Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Western, Go Home! Sergio Leone and the “Death of the Western” in American Film Criticism

Western, Go Home! Sergio Leone and the “Death of the Western” in American Film Criticism william mcclain I am showing the Old West as it really was . . . Americans treat westerns with too much rhetoric. --Sergio Leone (qtd. in "Hi-Ho, Denaro!" 57) when italian director sergio leone's A Fistful of Dollars arrived in the United States in early 1967, the American film industry and the critics who observed it were in a state of ferment. Critics could sense that the American cinema was changing and that its old pieties and genres, often spoken of in the same breath, were in a vital sense dying out. Among them, the Western was perhaps the greatest barometer--the genre long seen as most uniquely American, most assuredly linked to the national character and mythology, seemed to be evolving into a new, rougher beast. And for critics, Sergio Leone's films were clearly part of the problem. Leone's Dollars trilogy, starting with A Fistful of Dollars (1964, US release: January 1967) and continuing with For a Few Dollars More (1965, US release: May 1967) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966, US release: December, 1967), was neither the entirety nor the beginning of the "spaghetti Western" cycle in Italy,1 but for Americans Leone's films represented http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Film and Video University of Illinois Press

Western, Go Home! Sergio Leone and the “Death of the Western” in American Film Criticism

McClain, William.
Journal of Film and Video , Volume 62 (1) – Feb 21, 2010
Download PDF
16 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-illinois-press/western-go-home-sergio-leone-and-the-death-of-the-western-in-american-WFqK2BB0zR
Publisher
University of Illinois Press
Copyright
Copyright © University of Illinois Press
ISSN
1934-6018
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

william mcclain I am showing the Old West as it really was . . . Americans treat westerns with too much rhetoric. --Sergio Leone (qtd. in "Hi-Ho, Denaro!" 57) when italian director sergio leone's A Fistful of Dollars arrived in the United States in early 1967, the American film industry and the critics who observed it were in a state of ferment. Critics could sense that the American cinema was changing and that its old pieties and genres, often spoken of in the same breath, were in a vital sense dying out. Among them, the Western was perhaps the greatest barometer--the genre long seen as most uniquely American, most assuredly linked to the national character and mythology, seemed to be evolving into a new, rougher beast. And for critics, Sergio Leone's films were clearly part of the problem. Leone's Dollars trilogy, starting with A Fistful of Dollars (1964, US release: January 1967) and continuing with For a Few Dollars More (1965, US release: May 1967) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966, US release: December, 1967), was neither the entirety nor the beginning of the "spaghetti Western" cycle in Italy,1 but for Americans Leone's films represented

Journal

Journal of Film and Video – University of Illinois Press

Published: Feb 21, 2010

There are no references for this article.