Spaghetti Westerns Essays - Film, Film Genres, Italian Films

Spaghetti Westerns Which is the cheesiest? The answer is pretty obvious, but let's take a close look. "Spaghetti Westerns," as their called, are a genre of western films, that have been created or filmed in Italy and are meant to portray the "Wild West" of America. "Macaroni Westerns," as I'll call them, make up the traditional western genre, made in the United States. Let's take a look at the similarities and differences of these genres, and at two films in particular that represent each genre; The Good the Bad and the Ugly(1966) and Rio Bravo(1959), which most critics will agree, are great examples of each genre. Let's start with the most obvious aspect that differs in the two genres. "Macaroni Westerns" are the cheesiest. These films have are pure cheese. I can barely sit through one of them. They have the typical characters; the hero(s), the bad guy(s), the fair maiden, and the quirky sidekick(s). These characters spout out cheesy lines, demonstrating how good or how bad they are, but they language always remains basically clean. In the Spaghetti Westerns, the language is a lot more diverse(lots of cussing). This is because each of these genres play to a different audience. The "Macaroni Westerns" are family films. They present right, wrong, and have many morals played out, such as, "no matter how many bad people are trying to kill you, you can take them all on if you wear a badge and talk like John Wayne." The "Macaroni Westerns" were typically family movies, because it was typical Hollywood(serving to the masses, whatever sells big). Violence, profanity, and not having blatantly evil and good characters, wasn't selling at the time, so we got "Macaroni." The "Spaghetti Westerns," on the other hand, were not trying to please everybody.(just the Italian roughnecks) Sure, these westerns took a lot from the traditional westerns, but they break away from the traditional "Macaroni Westerns" in many ways.(which we shall soon see) The "Spaghetti Westerns" play to a more liberal audience. They had a lot more creative liberty. Let's take a look at the aforementioned films in terms of plot, framing, editing, sound and cinematography. The plot in Rio Bravo is your typical American western. It is a "conflict between civilized order and the lawless frontier."(Bordwell/Thompson p.56) We have our heros and bad guys laid out before us in black and white. "Colorado" is the typical hero who tries to stay out of the conflict and then eventually sides with civilized order. "Dude" is another hero who fallows the same path. Our bad guys are made obvious from the early moments of the film by means of a murder. There isn't much to wonder about. In The Good the Bad and the Ugly, everything isn't laid out for us from the beginning. Our "good guy" isn't revealed till quite a ways into the film. In this film, we get a pretty good idea who the worst guy is, but we are left to constantly wonder where one of the main characters stands, or if he will eventually become "good." We are forced to study each character more as they develop, to know who they are. In Rio Bravo, you don't give it a second thought. Rio Bravo introduces the plot motivation at the very beginning. The bad guy is in jail, and the heros have to keep him there till the marshal arrives. In The Good the Bad and the Ugly, the motivation is revealed as the 200,000 dollars, but most of the characters don't know about it for half the film. This film seems to stretch things out like that. Now let's take a look at the framing. In Rio Bravo, the framing seems to be very simple. The main character is always in the center of the frame unless another character is coming into the frame. In The Good the Bad and the Ugly, there is much more use of set framing. Many scenes and sequences are framed through window, alleys and doorways. This type of framing seems to pull you into the film much more. It creates framing in the same way that we frame things in the real world. Also, in The Good the Bad and the Ugly, there are many more close ups than Rio Bravo, as well as many extreme close ups that let you catch small eye and facial movements. Next let's discuss editing. The Good the Bad and the Ugly have, in general, much longer shots than Rio Bravo does. These extremely long shots are put together