The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
This film, and Leone in general, was the starting point that got me into spaghetti westerns, and it has been a while since I revisited it. What feels a bit strange now, after spending recent years with the more fringes of the genre, is that this grand, epic thing of a movie somehow feels outside the rest of the spaghetti western genre. A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More are undoubtedly true genre films, but this is somehow too big, too high in production value, too epic to really feel like part of the rest. Of course I am hyperbolising a bit here, as Leone applies everything to its fullest extent. We have the morally grey main characters, the varied cast of quirky background figures, the narrative of everyone chasing the gold, and the genre’s generally nihilistic depiction of the Civil War. Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach may only be after the gold, but we still get glimpses of their views on the war, which are mostly humanistic rather than political. There is no real acknowledgement of what the different sides are fighting for, and while they may exploit the chaos of the war to their advantage, all of them show some sort of empathy towards the fallen and wounded soldiers. I think Leone strikes a nice balance between characterisation, humour, commentary on the war, and pure entertainment in the quest for the gold. None of that would have worked so well without Morricone’s score. Initially, it was also the music that really drew me into exploring the genre. Leone and Morricone perfected that combination here.
As a whole, this film is the top of the top, where the genre peaked. It has everything, and it is executed without flaws, and it will forever be special to me as the film that got me into spaghetti westerns. So as an individual film it may be the best, but I actually like the lesser-known films more as a group. It is in the variety, the experiments, the oddness, the creativity, and in how many ways the three basic plots can be told and executed. This may be the perfect penultimate spaghetti western, and to some extent my favourite, but it is not that interesting to me anymore. It is somehow outside the genre. Still, it is a film everyone should watch at least once.
Rating: 5