hmmm … Howard Hawks?
I would say this is as far from Hawks as a western can be. In fact, there is no other western like OuTW.
[quote=“Stanton, post:221, topic:322”]hmmm … Howard Hawks?
I would say this is as far from Hawks as a western can be. In fact, there is no other western like OuTW.[/quote]
Yes, OUTIW is one of it’s kind. Even if it’s not my favorite Spagh, it’s a great and very epic movie.
Well, Howard Hawks did make films that had strong-mined women in them. Just look at his “His Girl Friday” (I know it isn’t a western, but you get the idea). Anyhow, didn’t Hawks make “El Dorado” which basically has the plot a Spaghetti Western would use. And I’m sure, if he had lived longer, that Hawks would have made a western about greedy railroad owners trying to rob people of their land so they can put the railroad thru. Also, wasn’t “Once Up on a Time in the West” ment to be a homage to al the great western directors Sergio Leone loved?
All more or less true.
Nevertheless are Hawks films far, far away from SWs. I’m sure he either hated them or laughed about them. Or both.
And Hawks style of directing adventure films is contradictory to Leone’s baroque visuals.
That’s a bit harsh. We don’t even know if Howard Hawks even saw a Spaghetti Western.
I’m not sure about Hawks, but I know that John Ford and Peckinpah hated SW’s. I’m pretty sure Hawks saw some SW’s and probably didn’t think much of them. SW’s are always considered inferior to their hollywood counterparts. Even undeniable classics like GBU and OUATITW were poorly reviewed by critics when first released.
Following converstations with Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergio Donati and Dario Argento, Chris Frayling (in: SERGIO LEONE, Once upon a time in Italy, pag. 59-63) compiled a chart of some 60 (visual and verbal) references in Once upon a Time in the West to American westerns. Only one of them he identifies as a clear reference to Hawks: the scene with Harmonica shooting two of Frank’s men off their horses, Cheyenne laconically saying: “He not only plays, he can shoot too.”
According to Frayling, these words refer to a conversation between Walter Brennan and John Wayne in Rio Bravo, during the climactic shootout. To me the connection seems doubtful, while other references (to other films and other directors) seem obvious.
I never thought (nor do I think) of Walsh when watching Once upon a Time in the West. The tone of Once upon … is dramatic, solemn, almost ceremonious - characteristics Hawks’s style is hardly ever identified with. I’m not an expert on Hawks, actually I only recently came to like him, but to me his style seems relaxed, as far removed from Leone’s as one could imagine. If one Leone movie underwent some Hawksian influence, then The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, with its emphasis on character rather than story.
But then again: Hawks movies are about friendship, mutual respect, they express a fundamental trust in the goodness of men. In Leone’s world a man can’t even trust himself, or his own pants.
[quote author=Col. Douglas Mortimer link=topic=1335.msg57841#msg57841 date=1243086765]
I’m not sure about Hawks, but I know that John Ford and Peckinpah hated SW’s.
[quote author=Col. Douglas Mortimer link=topic=1335.msg57841#msg57841 date=1243086765]
Thats odd about Sam Peckinpah not likeing Saphetti Westerns. After all, wasn’t “The Wild Bunch” the American answer to the Spaghetti Westerns?
[quote author=Col. Douglas Mortimer link=topic=1335.msg57841#msg57841 date=1243086765]Even undeniable classics like GBU and OUATITW were poorly reviewed by critics when first released.
[quote author=Col. Douglas Mortimer link=topic=1335.msg57841#msg57841 date=1243086765]
That statement is bit sweeping. The respected film critic Roger Ebert gave “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” a very good review when it first came out.
You’re right but actualy Peckinpah only acknowledged that the violent nature of SW’s “allowed” him to make a more violent movie the wild bunch. Thats as far as he ever went in giving Sw’s any sort of credit.
Also, to quote Ebert in regards to GBU: he “described a four-star movie but only gave it three stars, perhaps because it was a ‘spaghetti western’ and so could not be art”.
As you see, the very thought of Italians making westerns gave it a stigma. American audiences still loved these movies though, especially younger folk.
Your right there, but Ebert did later put “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” in his “Great Movies” list.
Did Sergio Leone ever live to see the day where his films were truly recognized as masterpieces…?
He might have. Leone didn’t die until 1989.
I haven’t read anything negative from Peckinpah about SWs.
But in an interview from 69 he was asked if he saw any of the Italian westerns:
“I’d like to get the hell out of westerns. The ones I make aren’t really westerns. Yes, I saw one, it was called A Fistful of Dollars. I like it very much. It was very light and enjoyable. Sergio Leone, I think, is absolutely marvellous. He called me and possibly I’ll be doing a picture with Mr. Leone.”
That’s btw the only mentioning of Leone in any of the books about Peckinpah I have read.
And Hawks at least detested Peckinpah, saying something like that he kills a dozen people in the time Peckinpah needs to kill one. I don’t know if he hated SWs, but I’m somehow sure he would have, if he had seen one of them.
I still think that most American directors simply ignored SWs.
btw, why (again) there’s 2 topics…
http://www.spaghetti-western.net/forum/index.php/topic,352.0.html
[quote=“Bill san Antonio, post:234, topic:322”]btw, why (again) there’s 2 topics…
http://www.spaghetti-western.net/forum/index.php/topic,352.0.html[/quote]
I’m getting dizzy. :
Sam Peckinpah did make some very bloody films, and more violent than alot of Spaghetti Westerns. For instance, look at Sergio Leone’s “A Fistful of Dollars”. There may actually be alot of shooting in them, but not that much blood. Whereas in “The Wild Bunch” there is blood spurting everywhere especially at the climax. So, for all we know, Howard Hawks might have enjoyed Spaghetti Westerns.
He might have, and we probably will know for sure, unless someone digs up in interview in which he says this or that. So he might have, but I don’t think he would have, for all the reasons I gave in my reaction concerning the Hawksian influences in Once upon a Time in the West (previous page). Hawks films, a least the westerns, are about friendship, mutual respect, redemption … all these aspects are not really applicable to your average spaghetti western, which is about hate, treason, revenge …
Hawks might have liked a film like Death rides a Horse, which has a Hawksian turn near the end, and he might have had some sympathy for For a Few Dollars More, although I don’t think he would’ve fancied a film about bounty hunters.
Peckinpah: the level of violence might have been a (direct or indirect) consequence of the spaghetti westerns (in the sense that the industry was pushed towards a more violent approach to the western genre and Sam was able to shoot a film with so much violence), but as far as style and contents are concerned, The Wild Bunch is genuinely American. In fact it’s closer to Hawks than Leone: it’s a film about friendship, respect, redemption …
I have Joseph McBride’s book “Hawks on Hawks” where the interviewer asks his opinion about Wild Bunch (for which he replies with the words stanton mentioned) and italowesterns:
“Eastwood made few of them, couple of those were good but after that their quality has decreased. Latest have been made pretty badly. Terribly badly. I don’t manage to watch em through the end.”
interview was made somewhere during 70-74 I think.
[quote=“Bill san Antonio, post:238, topic:322”]“Eastwood made few of them, couple of those were good but after that their quality has decreased. Latest have been made pretty badly. Terribly badly. I don’t manage to watch em through the end.”
interview was made somewhere during 70-74 I think.[/quote]
Maybe he was talking about Trinity LOL
At least the contemporary view on SW’s now is more favorable than it was a few decades ago, which is why people like Ebert went back and reevaluated their initial opinion but I think the reevaluation started in the mid to late 70’s so definitely Leone lived to see the day when his efforts were appreciated. Still, the rest of the genre, outside of Leone, continues to be regarded as little more than B grade Schlock. Sometimes they are right, but whoever thinks this is missing out on a lot of great westerns.
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Isn’t this mostly the current American view on SWs in general?
Or the audience in the States sometimes don’t even know of other SWs than Leone’s, we’ve talked about this before