How Spaghetti Westerns turned me into a Movie Addict

I never was a big fan of watching movies. I knew that fantastic stories would be told by them, but I never had the patience to sit through a whole movie without thinking "why am I staring at a screen without doing anything?" at one point. It's not like I didn't like storytelling at all - I love going to the theater and getting sucked into a certain atmosphere. Unfortunately, a film never had managed to do this before. But then I started forcing myself to watch the big classics during the summer and I finally came to realize that it was not my lack of patience - I was just watching the wrong kind of movies all the time.

In yesterday's class, when we were introducing ourselves to our fellow students, I had mentioned the biggest trigger to my sudden love for movies: spaghetti westerns. Basically, these are westerns by Italian directors, most famously by Sergio Leone who is actually the iconic director in that department. There are quite a few differences between American and Italian westerns, most importantly in the way of storytelling. There is a very nice interview with the the iconic actor of the spaghetti westerns Clint Eastwood, in which the basic differences are explained briefly. (And Clint Eastwood mocking John Wayne's - the American icon of westerns - way of speaking is priceless!)

The first western I watched was the first part of the most famous trilogy in the world of spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964). In my opinion, it is not the best part of the "Man with no Name"-trilogy, but as an entrance to the world of spaghetti westerns, it caused me to have a culture shock: The looks were different from anything else I had ever seen before in a movie. There is a perfect harmony between the landscapes and the interactions of the actors. Every scene seems to be a perfectly composed painting. Everything was done in a very minimalist way, like the dialogues were kept very short and the expressions (or the lack of expressions) of the characters told so much more than words could have. All these things made the storytelling straightforward and clear in a very unique way. This added a beautiful kind of tension to the climax and also the rest of the film. There was nothing too much or too less of.

But a Fistful of Dollars was only a mild introduction in comparison of what was about to come: the following two parts of the trilogy, namely For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966), were even more mind-blowing. They were also composed perfectly, but you could also really see that they had learned from their experiences. Also, the soundtrack by the musical genius Ennio Morricone finally caught more attention, and became part of the director's way of composing a picture of every scene. For example, here is the scene before the climax (which is, by the way, even more dramatic) of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which is still to this day considered one of the best movie scenes and music ever made.

In my opinion, it is safe to say that no other westerns - nor Italian nor American nor Spanish or whatever ones - ever reached the quality of the "Man with no Name"-Trilogy. Certainly, there still were some good ones, like Two Mules for Sister Sara or The Big Gundown, but, in my opinion, it never managed to establish the atmosphere the trilogy has. Surprisingly, also the newer westerns from nowadays could copy it. It seems it not about to the new technical equipment, but the establishment of a certain atmosphere. It just isn't the same. And this results in me watching these three movies over and over again, and never getting tired of it.

Spaghetti westerns not only waked my interest in watching movies, but also on how films are composed and what emotions can be triggered by the way a scene is built. I hope that I keep my motivation up to look deeper into the science of movies. The following might sound cheesy, but I am incredibly happy that westerns came into my life. And thus, it is proven that I was not joking when I told you all that I was obsessed with westerns. It is truly deep love.