Once Upon a Time in the West is the most unrealistic of all westerns, since it has the most unrealistic aspects of both the American and the Italian western
It should rather be called Once Upon a Time in the Mythological West
;D
[quote=“Stanton, post:18, topic:2188”]In fact many, if not most, of the SW are not really demythologising. Or at least not more or less than many US westerns. It seems there are still many prejudices about US westerns in this forum.
The SWs mostly also show a mythical west (albeit from a different point of mythical view), and surely not the real west. The western in general shows a vision of a west which is mostly more rooted in a fantasy world than in the “real world”.
The SW as the US western is build on variations and amplifications of this ideas. And sometimes on demythologising these ideas, which in the end is only a different type of a variation.[/quote]
I never said I didn’t like American Westerns, I just said that a lot of people on this forum prefere Spaghetti’s, obviously. Both of them don’t show the real West, but some are more dirtier and therefore more realistic than others.
Just for the record, I’m not very keen on John Wayne. There has to be something very good going on for me to enjoy one of his Westerns. Like Chris, I do not really like his screen presence.
Also, I am against most forms of sentimentality. Frequently in films, it’s used cheaply, and thus cheapens sentimentality. I can think of only a few movies that use it properly, and those, are, on the whole “fantasies”. In real life, not much ever ends happily.
Here I can easily agree.
What I generally don’t like in westerns (or any other films) is flat humour, funny sidekicks and sentimentality. And pretentious dialogues and pathos.
So many otherwise great westerns are ruined partly by these things.