Once upon a time in the west
Jun 17, 2018 11:43:35 GMT
twothousandonemark, jeffersoncody, and 2 more like this
Post by joekiddlouischama on Jun 17, 2018 11:43:35 GMT
My #13 all time.
I've always enjoyed the full circle aspect of Leone originally wanting Bronson for his Dollars trilogy, & then apparently offering Eastwood the lead role here. Hindsight of course clearly shows the 2nd choices for both worked out ideally.
My fav western easily because while it mingles with the genre tropes, it never feels silly or exhibitionist. Monument Valley for instance, it's there & yet not in every other shot like The Searchers.
I concur with your overall points here.
Just for the sake of historical accuracy, Eastwood was not Leone's second choice for A Fistful of Dollars (at that point, there were no plans for a "trilogy," as Fistful constituted a marginal enterprise), and Bronson was not the director's first choice. Additionally, casting does not appear to have entirely been in Leone's hands, as the producers (Arrighi Colombo and George Papi) also played a significant role, especially given that they would not pay the lead more than $15,000 out of a paltry budget that landed somewhere between $200,000 and $250,000.
Leone's first choice for the protagonist appears to have been Henry Fonda, who the director would of course cast a few years later in Once Upon a Time in the West. But circa 1963, Leone was an anoymous Italian director (with one directorial credit to his name) and Fonda was way out of his league, status-wise and money-wise. Apparently, Fonda's agent never even bothered to show the script to the star, and the producers certainly could not have afforded him even in the unlikely event that Fonda had been intrigued. Leone's subsequent choices (or, in some cases, those of the producers) included Bronson, James Coburn, Rory Calhoun, Rod Cameron, Cliff Robertson, Steve Reeves, Richard Harrison, and Henry Silva; they all either had no interest or would not settle for just $15,000. (Silva, for instance, held out for $16,000, which the producers declined to give him.) Eastwood, conversely, was more concerned with the material and the opportunity than the fee. His casting, therefore, largely reflected circumstance and chance more than grand strategy on Leone's part.
In terms of Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone definitely offered the protagonist's part to Eastwood, talking to his star about the role of "Harmonica" during the shooting of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 1966 and then visiting Eastwood at his home in Los Angeles in early 1967 to show him the script and make the formal proposal. When Eastwood declined (wanting both to avoid repetition and to establish himself in a fully American context in order to win over skeptical Hollywood), Leone then turned to Bronson.
Clint Eastwood: A Biography (1996), by the late Richard Schickel, and Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death (2000), by Christopher Frayling, variously provide this information.
Eastwood indeed proved much better than Bronson (or any of those other actors) for the retrospectively-titled Man with No Name, and Bronson indeed proved to be a better choice than Eastwood for "Harmonica." Bronson was nine years older than Eastwood, and the character worked better with some more age—and thus a greater sense of vulnerability. In the Western vehicle that Eastwood chose instead of Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968's Hang 'Em High, he indeed displayed greater vulnerability than he had in the Leone movies, but Eastwood would have been better suited for "Harmonica" several years later, around the time that he was making The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and The Gauntlet (1977). Even then, Bronson's manifest "oddness" worked better for the role of "Harmonica," especially given the character's haunting childhood backstory and his ambiguous ethnic background—notably in contrast to the white railway establishment and its chief enforcer, Frank (played, of course, by the blue-eyed Fonda). Eastwood possessed the "physical tools" of a classic Hollywood star such as Fonda, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Jimmy Stewart—6'4", strapping, unambiguously American in appearance—only, through his acting and disposition, shaded more darkly, with a sense of melancholy, menace, and moroseness that rendered him optimal for a changing time and a new, more unsentimental and modernistic era. Bronson, conversely, was more like a lump of coal: relatively short (by movie star standards, especially Western standards), squat, gnarled, and Eastern European in his ethnicity and ancestry—in a way that allowed him to pass for Mexican or Native American or some undefined amalgam. Of course, with Eastwood as "Harmonica," the character's ethnic background would have changed, but the fact that Bronson could pass for some sort of "other" renders the final flashback all the more chilling and powerful. Similarly, the reality that Eli Wallach could credibly pass for a Mexican proved vital to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, especially given the poignancy of Tuco's scene with his brother, Father Ramirez.