as I get i lil bit nostalgic selling the whole DVD collection, I wanted to start a discussion on the early days, when we all started to watch SWs.
Here is my story :
I’m from France, and In 1999, I was a student.
At that time, I had a girlfriend, and she had access to a nice library where we could take VHS tapes.
I had a passion for dance (I still have it) and I started to borrow all the dance movies (Fred Astaire…).
By chance I discovered the Leone movies on VHS, and I watched it… and I fell in love with SWs !
I remember more or less talking with my parents about westerns, and they mentioned Clint Eastwood, so it leads me to the library
But my SW knowledge was limited, I didn’t know 700 SW were produced…
Internet was not very helpful in 1999, so I guess I discovered other SWs through movie dictionnaries
I remember the first one I discovered after the dollar trilogy was Django, I really wanted to watch this one !
At that time I began to buy DVDs from amazon in the US (not sure about the exact date), and I ordered Django/Django 2 from Anchor Bay Entertainment (I kept this one as a souvenir).
That’s how I started my dvd collection.
I discovered later on Wild East DVDs (I also kept “a fistful of trailers” as a souvenir) and of course the SWWB !
I remember how passionate the topics were, and I want to thank you all (sorry I don’t remember the pseudonyms from the early days) because I learned a lot with you guys !
Not too long ago, maybe 3 years ago. I’m a relatively young member of the Spaghetti Western fanbase, mid teens. I was playing a lot of games and got one, I forgot what it’s called, but it wasn’t in the Red Dead series. It was a western game and that’s really all I remember. But it got me into westerns, and I was fortunate enough to find that “A Fistful of Dollars” was free on the YouTube Movies tab, which is essentially YouTube’s built-in streaming service. I watched it and started getting obsessed. Sure, I got into John Wayne movies, but not nearly as much as Spaghetti Westerns. Clint Eastwood essentially became a role model to me. I watched Django Unchained and then realized that it had roots in a spaghetti western, so I watched that too. Now I’m a Red Dead Redemption fan with no life, a fanboy of Sergio Leone, and I own a replica of Clint Eastwood’s poncho.
I got into them after renting The Good, the Bad and the Ugly from my college library. It wasn’t the first Spaghetti Western I’d seen, but it was the first one I really appreciated.
Ah sorry for the late reply, it was probably the incredible characters and awesome direction of Leone. Both gave the story such a grand, dramatic feeling that really captured my imagination. You’re right, though, about all those other elements being superb.
