Sightlines · a viewing thread

The Operatic West

A run of operatic gunfighter cinema — Leone's mythic widescreen scale, Corbucci's colder cruelty, and the Tarantino homages that quote both — best watched close together to hear the same Morricone-scaled myth mutate.

Crowd-favorite canon on the Leone side and prized cult objects on the Corbucci side; mostly thrilling and accessible, but the Italian deep cuts and the Tarantino films turn graphically, sometimes devastatingly violent.

• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
• For a Few Dollars More (1965)
• The Great Silence (1968)
• Django (1966)
• Django Unchained (2012)
• The Hateful Eight (2015)
• A Fistful of Dollars (1964) — The overlooked Dollars film that started it all — Eastwood's nameless drifter and Morricone's first Leone score in embryo; if the later three landed, this is the lean under-seen origin to finally pull down.
• Duck, You Sucker (1971) — Leone's forgotten fourth spaghetti epic, trading the desert for the Mexican Revolution — the same operatic widescreen and Morricone swell, now devastating on friendship and idealism, and the one to recollect once the trilogy and Once Upon a Time have their hooks in you.