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“People with ropes around their necks don’t always hang. Even a filthy beggar like that has a protecting angel…” Most art speaks from and to its time. That which endures must connect without its original context or its relevance is lost to all but the academics. So let’s look at the context of Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad and the Ugly on the 40th anniversary of it's initial release. Westerns, like all genre films, have certain conventions. Heroic tales also have traditions that drive the narrative and connect with an audience on visceral, spiritual and cultural levels. They teach us by creating moral structures that we understand or yearn for. This film is very much of its time. It was the 60's. JFK was dead and so were many dreams. Vietnam was becoming a polarizing moral test for individuals. Institutions, governments and even traditional cultures were suspect. The post-war counter culture was about to envelope an unsuspecting citizenry and its “boomer” children… Leone takes the most American heroic genre and turns it upside down to fit the times: he twists genre, morality, our expectations and, in this third installment of his “spaghetti westerns” he cements the concept of the anti-hero. Even in cultural rebellion, we need them. There had been anti-heroes before. The dark, ambiguous comic book Batman for example. But in mass media, film and television, Batman, in this era, could only be portrayed for laughs, as silly camp. Tim Burton wouldn’t undo that for 20 odd years... Very odd years. This film, seminal in both style and content, is widely credited for opening the door to re-examining heroes in the mainstream in the late 20th Century. From the very first images, we are put on notice that very few things in this film are as they appear. A blisteringly beautiful and desolate landscape is suddenly filled as a gnarled and snarling face rises from an incongruous angle into extreme close-up, staring directly into camera. There clearly is a gunfight brewing. The lone figure (easily “Ugly” in the vernacular) starts the long walk toward two opposing figures (one angelic, the other menacing). Tension builds. Could these be the representatives of the title compass points? Wind blows. A dog barks. We await the inevitable...
When the distinguishing moralities between the good, the bad, and the ugly are so subtle the filmmaker resorts to freezing the frame to label who is who, you know there is a redeeming sense of whimsy to balance the easy and rampant killing performed by all three title characters. This Leone delivers, constantly punctuating the violence with an unerring sense of the absurd that sometimes makes us smile and often directly skewers the genre’s traditions. The introductory stories for the other two title characters are equally diverting, but the idea of needing to label each title character reaches beyond the ironic. The world of the film and each of the title characters manages to consistently be uneven parts of all three, with little use for social niceties or posturing. The moral ambiguities start piling up with the body count. When this film came out in 1966, a good portion of it’s audience were teenaged males, many of whom faced a military draft, a world where the rules and customs of their parents were meaningless (and responsible for the perceived ills of society) and rightfully felt that they were powerless and unable to control any part of their rapidly changing universe. Enter Eastwood in Leone’s first “spaghetti western” A Fistful of Dollars (a 1964 homage to Kurosawa’s samurai classic Yojimbo) in a signature poncho with unerring, nearly magical skills to best any opponent. Now there’s a hero! And in those first two films, the targets of his skills were clearly “bad.” Eastwood had no compunction about killing “bad” people but clearly had a soft spot for innocents. But in this film, Leone travels more subtle moral ground and we meet Eastwood’s character (a full 18 minutes into the film) in the act of killing another group of bounty hunters who have captured a murderer (in fact, the “Ugly” character from the opening scene, Eli Wallach, whose garrulous, scenery chewing performance is the perfect foil for Eastwood’s deadpan). These quickly dispatched unfortunates only crime appears to be having captured Eastwood's intended prey. For this, they die, and a rather heinous partnership is formed between the “Good” and the “Ugly.” Eastwood's character in this film is more inclined to exploit the social systems (presumably morally corrupt systems), rather than divide and conquer clearly identifiable evil-doers as he did in the trilogy's first two films. In this film, there is a heroic contempt for the commercial and political power structures and their minions represented by the townsfolk, mostly depicted as hypocrites who take indignant delight at the officious (and repeated) public execution of Wallach. Eastwood regularly lampoons them by shooting off their hats as he rescues Wallach from yet another hanging. Later, we see proper, upstanding capitalists portrayed as opportunistic war profiteers. Is this film timeless, or what?
Van Cleef’s absolute work ethic underscores the fact that he has no redeeming character qualities whatsoever. Greed is his only motivation. In the course of the film, he runs a barbaric Civil War P.O.W. camp, regularly beating prisoners, stealing their valuables and personal effects. The commanding officer that objects, representing a traditional moral position, is depicted as crippled, another physical metaphor. Van Cleef abandons that position only when there is a larger purse to go after. Greed is the common motivator for ALL the characters and central action in the film. The only exceptions are the soldiers (mostly faceless, many limbless) who do the bidding of, or are victimized by the power structures in place. The film is often seen as an anti-war film. Eastwood even has a line about having never seen so many men so badly wasted. In fact, the Civil War serves as a catalyst for some of the most intimate (though subtle) character shifts in the “Good” and the “Ugly.” Wallach visits his brother, a priest, in a mission overflowing with War casualties. Their confrontation, witnessed by Eastwood, sets up a melodramatic back-story for Wallach (we see his reaction to his mother’s death) and manages to eschew his brother’s sincerity and reasons for joining the priesthood. There are no flawless humans here.
Leone is most adept at contrasting the epic and intimate. Visually, aurally and musically he constantly paints a new reality. Wide vistas intercut with extreme close-ups. There are no clean white hats in this film. Everyone sweats, and probably smells very bad. Flies seem choreographed in the close-ups. Many of the actors in Leone westerns are from different language backgrounds. Which means they must create all the dialog and sound effects tracks from scratch. There is no production sound in the film. Leone lifts it to an art form, literally painting with sound. Every puff of theatrical wind, every exaggerated footfall, every signature gunshot (a compilation of 3 different sound effects) is orchestrated for its visceral impact on the audience. Ennio Morricone’s music is at times contrapuntal, bringing tender, almost religious calm to the approach of a deadly threat, at other times wildly pounding operatic themes that seem carried by heavenly hordes and demonic energies from another world. In a film overflowing with signatures, Morricone’s music may be one of the best known. The first time we see Wallach frozen in the frame, named as the “Ugly,” we hear the now famous theme, voiced as a maniacal laugh/scream, punctuating the genre joke of the opening and announcing the distinct use of music throughout the film. The epic/intimate contrast of the visuals mirrored here by the music in the solitary heartbeat that begins what becomes a monolithically scored symphony. By the time Eastwood and Wallach have traveled through the American Civil War, there is an ethereal detachment in Eastwood and much of his heroic stance stems from this apparent fearless confidence. A faith in the outcome. It's part of what appeals to us in all heroes. Eastwood and Wallach do what the armies of the North and South could not: They destroy a bridge both armies had wanted intact. They need the armies to leave so they can pursue their treasure. And it also fulfills the dying wish of a disillusioned Union Captain. One aspect of the mythic hero always seems to be a signature uniform: Superman’s cape, Batman’s cowl, even Chaplin’s bowler and cane. By this film’s release, Eastwood’s character was so identified in the public’s mind with the poncho (almost a cape) audiences audibly groaned at its absence in the early part of this film. Leone was playing with us. He waited until we forgot how much we missed it. As Eastwood comforts a dying boy/soldier, he covers him with the shearling duster he’s been wearing. They are in a small church destroyed by the war, now useless except as a haunting reminder of an old order. The boy dies. Eastwood reaches for the coat, thinks better of it, covers the corpse and grabs something off screen, then responds as Wallach undertakes an escape. In a precursor to Dirty Harry’s preoccupation with having the biggest, baddest gun, Eastwood calmly touches his cigar to a handy cannon which manages to blow Wallach off his horse a hundred yards away. There is a low angle “hero shot” of Eastwood, now suddenly in full poncho, “reborn” as he left the ruined church. It’s difficult to fully explain the audience reaction when the film was in first release theatres: Boys cheered. Men wept. Superman had returned. It also signaled a return to the more traditional gunfight motif for the rest of the film. The politics and most of the moralizing were now suspended for what we all came to see: our hero, outnumbered (though never outgunned) using his unsurpassed skills to bring justice... And true to his intention, Leone won’t even let that cliché stand. Eastwood cheats to win. But still, he has defeated the “Bad” and now toys with the “Ugly” one last time before actually sharing the booty.
It took an Italian to take the “horse opera” to its roots and re-imagine the operatic elements with neo-realistic cinematic diction. This broadly successful international film inspired and trained an entire generation of filmmakers. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly established Eastwood as a star, and set many of the themes he would explore throughout his career, often tinged with a nod toward the cost, both spiritual and physical, of being cast in the role of avenging/protecting angel in a morally chaotic world ruled by hypocrites and cynics: Dirty Harry... High Plains Drifter... The Outlaw Josey Wales... Pale Rider... The Unforgiven. © 2006, Jerry L. Jackson.
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Identity By Contrast; Defining The Anti-Hero.
But it’s not what we think. The three figures close on each other, reach for their weapons and - charge inside the building as a team! Gunfire roars and the front window explodes as a ragged figure, the target of the bounty hunters, leaps through, unharmed, gun in one hand, slab of meat and jug of wine in the other. The frame freezes and a title appears: “The Ugly.”
Lee Van Cleef had a long career as Western bad men before Leone used him. Watch High Noon (1952) again. In A Fistful of Dollars he was uncharacteristically cast as a gentleman bounty hunter/gunman out to avenge a murder, at first a competitor to Eastwood and then nearly a mentor. Here, there is no question. He IS the “Bad”: A hired killer with a very strict work ethic. When he’s paid, he always follows through. Even to the extent that when a victim offers to pay him more than the original contract, he proceeds with the first killing, takes the dead man’s money, then kills the original employer.
In spite of all that they’ve done to each other before, Eastwood and Wallach set off on the next leg of their adventure with a slightly more intimate partnership, like many wary marriages, keeping strategic secrets from each other and an unspoken promise not to bring up others. True to the tone of the film, Eastwood offers Wallach one of his signature cigars, male-bonding. Wallach accepts it, the first kind gesture between them in the film... and then eats it lustily.
And in the end Eastwood, rides away with his sense of fairness intact, having redeemed himself, and one last time, saving the life of an understandably shaken former partner.