by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

Looking back, it might have been a mistake to choose Once Upon a Time in the West as my first foray into spaghetti westerns for this column. I didn’t know that at the time because I hadn’t seen the movie yet, because a major impetus for this project is to help me prioritize stuff I haven’t watched before. So here we are.

I’ve seen Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy a few times since my first watch of them in college, and it’s amazing to think that only 4 years separate A Fistful of Dollars from Once Upon a Time in the West knowing that Leone made two other epics in between those two. Dollars launched what we think of as “spaghetti westerns”–bringing the western ever closer to the kinds of Italian exploitation that would also evolve into gialli and eventually, American slashers. Indeed, both Sergio Leone and Mario Bava got their start in peplum (sword and sandal) films. This is also a good reminder that a particular work does not exist in isolation. All genres and movements bleed into and influence others. 

Politically, spaghetti westerns often come from an even more leftist bent than Hollywood westerns, but typically feature even less Native American representation. While they may have a more negative view on the corrupting force of capitalism than American movies, they lean even harder into the idea of the West as ‘untouched’ land by virtue of omission. However, they ought to be given credit for spawning the Zapata western, which doubles down on the critique of American imperialism and capitalism, often by centering on a Mexican protagonist. Several excellent films by Sergio Corbucci fall into this sub-subgenre. On this note, please check out my recent appearance on the Monkey Off My Backlog podcast where we talked about all kinds of westerns, including Fort Apache and A Bullet for the General. 

After The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was completed for its 1966 release, Leone decided he was done with westerns, but was enticed to make another with a generous budget and the inclusion of Henry Fonda, one of his favorite actors. To move his next western in a different direction, Leone brought Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento into the development process, and the trio watched dozens of classic westerns to develop the story. There are specific references to many of the movies I have covered so far this year, including The Iron Horse and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance by John Ford and Anthony Mann’s Winchester ‘73. In addition, references to Johnny Guitar, Shane, and The Searchers (all great), as well as The Comancheros, The Last Sunset, and Duel in the Sun, which I have not seen. Leone also leans into playing against Henry Fonda’s sterling persona and shifting him into the villain role. That may have meant more to audiences at the time than it does in isolation, but Fonda’s performance just seeps icy cool to this day.

Leone’s direction of the Dollars trilogy was influenced by John Ford and Akira Kurosawa, especially the American’s tendency to show small human figures against the expanse of the West, and the Japanese director’s use of closeups to allow an actor’s face to distill their character. These elements were filtered through the Italian filmmaker’s distinctive, quirky, fast-paced style. But compared to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, an epic that could almost be described as breezy, Once Upon a Time in the West has a slowed down pace. The whole movie feels more deliberate, and although it is definitely more of a challenge to attention spans, I found it an engaging watch for the vast majority of its nearly three hour runtime.

From the writing and casting to its use of iconic John Ford location Monument Valley, Once Upon a Time in the West feels like a synthesis between spaghetti and Hollywood. While Roger Ebert complained that it is “well into the second hour of the movie before the plot becomes quite clear,” current Film Twitter vernacular would call it a “whole ass vibe.” That’s one of the things I love about spaghetti westerns in particular. Sometimes the story is hard to parse, and they can feel a bit sleepy anytime bullets aren’t ricocheting off the sets, but I find them transportive nonetheless.

A big part of that vibe is the work of Ennio Morricone. The score for Once Upon a Time in the West uses the Wagnerian leitmotif approach, giving characters and places their own musical cues and associations. The best and most haunting of these is the vocal theme for Jill McBain, played by Claudia Cardinale. Edda Dell'Orso’s performance soars above the rest of the score, and also creates the most textual connection to the Dollars trilogy. And while the payoff is a long time in coming, Morricone’s work for the Harmonica music for Charles Bronson’s character also ranks among his most iconic work.

While I wouldn't recommend Once Upon a Time in the West as a foray into spaghetti westerns, or even westerns as a whole–there’s so much extra value to get out of this picture if you’ve seen a good number of the things it is referencing–I loved watching it. This is one of the pros and cons of being into older films. I mostly watch them at home (in the best possible home viewing format I’ve had available to me in my lifetime) and only rarely get to see them in the theater. Yet, great movies are able to transcend the viewing medium and can still be transportive. Ask me sometime about my fever dream viewing experience of 2001: A Space Odyssey on an airplane and how it compared to watching it on 70mm. So watching all of these westerns at home, ideally after a workday where I would much rather be out in the wilderness than being a desk jockey, or on a lazy weekend morning, certainly shapes the way I experience them. And Once Upon a Time in the West is a movie that will draw you in only to take a long time to break your heart.

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