Tuesday 8 July 2008

A Fistful of Dollars, June 8

“When a man's got money in his pocket he begins to appreciate peace.”




An obscure director named Sergio Leone was given $200,000 and a load of leftover film stock and told to make a Western. With a script based on Akira Kurosawa's samurai epic Yojimbo and an American TV actor named Clint Eastwood, Leone made what was essentially supposed to be a throw-away film; Per un Pugno di Dollari - A Fistful of Dollars. This violent, cynical and visually stunning film introduced ‘The Man With No Name’, the anti-heroic gunslinger for whom money is the only motivation and the villains are merely obstacles to be removed. Many later films followed this formula of the lone gunman in pursuit of money to the exclusion of all else. Leone's unique style, artistic camera angles, extension of time and raw, explosive violence presented a skewed view of the West, making his film different from any Western that had come before. Critics panned it for its brutal depiction of an unromantic West, but audiences loved it.


Poster by Vidit Narang

1 comment:

taniya said...

errrr.... can u plzzz explain..!!!