A Fistful of Dollars
1964 · Directed by Sergio Leone
Original language: Italian
- western
The story
The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.
What it’s like
Dust-coloured and sun-bleached, with wide, scorched desert vistas cut by tight, squinting close-ups, and the faces of its gunmen framed in sharp Italian-western detail: hat brims, cheroot smoke, a poncho glowing orange against the heat. Leone lingers on silences that stretch for seconds before a draw, and the Ennio Morricone score, with its whip cracks, wordless choral moans and tinny twanging guitar, does most of the emotional work. The village is a dusty, rough place of adobe walls, creaking doors and barking dogs, shot with a harsh, hot daylight rather than any romance. Vibe: dry, sardonic, hot-blooded and cool at once. It suits a late-night watch with the lights low, or a lazy afternoon when you want something stylised and mean-spirited. Pacing is deliberate, almost stately, building in long shadowed standoffs and then bursting into quick, brutal gunfire. Violence is frequent and abrupt, with shootings, beatings and a few bloody deaths shown plainly but without gore-heavy excess; the tone is cruel and cynical, with greed and betrayal driving the action. For viewers who love hard-edged anti-heroes, stylised tension and classic spaghetti-western grit, and who can handle a sour, morally bleak world.
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