When you think about influential filmmakers names like Kurosawa, Hitchcock, Fellini, Welles, Kubrick and Ford, pop up. But rarely is the name Leone ever included with these greats. Maybe because he made only 6 movies or the fact that his movies were categorized as Action Westerns (with the exception of his final film Once Upon a Time in America). The truth is, Leone has had a major influence on cinema and many great directors including: Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorcsese, Quentin Tarantino, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah and even Stanley Kubrick (for Barry Lyndon).
Leone remains one of my personal favorites, the Man With No Name trilogy (especially The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) and Once Upon in the West stand out as two of my favorite movies of all time. When Leone’s work first came out, much like many great filmmakers, his work was misunderstood and misrepresented. Thanks to a lot of young filmmakers who took an interest in his visual style and character representations he slowly grew to legendary status. Leone pioneered a lot of things in cinema like his use of extreme close-ups, ultra fast zooms (known as the Italian Zoom), the “Mexican Standoff” (this is where three men point a gun at each other) as well as his use of Ennio Morricone’s score (Composer Ennio Morricone once said that Leone asked him to compose a film's music before the start of principal photography, which of course, is contrary to normal practice. He would then play the music to the actors during takes to enhance their performance).
During his childhood, growing up in Mussolini’s Rome, Leone was obsessed with American popular culture and American movie stars. He describes his first encounter with an American (a soldier during WWII): “In my childhood, America was like a religion…Then, real-life Americans abruptly entered my life – in jeeps – and upset all my dreams…I found them very energetic, but also very deceptive. They were no longer the Americans of the West. They were soldiers like any others…materialists, possessive, keen on pleasures and earthly goods.” This may explain the unique aspects of his films. His movies are rich in historical detail, however, his vision of the less than pure hero was uncommon in Hollywood and America. His cowboys, who urinated in public, spat, raped and seemed as interested in other’s opinions as they were interested in their own personal hygiene. Until Sergio Leone came around, Hollywood Westerns had always invoked a dream of freedom and adventure always with a happy ending. In Leone’s view, the West was a violent and mythical landscape where a man could determine his place in the world with the skills he had in operating his gun or ticking his enemy. What is most interesting about Leone’s Westerns is that they carry certain essential truths about the American foundation in a way that no American film can. Author Christopher Frayling best describes it: “Leone's films contain no universal moral messages (as many Hollywood Westerns have claimed to), and his heroes are not intended to set an example for today.” Instead Leone showed us ugly and violent acts with a wonderful, unglamorous simplicity.
I love his work. I’ve always been influenced by his style of cinematography and his ability to move a story forward with no use of words. While making my film Ashita, I watched his Man with No Name trilogy to try and harness some of his energy in my work. In one of the early opening scenes of the film, I use an Italian Zoom as a homage to his work, and I use an abundance of Extreme Close Ups as well. And like Leone, I hope to explore society and humanity from the perspective of an outsider looking in.
Leone remains one of my personal favorites, the Man With No Name trilogy (especially The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) and Once Upon in the West stand out as two of my favorite movies of all time. When Leone’s work first came out, much like many great filmmakers, his work was misunderstood and misrepresented. Thanks to a lot of young filmmakers who took an interest in his visual style and character representations he slowly grew to legendary status. Leone pioneered a lot of things in cinema like his use of extreme close-ups, ultra fast zooms (known as the Italian Zoom), the “Mexican Standoff” (this is where three men point a gun at each other) as well as his use of Ennio Morricone’s score (Composer Ennio Morricone once said that Leone asked him to compose a film's music before the start of principal photography, which of course, is contrary to normal practice. He would then play the music to the actors during takes to enhance their performance).
During his childhood, growing up in Mussolini’s Rome, Leone was obsessed with American popular culture and American movie stars. He describes his first encounter with an American (a soldier during WWII): “In my childhood, America was like a religion…Then, real-life Americans abruptly entered my life – in jeeps – and upset all my dreams…I found them very energetic, but also very deceptive. They were no longer the Americans of the West. They were soldiers like any others…materialists, possessive, keen on pleasures and earthly goods.” This may explain the unique aspects of his films. His movies are rich in historical detail, however, his vision of the less than pure hero was uncommon in Hollywood and America. His cowboys, who urinated in public, spat, raped and seemed as interested in other’s opinions as they were interested in their own personal hygiene. Until Sergio Leone came around, Hollywood Westerns had always invoked a dream of freedom and adventure always with a happy ending. In Leone’s view, the West was a violent and mythical landscape where a man could determine his place in the world with the skills he had in operating his gun or ticking his enemy. What is most interesting about Leone’s Westerns is that they carry certain essential truths about the American foundation in a way that no American film can. Author Christopher Frayling best describes it: “Leone's films contain no universal moral messages (as many Hollywood Westerns have claimed to), and his heroes are not intended to set an example for today.” Instead Leone showed us ugly and violent acts with a wonderful, unglamorous simplicity.
I love his work. I’ve always been influenced by his style of cinematography and his ability to move a story forward with no use of words. While making my film Ashita, I watched his Man with No Name trilogy to try and harness some of his energy in my work. In one of the early opening scenes of the film, I use an Italian Zoom as a homage to his work, and I use an abundance of Extreme Close Ups as well. And like Leone, I hope to explore society and humanity from the perspective of an outsider looking in.
