Also a lot of them were shot in Italy, with Italian extras.
Fun fact: Sergio Leone would shoot his movies after the score had been composed.
He would shoot scenes with the soundtrack for the scene playing over loudspeakers.
Then, the dialogue and other sounds would be dubbed in.
This was how such perfect synchronization with the soundtrack was achieved.
EDIT 2: fun fact 2,
My favorite quote of Sergio Leone
When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite.
Weren’t most actually shot in southern Spain? That’s vast desert country, lots of different spectacular backgrounds that don’t repeat in different scenes and even different movies.
Even Stanley Kubrick went there in the late 50s, to shoot epic battle sequences for Spartacus that would have been way beyond the film’s budget if he had filmed in California.
Almeria in southern Spain still has a tourist attraction cowboy town in a desert like region that looks like the American midwest. I’ve been near there several times, told about it, read the brochure but never got a chance to visit it.
Look up the filming locations for ‘The Good, The Bad, The Ugly’ … it was filmed all over Spain
I’m actually going to that region next week. Might try to squeeze in a visit. Thanks for the tip!
For those who are even more curious, Carlo Verdone (who was a friend of Leone) made some documentaries called “Verdone racconta Leone” (see for example this yt video). These documentaries are packed with anecdotes (Verdone told lots of stories in other occasions too!) and fun stories.
One of my favorite is how Leone convinced Clint Eastwood to use the cigar, which is probably now an unforgettable part of the way we remember Eastwood’s character.
I was informed that Japanese people often referred to these as “Macaroni Westerns” which I think is even even better as it effectively also implies that they are cheaply made
I don’t see how macaroni implies being cheaply made and spaghetti doesn’t. Both are just pasta.
Macaroni generally has an association with cheap Mac & Cheese box meals. I do agree that, on a broader scale, they are both pasta and not really functionally much different.
Is that only an American association or does it hold in Japan as well?
I’d think the association is more towards Macaroni art, the sort that little kids do with glue and dry pasta.
A very American association. Here in Germany for example, macaroni are among the more premium pasta variants (not expensive but not the cheapest around). The cheap (and most common) noodles are actually usually spaghetti, fusilli and penne. Mac n cheese box meals are not really a thing here.
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Kinda surprised you just ran into this, but only because I’m so damn old that I grew up watching this kind of thing on broadcast TV lol
Also, if you haven’t, check out Eastwood in rawhide, back when he was a practical infant
I like spaghetti westerns I like the way the boots are all reverbed out walking across the hardwood floor In fact, everything’s got that big reverb sound
So whatta I do now? Go to sleep? Pull the pud?
We need new pornos! Well, I guess I’m still writing
If I remember correctly it was supposed to be a little bit of an insult.
Hardly. Sergio Leone reinvigorated the Western genre. Compare A Fistful of Dollars by Sergio Leone to The Quick Gun or Bullet for a Bad Man both by R.G. Springsteen and released the same year. There is simply no comparison in terms of style or pacing. Wife wants to go to dinner so I might add some later.
Edited for spelling.
You’re not wrong but you fail to understand the insulting nature of reducing a nationality to its favourite dish, burger boy.
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Eastman Color for the win! I hadn’t heard that before. I thought the term was strictly descriptive because the creative teams were mostly Italian/Spanish. Filming locations were in Italy and Spain as well.
Worked with a dude who once talked fondly of the spaghetti westerns of his youth among a group of colleagues. He beamed, “You know why they were called ‘spaghetti westerns’? Because they were sponsored by Ragu spaghetti sauce!”
One of the others in the group gently explained it was because they were made in Italy and that there were racist undertones in that name. All the color drained from his face and he got quiet for quite a while. I felt bad that we had witnessed the death of the joy he had in that memory. I hope he managed to recover eventually.
My favorite takeaway from the last time I heard this was the assertation that if the same naming convention was transferred over to other genres and mediums, western comics like DC and Marvel would be Hamburger Shounens.
Hamburger Shounens.
This explains everything. Most importantly: why the MCU kinda petered out after the Infinity Gauntlet arc. The power scaling was just off the charts1 in the end, with no more headroom for power growth. This usually kills Shounen-style stories.
1 - Along with the budget.
I agree, but I think a hamburger shounen would be something like Naruto filmed in San Francisco
All the music you associate with westerns came from the same composer. A friend played me an album of his music and all the now-tropey hits were there. I don’t remember the composer’s name, but it shouldn’t be difficult to find. Just blew my mind that it was all one person.
Ennio Morricone
Lets also not forget Morricone’s friend and collaborator Bruno Nicolai.
He was every bit as influential to the spaghetti western and Italian movie scene.
Music buff, take a bow.
He was (sadly passed away) a genius in the movie industry! More that 400 movies (including Hateful 8, where Tarantino finally managed to have his original score - and won an Oscar).
Ennio Morricone is imo better than John Williams. He’s not just the guy who did Westerns either. He scored the Untouchables, once upon a time in America, the thing, and his final works were with Tarantino for Django and hateful 8. Lots of his music in the kill Bill soundtrack as well. Hell even Metallica uses his song “the ecstasy of gold” to start all their concerts
The score for “The Mission” is another absolutely cracking one.
Wow, an even greater titan in the industry. That’s just so much awesome.
I think the score for Cinema Paradiso is probably also up there among the best.
I believe that Tarantino wanted Morricone’s music for very long, and used existing musics for Django and other movies, but he finally managed to have original scores for Hateful 8 (which won the Oscar).
The best ones include Bud Spencer (†) and Terence Hill.
Spaghetti westerns are the best!
It’s really interesting how early films like A Fistful of Dollars took inspiration from Japanese cinema but in return they had a great influence on Japanese culture and media going forward.
“Inspiration” is generous for Fistful given that Kurosawa sued Leone, albeit with admiration for the film anyway. And of course Magnificent Seven was just a western remake as well. Fantastic films all around, but “inspiration” went a little harder back in those days.
It’s so weird that Akira Kurosa, reknowned for his Samurai movies, was such a huge influence on western cinema as a whole and the western genre in particular, but once you watch his work and realize when he did it and that some of the best known western tropes today originate in his works… everything just clicks into place.
How about that.
Check out the original Django movie, which kicked off the genre. For a while it was free on YouTube
I’m pretty sure Krystof Walters only spoke Italian during that film.
Edit: Sorry, I just remembered…he only spoke in Italian during the film Akira: Kurosawa Angel.
A lot of the actors are very obviously dubbed to English in most of them.
There was no audio recorded on set at all. Everyone could just speak their native language, and everything was done in post production.
I think the original idea was so they could dub it into as many languages as possible and make the most money, but because Clint Eastwood became a big star we all assume they were made in English first.
Spaghetti westerns are the best westerns
And most were filmed in Spain.
I guess Paella Western never caught on.
