Spaghetti Western

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América rugiente (Cinque figli di cane, 1969) poster, shows the mix of Italian, Spanish and American names typical of spaghetti westerns

Spaghetti Western, also known in some countries in mainland Europe as the Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced and directed by Italians, usually in coproduction with a Spanish partner.

The typical team was made up of an Italian director, Italo-Spanish technical staff and a cast of Italian and Spanish actors, sometimes a falling Hollywood star and sometimes a rising one like the young Clint Eastwood in three of Sergio Leone's films. The films were primarily shot in the Andalusia region of Spain — in particular the Tabernas Desert of Almería — or Sardinia, because they resemble the American Southwest. Because of the desert setting and the readily available southern Spanish extras, a usual theme in Spaghetti Westerns is the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits, and the border region shared by Mexico and the U.S.

Contents

[edit] History

Originally, Spaghetti Westerns commonality were the Italian language, low budgets and a recognizable highly fluid and minimalist cinematography eschewing (even "demythologized"[1]) many of the conventions of earlier Westerns. This was partly intentional and partly the context of a different cultural background. The term was originally used disparagingly,[citation needed] but by the 1980s many of these films came to be held in high regard[citation needed], particularly because of influence they had on other Westerns.

Ironically enough, the movie that qualifies as the very first Spaghetti Western, The Savage Guns / Tierra brutal (1961), showed no Italian involvement at all, being a British-Spanish coproduction, but it was shot in Almería and featured the very heterogeneous cast typical of any later film in the genre (in this case combining American actors Richard Basehart and Alex Nicol with the Spanish folclóricas Paquita Rico and María Granada); the whole being directed by an English specialist in horror films, Michael Carreras.

The best-known and perhaps archetypal Spaghetti Westerns were the 'Man With No Name' trilogy (or the 'Dollars Trilogy') directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood and with the musical scores of Ennio Morricone (all of whom are now synonymous with the genre): A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Atypically for the genre, the last had a relatively high budget, over a million American Dollars. Leone's next film after the 'trilogy' was Once Upon a Time in the West, which is often lumped in with the previous three for its similar style and accompanying score by Morricone, though Eastwood had now moved on.

[edit] Notable films

Main article: List of spaghetti western films

[edit] Notable personalities

[edit] Actors

[edit] Directors

[edit] Composers

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Dirks, Tim. "Western Films-Sergio Leone's 'Spaghetti' Westerns". American Movie Classics Company LLC.. http://www.filmsite.org/westernfilms5.html. Retrieved on 2009-02-24. 

[edit] Further reading

  • Weisser, Thomas, Spaghetti Westerns: the Good, the Bad and the Violent — 558 Eurowesterns and Their Personnel, 1961–1977. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1992)

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_Western"
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