Oh, come on. Donāt be funny.
Sollima looks rather pedestrian compared to Leone. Leone was maybe a visual and narrative genius. Sollima on the other hand was a good director, but not as talented as Leone or Corbucci in his best works.
The quality of his SWs is more defined by sreenplay construction.
Colizzi for example was a better director than Sollima, but Sollima was the better filmmaker.
I assure you I wasnāt trying to be funny.
Sollimaās westerns are extremely well directed in my opinion. He builds tension brilliantly and allows his characters to show themselves as more rounded, complete people. I agree that he worked from good screenplays but it is the directorās job to bring that script to life and Sollima does that expertly in his 3 westerns.
Also, although I donāt think anyone compares to Leone in terms of visual framing, Sollima is certainly more creative and striking in this area than Corbucci (whose work I also greatly admire of course) and I would rate him a good second behind the master.
Certainly, given the choice, I would rather watch The Big Gundown, Run, Man, Run or Face to Face than A Fistful of Dynamite.
So all in all, taking into consideration his very good visual style, his excellent character development and first class use of tension and emotion, Sollima deserves his place at the very top of the genre in my opinion.
Feel free to disagree. Thereās nothing I enjoy more than a good debate.
He, He, I always knew you werenāt joking. And I certainly respect your (every) opinion.
It even hurts me to say this, because I like Sollimaās SWs, and it was the Koch DVD box that was 2 years ago the starting point for my growing interest in SWs, so I owe him much.
Corbucci could have been a brillant director, but he had wasted his talent in dozens of shitty films, but even in most of his lesser films you can find some flashes of brillance, a brillance most of all the other filmmakers could only dream of.
Sollima was a very capable director, but I canāt find no brillance in his films.
And his character development, a rare thing in SW, which generally are interested in using character stereotypes, is interesting, but also not too complex. Not if I compare it with Ingmar Bergman, Mike Leigh, Eric Rohmer etc, or even with many superior american westerns.
And in Run Man Run he is also working mostly with stereotypes instead of characters, but very effective. His intellectual stamp is here more existing in the side plots, than in the main story, which works in the sense of an adventure film.
On the other hand is the character development of Milian in Face to Face from a brutish gangster to a good man (Gutmensch is the proper german word) not very convincing. And Bergerās Siringo isnnāt developed at all. Thatās why I prefer the easier going Run Man Run to the more complex Face to Face.
And he was not a great director of action scenes. The larger shoot-outs between Van Cleef and Nieves Navarroās cowboys (Big Gundown) and between Milian and the corrupt deputys (Face to Face) are poorly made. But the Leone like ritualised shoot-outs at the end of The Big Gundown and Run Man Run are well done. But again, well done copys, no brillance.
But all this sounds too negative, and it shouldnāt because there are so many interesting things in these 3 films which certainly all belong to the top of the genre.
Maybe there is one brilliant sequence: The hunting scene near the end of the The Big Gundown. Also brilliant music in this one.
I have to apologise, but I fear my english is not good enough to express the complexity of my thoughts about Sollimaās works. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Run, Man, Run is the poorest of the directors westerns, and is slightly to long in length.
I find Tomas Milian a bit irritating in this one, and canāt help but think at the end of filmā¦so what ?
Aahā¦ thatās good. Now we are brothers again amigo 
And his character development, a rare thing in SW, which generally are interested in using character stereotypes, is interesting, but also not too complex. Not if I compare it with Ingmar Bergman, Mike Leigh, Eric Rohmer etc, or even with many superior american westerns.
That is a fair point, but I was comparing him with Leone and other SW directors. I think in that context his use of character development was outstanding. at the very top in the genre. However, I agree, compared with some of the great directors you have named from outside the genre his work has less depth. I guess the key point for me is that he managed to include some interesting pyschological, political and social elements into his films whilst still turning out a cracking action film. And not many directors can say that.
Maybe there is one brilliant sequence: The hunting scene near the end of the The Big Gundown. Also brilliant music in this one.
We are in full agreement here at least 
That is a great sequence. One of the best in the film, and an excellent marriage with the music.
I have to apologise, but I fear my english is not good enough to express the complexity of my thoughts about Sollima's works. Shit. Shit. Shit.
On the contrary amigo. Your english is excellent and you got your meaning across clearly. Thanks for the discussion.
As far as Sollima is concerned, I agree with Phil, only I donāt think character development is essential to his movies. Character development asks for a more epic approach to the narrative; westerns in general, and SW in particular, usually have a more dramatic approach.
In epic stories characters evolve in time gradually (Tolstoyās War and Peace is probably the best example); in dramatic novels the protagonists are affected by an eventful, pivotal situation; usually their response to the situation is quite shocking, even to themselves (Dostojevskiās Crime and Punishment may serve as a reference). They donāt really evolve, but discover, in a rather abrupt way, their genuine nature that was surpressed by one reason or another.
In āFaccia a facciaā VolontĆ© discovers his surpressed violent instincts when heās confronted with Milianās banditry and itās Milian who starts to reflect on his own way of life when confronted with VolontĆ©ās reaction to it.
In La Resa dei Conti, Van Cleefs discovers that he has been acting all the time as a marionet of the powers that be and that the man he is chasing, the alleged criminal Milian, probably has higher moral standards the people who are paying him; in other terms, both the western stereotype of the law-upholding gunman and the law he is upholding are ādeconstructedā.
As for Corbucci, I have five of his films in my Top 20, so itās clear that I adore him. He certainly was a very inventive director, but not a disciplined one and very often, even in his best films, he was rather careless. At his best, he was brilliant, but very often, he simply wasnāt at his best.
Even his undisputed masterpiece, The Great Silence, counts several under-directed sequences, and The Mercenary is (Iām exaggerating a little) a series of brilliant and mediocre scenes thrown together in a narrative that, for most part, doesnāt make much sense.
I was a bit surprised by your praise for Collizi.
Could you elaborate your ideas on Collizi a little? I never thought of him as one of the great SW directors and Iām very curious what you see in him.
Fine!
Yes, yes, Thatās true.
But Leone had also developed some interesting and complex characters with Tuco and Cheyenne and contrasted them effectively with the underplaying of Eastwood and Bronson. Even Fondaās Frank becomes a tragic figur in his failure.
Iām not worrying about making some minor grammatical mistakes, if everyone gets the meaning (well and if it doesnāt sound too stupid). But itās hard work for me to deliver a longer text, because Iām always a bit unsure about the grammar. The greater problem is to find the fitting words to express my feelings exactly.
On the other hand this is sometimes tricky even in your native language.
Yes SWs are naturally anti-epics.
I see this in a similar way, but nervertheless I always thought that Milianās change was not so convincing.
And I donāt like these mirrorsymmetry things, so it would be imo more intelligent if Milian had stayed to his original nature.
In Franco Solinasā original story the solution was even more complex. The lawman sees through the scheme, but he still kills his prey, doing what he was asked for, doing what he was paid for.
Now, thatās something Iām very interested in. To avoid confusion letās talk about this in the The Mercenary thread.
Iāll come to this point later, maybe in a soon to start Collizi thread.
@stanton , I already posted a text on IL MERCENARIO in the approriate thread.
Itās a long text, so take a deep breath.
He, he and I have answered it at nearly the same time, without reading yours. It seems that you are a quicker on the draw than I.
This is how it basically goes in Revolver which could be described as a re-make of Big Gundown in modern times. In Revolver Sollima made his best character developments.
For me, RUN MAN RUN was THE western that made me realize there are some truly high-quality spaghetti westerns out there NOT directed by Sergio Leone (who we all love) but somehow in the same ballpark. This was 15 years ago and I saw a severely cut version missing many key scenes. I was yet to discover Sollimaās other westerns and thrillers, most of which to my surprise were even better. Putting it in a more universal film history context, I believe there would be no COMPANEROS without RUN MAN RUN. Even if most of us agree that this is the least of Sollimaās ātrilogyā, thereās so much āGolden Ageā stuff to cherish, beginning with the wonderful opening credits. I love the Kochmedia Box but the Anglo audio just sounds louder & betterā¦
Welcome to the Forum amigo. Itās always good to have another Sollima fan on board.
Well, itās an old but interesting thread.
A few months ago I bought some blue underground DVDās with some movies I had never seen before. I know, itās a shame for being in love with Spaghetti movies over 20 years without ever seeing this beatiful film.
I agree to a lot of things mentioned in this thread. From the three Sollima western this is the lesser movie, but still a good movie and fun to watch.
There are some flaws of course. The salvation army was started in 1878, and I do not think there was an army post abailable during the period the movie plays. Especially as Mexico was expanded by the army after 1915.
The motives of Donals OāBriens character remain unclear. He has some personel interest that are not mentioned during the movie.
The Linda Veras character betrays her beloved Cuchillo too much to make it believable she loves him so much.
But overall it was a nice movie to watch with spectacular images and again a beatiful score of Morricone (but credited by Nicolai)
Are you sure?
It sounds indeed very much like Morricone, but most of Nicolaiās scores are also very close to Morricone.
So close that it was assumed by many that Bruno Nicolai was only another Morricone pseudonym.
I heard the same in an interview on one of the discs (probably from the BU Run Man Run-disc) that Nicolai was given credit due to contractual reasons as far as I remember. Donāt remember who said it though but someone in here will.
Ed.: Can see it says the same on the official entry for the movie in the DB: Corri, uomo, corri - The Spaghetti Western Database
Pretty sure it was Sollima who said it in an interview on the BU disc. (But I could be wrong)
Btw, whatās the exact running time of the BU DVD?
Over a month laterā¦on the box 121 mins. On my Macā¦a bit short of 120 mins but the title music carries on over a black screen for about 40 secsā¦so 120 1/2 mins.
About the Nicolai/Morricone debateā¦
Yes, Sergio Sollimaāin an interview on the Blue Underground DVD for RUN MAN RUNāsays that Morricone did the score for the film.
BUTāhe also has said, in an interview with my friend Mario Marsili, that it was Nicolai who did the score! That interview was done before the Blue Underground disc interview.
Soā¦who knows?
Personally, it sounds much more like Nicolai to me than it does Morricone. Listen carefully to the other scores Morricone turned in for Sollimaās previous films, THE BIG GUNDOWN and FACE TO FACE. His scores for those films are filled with innovative, unusual instrumentation and arrangements.
The score for RUN MAN RUN is great, but it is pretty much typically arranged and orchestrated. It is also extremely similar in execution to Nicolaiās score for ANDA MUCHACHO SPARAāso, my vote is for Nicolai. I donāt think Morricone would have turned in such an uninterestingly arranged score for Sollimaās third film. I think if Morricone would have done the score he would have built upon the rhythmic ideas and unique arrangement standards he set for the previous two films (as he did with each successive Leone film and Corbucci film, and so on). I seriously do not think he would have ābacked offā for this particular score.
My own conclusion, of course. But, that is all we can doā¦draw our own conclusions; because, Sollima has said different things at different times.
I have a theory about why Sollima claimed Morricone was the composer during the interview for RUN MAN RUN; but, it is only a theory and doesnāt show the master, Sollima, in a very good light. So, I will refrain from expounding my theory. Let me just say that I am sure he had his reasonsā¦