A Fistful of Dynamite. (15.)
Directed by Sergio Leone. 1971
Starring James Coburn, Rod Steiger, Romolo Valli, Rick Battaglia, Franco Graziosi, Jean-Michel Antoine and David Warbeck. 157 mins. Released on dual format Blu-ray/ DVD by Eureka Masters Of Cinema.
I have often teased Eureka over their generous definition of Master of Cinema, but there wouldn't be many directors entitled to barge past Sergio Leone in the lunch queue at the Master of Cinema canteen. He only made six films (ok seven, with Colossus of Rhodes) but in those, he invented the spaghetti western and then mastered it to such a degree he effectively finished it as well. And then after that, he made the greatest gangster movie of them all, Once Upon A Time in America.
This was his final western – provided we accept that he wasn't the real guiding force behind My Name in Nobody – but the one that was his least masterly. Made after the “masterpiece,” Once Upon A Time In The West, it feels like a deeply held breath being finally released. After all the vacuum-packed, almost prissy perfection of West, all allusions and metaphors rather than feelings and story, this is scrappy and uneven. Dipping into the disc's plentiful extras and commentaries I was expecting to hear stories of how it was a difficult shoot, but apart from a few strops from Steiger over not being able to do his proper method acting, it seems to have gone relatively smoothly. The finished film has some atrocious scenes, but when it works it's euphoric.
Possibly the biggest problem is its excess of titles. Eureka settled on A Fistful, but for a while, it was another Once Upon A Time, specifically The Revolution. But these two titles diminish it by making it sound like a knock off of Leone's past glories. Leone's prefered title was Duck You Sucker and this is used by many of the contributors on the disc's extras. He thought this was a common piece of American slang meaning Keep Your Head Down but it makes it sound like a Bud Spencer/ Terrence Hill film. You could be posey and go with the Italian title Gui La Testa (or Gui La Testa, Coglione which adds an expletive) but it isn't easy, or fun, to pronounce properly. So, basically, we have a film that doesn't have an English language title that comes close to doing it justice.
The film begins with a quote from Mao which is a very Godard way to start but Leone is not about to try and be down with the kids. This time out Leone isn't motivated by the myths of the old west but the contemporary fantasies of revolution. The revolutionary fervour of 1968 and the outbreaks of political violence dragged Leone out of the violence of the past to examine the violence of the present; or at least the violence of 1913, one of the latest dates you could set a western in, where Mexico is in the middle of the Zapata revolution.
Straight after the Mao quote, he has Steiger pissing on some ants. His approach to revolution is played out in the relationship between Steiger's illiterate but cunning Mexican peasant Juan Miranda and Coburn's dynamite packing Irish terrorist John, or maybe Sean, Mallory. (It is typical of this film that even a leading character's name is up for debate.) Juan doesn't care for politics and is just looking out for number one..... two, three, four, five, six and seven, the collection of sons he heads as a marauding party of bandits. John is already on the path to disillusionment but still ends up sucking Juan into the revolutionary movement when all he wants to do is rob the bank at Mesa Verde.
There is a bit of feeling in this, an anger. Has there ever been a film with more firing squad executions? Everywhere they go soldiers are lining people up against the wall or putting them in trenches. Steiger delivers the film's message in a very direct speech about the people that read books persuading the people that don't read the books that change is necessary and ending up with people that read books sitting around talking and eating while all the poor people are dead.
It's not hard to see why audiences were disappointed with this when it came out in the seventies, allbeit in heavily edited versions. Compared with the silent railway station stakeout that begins In The West the opening sequence for this, Steiger and his family holding up a stagecoach is a hell of a comedown. The first half is mostly knockabout comedy. Jason Robards and Eli Wallach were first choices for the two leads but it might as have been Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer. Only in the second half does it become this magnificent raging piece about the fake promises of revolutions. The change comes in a wrenching moment when the film cuts straight from Juan and John sharing a moment of great triumph to a terrible tragedy. I'm hard-pressed to remember such an abrupt change of tone in a film.
The film is encapsulated in the performance of Steiger. Early on you can't believe an Oscar-winning actor, a recent Oscar winner – In The Heat Of The Night (1967) – could be playing this Hey Meester Mekikan caricature. Somewhere he becomes a real person and by the end, you'll have to concede he was very good indeed.
Coburn is magnificent from his first scene. He may look like Wile E Coyote with all those sticks of dynamite stuck to his body but he has that casual movie star assurance that means he can carry it off. Ironically though he is prominent in the film's weakest scenes – the flashback to his time in Ireland and his friendship with a fellow Republican played by David Warbeck, who resembles a more conventionally handsome young Jack Nicholson. Thematically these do add a lot to the film, and the lush greens are a vivid contrast to all the arid desert yellows but their use of slow-motion to suggest some kind of love triangle with a girl played by Vivienne Chandler is often hideous. Coburn looks ridiculous as foppish young man, the slow-motion snogging is gruesome and there is a, presumably unintentional, gay subtext to them. This version restores the full, four-minute-long flashback that comes right at the end, the three of them bounding happily across a field in the slowest of motions, and I think the film would be better if they kept it as it was before when it was cut halfway through.
The biggest star of any Leone movie is always the Maestro, Ennio Morricone and he provides one of his very best scores for this. The refrain of Sean, Sean in the main theme is as jokey and ridiculous as the Wah, Wah, Wah in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly but the romantic themes as as touching as any that he wrote. When it comes to masters of cinema you're getting two for the price of one.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Directed by Sergio Leone. 1971
Starring James Coburn, Rod Steiger, Romolo Valli, Rick Battaglia, Franco Graziosi, Jean-Michel Antoine and David Warbeck. 157 mins. Released on dual format Blu-ray/ DVD by Eureka Masters Of Cinema.
I have often teased Eureka over their generous definition of Master of Cinema, but there wouldn't be many directors entitled to barge past Sergio Leone in the lunch queue at the Master of Cinema canteen. He only made six films (ok seven, with Colossus of Rhodes) but in those, he invented the spaghetti western and then mastered it to such a degree he effectively finished it as well. And then after that, he made the greatest gangster movie of them all, Once Upon A Time in America.
This was his final western – provided we accept that he wasn't the real guiding force behind My Name in Nobody – but the one that was his least masterly. Made after the “masterpiece,” Once Upon A Time In The West, it feels like a deeply held breath being finally released. After all the vacuum-packed, almost prissy perfection of West, all allusions and metaphors rather than feelings and story, this is scrappy and uneven. Dipping into the disc's plentiful extras and commentaries I was expecting to hear stories of how it was a difficult shoot, but apart from a few strops from Steiger over not being able to do his proper method acting, it seems to have gone relatively smoothly. The finished film has some atrocious scenes, but when it works it's euphoric.
Possibly the biggest problem is its excess of titles. Eureka settled on A Fistful, but for a while, it was another Once Upon A Time, specifically The Revolution. But these two titles diminish it by making it sound like a knock off of Leone's past glories. Leone's prefered title was Duck You Sucker and this is used by many of the contributors on the disc's extras. He thought this was a common piece of American slang meaning Keep Your Head Down but it makes it sound like a Bud Spencer/ Terrence Hill film. You could be posey and go with the Italian title Gui La Testa (or Gui La Testa, Coglione which adds an expletive) but it isn't easy, or fun, to pronounce properly. So, basically, we have a film that doesn't have an English language title that comes close to doing it justice.
The film begins with a quote from Mao which is a very Godard way to start but Leone is not about to try and be down with the kids. This time out Leone isn't motivated by the myths of the old west but the contemporary fantasies of revolution. The revolutionary fervour of 1968 and the outbreaks of political violence dragged Leone out of the violence of the past to examine the violence of the present; or at least the violence of 1913, one of the latest dates you could set a western in, where Mexico is in the middle of the Zapata revolution.
Straight after the Mao quote, he has Steiger pissing on some ants. His approach to revolution is played out in the relationship between Steiger's illiterate but cunning Mexican peasant Juan Miranda and Coburn's dynamite packing Irish terrorist John, or maybe Sean, Mallory. (It is typical of this film that even a leading character's name is up for debate.) Juan doesn't care for politics and is just looking out for number one..... two, three, four, five, six and seven, the collection of sons he heads as a marauding party of bandits. John is already on the path to disillusionment but still ends up sucking Juan into the revolutionary movement when all he wants to do is rob the bank at Mesa Verde.
There is a bit of feeling in this, an anger. Has there ever been a film with more firing squad executions? Everywhere they go soldiers are lining people up against the wall or putting them in trenches. Steiger delivers the film's message in a very direct speech about the people that read books persuading the people that don't read the books that change is necessary and ending up with people that read books sitting around talking and eating while all the poor people are dead.
It's not hard to see why audiences were disappointed with this when it came out in the seventies, allbeit in heavily edited versions. Compared with the silent railway station stakeout that begins In The West the opening sequence for this, Steiger and his family holding up a stagecoach is a hell of a comedown. The first half is mostly knockabout comedy. Jason Robards and Eli Wallach were first choices for the two leads but it might as have been Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer. Only in the second half does it become this magnificent raging piece about the fake promises of revolutions. The change comes in a wrenching moment when the film cuts straight from Juan and John sharing a moment of great triumph to a terrible tragedy. I'm hard-pressed to remember such an abrupt change of tone in a film.
The film is encapsulated in the performance of Steiger. Early on you can't believe an Oscar-winning actor, a recent Oscar winner – In The Heat Of The Night (1967) – could be playing this Hey Meester Mekikan caricature. Somewhere he becomes a real person and by the end, you'll have to concede he was very good indeed.
Coburn is magnificent from his first scene. He may look like Wile E Coyote with all those sticks of dynamite stuck to his body but he has that casual movie star assurance that means he can carry it off. Ironically though he is prominent in the film's weakest scenes – the flashback to his time in Ireland and his friendship with a fellow Republican played by David Warbeck, who resembles a more conventionally handsome young Jack Nicholson. Thematically these do add a lot to the film, and the lush greens are a vivid contrast to all the arid desert yellows but their use of slow-motion to suggest some kind of love triangle with a girl played by Vivienne Chandler is often hideous. Coburn looks ridiculous as foppish young man, the slow-motion snogging is gruesome and there is a, presumably unintentional, gay subtext to them. This version restores the full, four-minute-long flashback that comes right at the end, the three of them bounding happily across a field in the slowest of motions, and I think the film would be better if they kept it as it was before when it was cut halfway through.
The biggest star of any Leone movie is always the Maestro, Ennio Morricone and he provides one of his very best scores for this. The refrain of Sean, Sean in the main theme is as jokey and ridiculous as the Wah, Wah, Wah in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly but the romantic themes as as touching as any that he wrote. When it comes to masters of cinema you're getting two for the price of one.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Limited Edition Hardbound Slipcase [3000 copies]
- A LIMITED EDITION 60-PAGE Perfect Bound Collector’s book featuring new writing on the film by Simon Ward and western authority Howard Hughes; a new interview with poster designer Robert E. McGinnis; and a selection of rare archival imagery
- Two versions of the film presented in 1080p across two Blu-ray disc, including a transfer from the 2K restoration completed by Cineteca di Bologna in 2009
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- Original Mono Audio available on both versions
- Original Italian mono audio available on the Italian version of the film
- Audio Commentary by filmmaker Alex Cox
- Audio Commentary by film historian Sir. Christopher Frayling
- A brand new and exclusive interview with film critic and writer Kim Newman
- A brand new and exclusive interview with Austin Fisher, author of Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western: Politics, Violence and Popular Italian Cinema
- The Myth of Revolution [22 mins] – Sir Christopher Frayling on Duck, You Sucker!
- Sergio Donati Remembers Duck, You Sucker! [7 mins]
- Sorting Out The Versions: An Analysis of Duck, You Sucker! [12 mins]
- Once Upon A Time… in Italy [6 mins] – featurette
- Restoration, Italian Style [6 mins]
- Location Comparisons [9 mins]
- Radio Spots
- Newly created stills galleries featuring hundreds of rare archival images
- Trailer
