The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

20110111:
I don't remember watching this movie before, but the music is famous.


While the characters are labeled "the good," "the bad," and "the ugly," I felt these labels were loosely applicable. That is, certain interpretations must be made to what the adjectives imply. Mine were: "good" for his overall attitude and decisions made, wanting money and doing a couple of dishonest things for money is anybody's wish; "bad" for killing emotionlessly and torture; and "ugly" for being somewhat unkempt, and doesn't have much moral decency. Take my comment with a grain of salt, I haven't seen enough Westerns. See The List of Westerns I've Seen below.

I loved the ending.

In general, there were so many great scenes. The following are a few:
Tuco puts together parts from different guns and then also the scene that follows that.
Blondie (Clint Eastwood) hears the spurs.
Music plays while Tuco is tortured
The walk through the town (to take down Angel Eye's men).
The ending.

There are several scenes with a fly roaming around. I was wondering, did they keep a bunch of flies which they released, or did that just happen naturally?

[20110112]

20110112:
Watching the movie with Italian audio and English subtitles was better than English audio and English subtitles. Though perhaps watching the movie with English audio and no subtitles would have been in the middle. And I would have liked Italian audio with English subtitles which literally translated the Italian dialogue. The Wikipedia article had the following to say about the audio:
As an international cast was employed, actors performed in their native languages. Eastwood, Van Cleef and Wallach spoke English, and were dubbed into Italian for the debut release in Rome. For the American version, the lead acting voices were used, but supporting cast members were dubbed into English. The result is noticeable in the bad synchronization of voices to lip movements on screen; none of the dialogue is completely in sync because Leone rarely shot his scenes with synchronized sound. Various reasons have been cited for this: Leone often liked to play Morricone's music over a scene and possibly shout things at the actors to get them in the mood. Leone cared more for visuals than dialogue (his English was limited, at best). Given the technical limitations of the time, it would have been difficult to record the sound cleanly in most of the extremely wide shots Leone frequently used. Also, it was standard practice in Italian films at this time to shoot silently and post-dub. Whatever the actual reason, all dialogue in the film was recorded in post-production. The relationship between Eastwood and Leone had remained strained from their previous collaboration and it only worsened during the dubbing sessions for the US version because the actor was presented with a different script than the one they had shot with. He refused to read from this new version, insisting on using the shooting script instead.

Instant Comments:
2: There's no dialogue for the first 11 minutes.
2: The beginning makes more sense the second time around.
2: "the good" label comes up at 29m38s; I missed it the first time
2: So many scenes make more sense watching them the second time around.
2=20110112

Watched 20110111 (DVD) English audio. English subtitles. 179 min*
Watched 1st,2nd third 20110112 (DVD) Italian audio. English subtitles. 179 min
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) Sergio Leone. 161 min.
also known as Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (original title) [translates to "The good, the ugly, the bad"]

Relevant Links:
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (IMDb.com)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Wikipedia.org)
Spaghetti Western (Wikipedia.org)

*I believe this version of the film is the 2003 extended English version because it is 179 minutes long.

The List of Western Movies I've Seen has been moved to it's own post. I have this sentence here just in case any link is still referring to it.

No comments :