For a Few Dollars More / Per qualche dollaro in più (Sergio Leone, 1965)

I don’t think you should put much importance to this scene. This is revenge, and there’s nothing sweet about it!

I have never thought anything else other than she killed herself. Funny, but good, how people see different stuff.
I remember when I wrote a thesis on this once, I picked on the “The flashbacks are Freudian” line which Leone did say about this, and that allows all sorts of readings (although I’d never considered an incest angle). I am almost certain, in my own head, that if the El Indio’s pistol can be seen as a “Freudian” phallic, and the bullet as the seed, then the self-inflicted bleeding wound is a deadly metaphor for the taking of her virginity. The fact that she chose to ‘impregnate’ herself, rather than be taken by El Indio, is the cause of his trauma/impotence.

If she killed herself on purpose, logical thing to do would be to kill Indio first, and than kill herself!

If she killed herself by accident, she must have really bad aim!

I think perhaps Mortimer and Indio met sometime after the rape and perhaps thats when Mortimer found out the details. Maybe Indio was gloating about it and having the other watch confirmed it.

Me too. In my opinion she always killed herself to escape the rape. For me it always looks as she takes the gun to shoot herself - also Indio looks really surprised as she lies dead under his body…

You really need to watch this movie, again, amigo!
First it was a knife…and now it is bad aim…
You don’t aim a gun when someone is wriggling around on top of you. :wink:
Just ribbin’ ya there, Colonel! ;D

I still say she was trying to kill Indio but the gun went off too soon.
But, it works great either way.

No, she kills herself imo.

LOL I got you amigo, but I think it is at least possible to have checked to see that the gun was pointed in the right direction before pulling the trigger! Either way, she sorta comes off as a bit of an idiot (albeit a sympathetic one) whether she intended to kill herself or not.

I think she killed herself. I mean, if she wanted to kill Indio she just had to point the gun further up and pull the trigger.

Why are we even having this debate? :o

If Leone wanted it to be open for discussion, he would have filmed it entirely different. She killed herself because she didn’t want to live with the shame. same as the kid in Django Kill.

Fair enough but she should’ve killed Indio first!

True, but I think it’s a bad idea to start arguing about Spaghetti Western logic. ;D

I simply presented another way the outcome of the flashback scene could be interpreted. I am not saying it is the definitive view. However, there is nothing illogical about the interpretation I presented. If you actually watch the scene—Mortimer’s sister dies with her eyes open as if she was in shock, or surprise, at the moment of death. This is what leads me to say that it is possible she did not intend to kill herself (first anyway). If she had meant to kill herself, then death wouldn’t have come as a surprise to her. With Indio on top of her, she couldn’t fire the gun in the intended direction. Just like all those Westerns where two people are wrestling over a gun–and that gun goes off before either party intends to.

Anyway…
I just wanted to try one last time to show that my possible interpretation–though it may be incorrect–is not illogical, at all (especially given the way Leone shot the sequence).

By the way, for what it is worth, I have seen this particular film an abnormally high number of times (last count was roughly 300 times…literally). And I didn’t think of this possible interpretation until about 6 viewings, ago. It makes perfect sense that the sister would kill herself so she wouldn’t have to live with the shame. But, it also makes perfect sense that she could have been trying to kill Indio—and due to space limitations caused by the man being right on top of her, she only succeeded in killing herself.

In the end it was just a thought I had, folks. Simple as that.
It certainly isn’t anything worth arguing over.

There was a guy at IMDB who thought that Rosemary Dexter was Indio’s sister in this film!

Now we’re getting started :wink:

Imdb is full of idiots Haha. I remember seeing a thread where some dude thought Bruno Nicolai did not actually exist and was really Morricone in disguise!

Crazy people ;D!

I also remember a guy starting a thread asking if people thought the Leone films where Westerns ;D!

[quote=“Silence, post:216, topic:327”]Crazy people ;D!

I also remember a guy starting a thread asking if people thought the Leone films where Westerns ;D![/quote]

Which is maybe a good question from an American point of view.

In the 70s people often thought that Nicolai was only another Morricone pseudonym. But nowadays only ignorants …

I think it’s quite easy to hear the difference between Nicolai and Morricone. Morricone does it more bombastic while Nicolai uses a lot more fast guitars.

There is still some around.

@Chris:

I wasn’t intentionally attacking you’re ideas. I didn’t know you brought it up. I was trying to inadvertently attack Cox’s claim. He was the one who was arguing Spaghetti logic.