The Western List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[matrixschmatrix]

And yet Pontecorvo's three most celebrated titles were also written by Solinas (a point you all seem desparate to ignore)... Basically, they'll go along with the Pontecorvo titles because he's an esbalished 'auteur' and they don't want to find themselves out on a limb.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? Co-writing three movies that wind up being largely fairly clear (though Burn! gets a bit muddy) does nothing to prove that a fourth movie, interpreted by a different director, will also be clear. I mean, Solinas co-wrote the Savage Innocents as well- does that prove that his movies are all secretly racially problematic?

Seriously, you pull these narratives out of thin air sometimes.

[knives]

At this point you're just making up suppositions to fit the world you have constructed for yourself. Before the release of Kapo most here had bad vibes about and thought it would be a weak work, but after it's release it quickly became a celebrated title. That right there throws out your whole statement. Add to that many here will go against an established auteur and promote an unknown when they feel appropriate and your entire theory is bunked.

Throughout you have been forcing things into an either or situation. You have completely ignored many other options that can be taken like enjoying the film despite it's politics (I know there are many films I enjoy, but disagree with morally or politically) or that they find the politics poorly argued which is what Zedz and company are doing. They are not saying Marxism is bad, but that the Marxism as explained in your movie is not well developed alongside the story leaving open leaps of logic and unfortunate implications. Those are very different things and there are several other reactions available so get off your pedestal and stop making everything about Nothing.

edit: or what Matrix said.

[Nothing]

You have completely ignored many other options that can be taken like enjoying the film despite it's politics

This just doesn't happen in my experience. Kapo isn't as radical as Quien Sabe in its polemic, this is why the film is more palatable to the rabid anti-communists on this board.

Co-writing three movies that wind up being largely fairly clear (though Burn! gets a bit muddy) does nothing to prove that a fourth movie, interpreted by a different director, will also be clear.

If you want to look at everything in simple auterist terms perhaps. Imho, Pontecorvo was only truly successful when working with Solinas, who also then went on to work with Costa-Gavras and Joseph Losey, in addition to writing the wonderful Bullet for the General, and Tepepa. Of course, one of the challenges a screenwriter faces is that a director will sometimes destroy theit work, as happened with Sollima's The Big Gundown, with Solinas disowned. But amongst those who care about such things, Solinas is widely considered one of the major Italian screenwriters of the period and Quien Sabe is one of his quintessential works.

Just discovered that Welles actually co-directed some of Tepepa (uncredited), so even keener to see that now... May just try to watch it in Italian.

[knives]

You have completely ignored many other options that can be taken like enjoying the film despite it's politics

This just doesn't happen in my experience. Kapo isn't as radical as Quien Sabe in its polemic, this is why the film is more palatable to the rabid anti-communists on this board.

Considering how many self proclaimed communists, socialists, and anarchists are on this board with little to no voice from the right I think you've got things backwards.

[Mr Sausage]

Sausage then attempts to back him up by suggesting that Chuncho kills Nino simply for "not being a Marxist"

Er, I'm the guy who thinks Chuncho kills Nino out of gay panic, remember?

I would be surprised if anyone here objected to Marxist politics on the face of them

:-$ Sausage, zedz...

I think my politics are considered socialist, actually. This is what I've been told by people more politically engaged than I am. I know I voted for them in the last election, or at least their Canadian version, so there's that.


Re: Woo and homoeroticism, if you interpret his movies as homoerotic, doesn't that render Woo's themes of loyalty, honour, and brotherhood incoherent? They're certainly irrelevant and inapplicable if the central male relationships are about romantic love.

[matrixschmatrix]

You have completely ignored many other options that can be taken like enjoying the film despite it's politics

This just doesn't happen in my experience. Kapo isn't as radical as Quien Sabe in its polemic, this is why the film is more palatable to the rabid anti-communists on this board.

Well, I guess you have pretty goddamn limited experience, then. Even staying within westerns, there are any number of movies I find politically execrable (the vast majority of Ford, to start with) which I nonetheless enjoy and respect. As it happens, I think you might be the only one where who has a political checklist that must be met before you can even watch something, much less decide if you like it or not.

If you want to look at everything in simple auterist terms perhaps. Imho, Pontecorvo was only truly successful when working with Solinas, who also then went on to work with Costa-Gavras and Joseph Losey, in addition to writing the wonderful Bullet for the General, and Tepepa. Of course, one of the challenges a screenwriter faces is that a director will sometimes destroy theit work, as happened with Sollima's The Big Gundown, with Solinas disowned. But amongst those who care about such things, Solinas is widely considered one of the major Italian screenwriters of the period and Quien Sabe is one of his quintessential works.

So... therefore, that one scene works. Yep, that makes sense. Seriously, your argument is that his other movies worked, therefore this one does- even if Solinas were the sole creative force, that wouldn't hold water, and bringing up auteurism is pure misdirection.

Re: Woo and homoeroticism, if you interpret his movies as homoerotic, doesn't that render Woo's themes of loyalty, honour, and brotherhood incoherent? They're certainly irrelevant and inapplicable if the central male relationships are about romantic love.

Why would those conflict? I don't think Woo's homoerotic overtones work on the same terms as his romances between men and women, but I think he takes brothers-in-arms to a place of such closeness that his gunfights feel like a love montage in a romantic movie.

[knives]

Isn't that what he was giving me shit over for Sirk, tsk tsk, can't even leave that without contradiction.

[colinr0380]

One-Eyed Jacks - Obviously mangled and compromised, and showing the hints that even in its original form, it was indulgent and meandering, it still surprisingly emerges as a great film. It has the right mix of brutality and lyricism that makes it something of the missing link between Boetticher and Peckinpah. This is the sort of butchered, fragmented classic that works despite of itself that many people claim Major Dundee to be.

Django, Kill... If You Live, Shoot! - As sub-genres go, this film is a clean sweep - Spaghetti Western, Acid Western, Marxist Western... and a top-tier example in all three. Guilio Questi claims to have spent the war as an Anti-Fascist partisan, and the film shows it. A bleak, hallucinatory vision of a world torn asunder by greed and power. Possibly my favorite SW behind the Leones and The Great Silence

Sorry for not contributing more to this round of discussion - I'm not too au fait with westerns and things have been too hectic to catch up in any meaningful way (maybe next time around!) but I was very happy to see Cold Bishop's comment. Finally someone else who might vote for Django, Kill!...If You Live, Shoot! and One-Eyed Jacks (I'll let the Major Dundee comment slide!) Also I got my very first German Filmmuseum order through this weekend (zedz has a lot to answer for!) and got to see By The Law, which has immediately jumped high up into my, admittedly patchy, top 50. Nice to see more women taking an 'active' role in westerns - it's followed in my list by McCabe and Mrs Miller!

Anyway I just thought I'd post to alert everyone to another essential Italian western with Marxist overtones that, once seen, will immediately top everyone's list in terms of pathos and dramatic complexity*. Once Upon A Time In The West, eat your heart out (P.S. the bottom kicking = redistribution of wealth to the masses, as does the somewhat one-sided football match)

*(Just kidding!)

[matrixschmatrix]

I just rewatched Duck, You Sucker for the first time in a long time, and, uh- how exactly did people get the idea that Leone, or the cinema of Leone, was Marxist? He's anti-capitalist, obviously, and has a both a real hatred for a lot of the traditional class enemies of Communism (the opening of Duck, You Sucker, with all the upperclass depicted as racist, repellent idiots makes that abundantly clear) but I think his movies are pretty consistently opposed to any sort of formal ideology or ideological organization- he's far more anarchist than Marxist, and (as Frayling points out in the commentary on Duck, You Sucker) he was delighted to be told that his movie convinced some youth to leave a militant leftwing ideological movement.

[Nothing]

Alex cox on Tepepa and a bunch of other Spaghettis.

[Nothing]

the only thing we can agree on, apart from not particularly liking the 177 min version, is that we don't agree.

That, and voting for Once Upon a Time in the West in the Western List Project this week, I hope!

[Lighthouse]

Unfortunately I would probably vote for The Wild Bunch, but I hate it to make a decision between those 2 (which both belong also to my favourite 10 films ever).
Closely followed by The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.

Flipped a bit through this thread, but where's the voting? Or is it only presenting some favourite westerns and discussing them?

[flyonthewall2983]

I don't think I'd be any good because I don't think I've seen nowhere near close to 50 (closer to 25-30 at most), let alone choose 50 to choose from. I'd definitely vote for this over any Peckinpah, despite loving both The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid. I probably would choose Unforgiven over it, as it's more critical of the genre and feels more like this is what it was really like back then. And it's arguably Clint's peak performance as an actor, using both what he'd put into prior Westerns and reaching dramatic limits he never reached in previous roles.

In the end, I think I would end up voting for Once... as my number one. It's Sergio right at his peak as a cinematic force. It doesn't feel as pulpy as the Dollars films, and it felt more epic than what was to follow, even Once Upon A Time In America. The music, the sets, the lighting, everything is damn near perfect. And arguably, I don't think there's a more brilliant example of the stoic leading man than what Bronson does here. Anytime I watch it, I never fail to get goosebumps at those first harmonica notes playing at the train station.

[Nothing]

The idea is to PM a list of your 50 favourite westerns to 'domino harvey' on or before 20th June. My Top 3 are I think pretty similar to yours - OUATITW, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid & The Wild Bunch. Just Leone and Peckinpah alone could give you 10+... Only 40 more to go!

[Lighthouse]

In order of preference?

[Mr Sausage]

In order of preference?

Yes, in order of preference. The submitted lists are then compiled and turned into a Master List that represents, broadly, the top Westerns according to the participants. See: here.

[Lighthouse]

Ok, I'll think Ill do it. I love lists, but it won't be easy between 20 and 50

[Mr Sausage]

Well, you've kind of come at the end. The general protocol is to follow the thread from its inception and try to watch as many of the suggested films as you can in order to make compiling your list easier. The next list will be Musicals, if you'd like to participate in a List project from the beginning.

[Finch]

I could only compile a list of twenty which renders it void for the purpose of this project but thought I'd share it nonetheless:

1) Stagecoach
2) Pat Garret & Billy The Kid
3) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
4) The Man From Laramie
5) The Outlaw Josey Wales
6) Johnny Guitar
7) The Furies
8) The Last Wagon
9) Bad Day At Black Rock
10) The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
11) The Wild Bunch
12) The Shooting
13) Duel in the Sun
14) 3 Godfathers
15) Unforgiven
16) The Ox-Bow Incident
17) My Darling Clementine
18) Canyon Passage
19) Wichita
20) The Good, the Bad & The Weird

[Nothing]

The general protocol is to follow the thread from its inception and try to watch as many of the suggested films as you can in order to make compiling your list easier.

If you've got 50 films though, you should still vote, of course!

Imho, spaghetti westerns have been getting pretty short shrift in the thread and someone with an interest in that area could certainly contribute meaningfully.

[Lighthouse]

Well, you've kind of come at the end. The general protocol is to follow the thread from its inception and try to watch as many of the suggested films as you can in order to make compiling your list easier.

Not a problem, I've seen any important western anyway. Also every important European western. And of these there are more interesting ones than many people think, and there are some masterpieces beyond Leone.

[Nothing]

Watched Tepepa on YouTube, with the help of this review/synopsis (plus a scattering of basic Italian), and it is indeed wonderful. The wordless opening scene alone, in which the Mexican peasants help Steiner's British doctor to re-start his car in the midday desert sun, generously offering up their water flask which he then empties into the radiator of the beast in exchange for a few unsolicited pennies (!) sums up so many of the world's enduring problems (a scene that would fit right into Adam Curtis' latest excellent documentary...) I really hope it gets a proper English-friendly release in the near future (the lack of which is likely to keep it out of contention here, which really is a shame)... There may be some truth to the rumour that Welles had a hand in the direction too, eg. the marvellous bit of business between Tomas Milan and the priest at 13:00 smacks of Welles' humour...

Thanks to Cold Bishop for recommending Bad Company, btw, a film I hadn't been aware of. It's a deceptively small-scale picture that doesn't pull its punches despite early impressions, a teen buddy movie by way of Dante, Stand by Me meets Badlands. One small quibble perhaps is that the final scene, whilst essential, has perhaps not been entirely earned. Something a repeat viewing may help to clarify, however.

[domino harvey]

Just to be clear: While it's obviously encouraged, you do not have to participate in the lists thread to submit a list, so long as your list meets the guidelines outlined elsewheres.

[Nothing]

Poorly defended? Hardly...

Oh, another one that just occured to me: Chaplin's The Gold Rush!

[domino harvey]

Lists are starting to come in. Please, if you're done with your viewings and your list is finalized, turn it in early. All the computing I can do in advance means all the less work for me next week on deadline day.

In related news, I don't ever want to see another western as long as I live, but watching five a day for two weeks will do that to you