCabe and Mrs Miller or Dirty Little Billy. There were also many westerns without any kind of hero, with just protagonists.

Well, it’s a complex subject, at least much more complex than it seems on first sight, I could write a book about it.

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22

I think the music is unique to SWs compared to US westerns. Something like that had never been heard before in westerns.

How the protagonists looked was also different from before, Clint dressed in a poncho and riding on a mule (in Fistful). Django looking like a gravedigger and hauling a coffin. The long coats in many later spaghettis. They say this was all new. The people in US westerns looked more like traditional cowboys.

Certain other themes had perhaps already begun to some extent in US westerns. The whole anti-hero thing is probably a bit overstated also, like Stanton says.

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23

Yes, the music itself and it’s use, that was very different from US westerns, and the later US westerns did not really copy that (with the exception of 2 Mules for Sister Sara for obvious Clint reasons).

The looks of Clint and Django were also new, no real forerunners, at least not worn by the lead.

But the long coats or dusters were already used in some US westerns. As rain coats already early in silent westerns, but the same kind of dusters in the Jesse James films from 1939 and 1956, in Fords My Darling Clementine, The Searchers and Liberty Valance, or even in a 50s TV episode by Sam Peckinpah.
The dirty and unshaved looks you find in several US westerns long before 1960, but of course many SWs did this much more excessive. In SWs dirtyness was often not relied to the situation but was used as a matter of style.

In the winter western Day of the Outlaw (1959) you find an atmosphere and similar costumes to the ones from TGS. I’m pretty sure that Corbucci had seen that one.
In 40 Guns (1957) you even find the same extreme close ups Leone later used.

Of course many 50s westerns were quite clean looking, but there were always enough exceptions.

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24

It seems many times the 1950s westerns reflected contemporary times, the leading actors looked about the same as in other movies. No suit and tie, but something along those lines, only a bit more western.

Of course the long dusters and ponchos existed during the western era, so they showed up a few times in older westerns, but not like in the SWs.

Maybe “Davy Crockett” style clothes were more frequent in films? Alan Ladd in Shane had something like that, no?

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