Western Movies

I’m very passionate about the western film genre. Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, Once Upon a Time in the West and Il Mercenario are some of my favorite westerns and some of my favorite movies in general.

 

One of my favorite things about westerns is their incredible use of music and the moving image to build suspense with little to no dialogue. This is why a standoff is such a powerful and memorable scene: in this situation, a character’s eyes and body language can communicate thoughts and feelings more eloquently than dialogue could. 

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly has one of the most memorable standoffs, partly because it features three gunslingers instead of two:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXldafIl5DQ

Il Mercenario features Ennio Morricone’s song L’arena, which can be heard in Kill Bill Vol. 2 as the Bride escapes from her grave:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXeBxtyF-5U

While westerns aren’t as prevalent as they were in John Wayne’s day, they are still incredibly influential: a True Grit remake was produced in 2012 by the Coen brothers, and Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming movie Django Unchained draws inspiration from the legendary western, Django, with Franco Nero even having a cameo in the film.

As a huge fan of the genre, I’m looking forward to Tarantino’s film. I hope someday to make a short western film of my own!

Films about films

Since many of you are now actively watching movies, I suggest that if you have not seen it try to see Rango. It is simply an amazing piece of work. Directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) the film pays direct homage to a number of films both in terms of storytelling structure, some memorable characters themselves and even music and lighting.

Needless to say, if you are to fully enjoy this film's homage structure you should try, if you have not done so, to see some of the principal films referenced in Rango.

Films referenced are of course the extraordinary "Chinatown" (by Roman Polanski) which shares the core story of the film, "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", "For a Few Dollars More" (Sergio Leone), John Ford westerns, "There Will be Blood" (Paul Thomas Anderson) in terms of lighting, and great characters based on such icons as John Huston (in Chinatown), Lee Van Cleef's in For a Few Dollars More, which in Rango is the very bad Rattlesnake Jake. and, yes, Clint Eastwood as "the Spirit of the Desert", poncho and all. Clint Eastwood rose to fame thanks to the Sergio Leone's "spaghetti westerns" known as the Dollars Trilogy.

A couple of more references I saw were to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Terry Gilliam, (And oh, a wink to Star Wars, of course) I am sure there are other direct references I missed, see if you can find them!

In short it is a film fest, definitely watch it! Needless to say the character modeling, animation, environments, shaders and particularly the acting, etc are simply outstanding. Talking about acting, some of the characters are actually played by their actors, (like Johnny Depp) who are not only doing voice over. But the subtlety of their emotions down to the smallest twitches is a pleasure to watch.

Photographs copyright © 2011 by Paramount Pictures

Lee Van Cleef in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", one of the great  so-called "spaghetti westerns"

Mother of all Remixes

After watching the Everything is a Remix in class today I though I would talk about one of my favorite recent films. Rango is simply an amazing piece of work. Directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) the film pays homage to a great number of films both in terms of storytelling structure, some memorable characters and even music and lighting.

Films referenced are of course "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Lawrence of Arabia", "Hitchkikers Guide to the Galaxy", "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", "A Bug's Life" (based itself in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai), "For a Few Dollars More" (Sergio Leone), John Ford westerns, the extraordinary "Chinatown" (Roman Polanski) which shares the core story, "There Will be Blood" (Paul Thomas Anderson) in terms of lighting, and great characters based on such icons as John Huston (in Chinatown), Lee Van Cleef's in For a Few Dollars More, which in Rango is the very bad Rattlesnake Jake. and, yes, Clint Eastwood as "the Spirit of the Desert", poncho and all. (And oh, a wink to Star Wars and their Tie Fighters!, why not) I am sure there are many other references I missed. Let me know!

John Huston in Roman Polanski's "Chinatown"

In short it is a film fest, definitely go see it in the big screen if you can! Needless to say the character modeling, animation, environments, shaders and particularly the acting, etc are simply outstanding. Talking about acting, some of the characters are actually played by their actors, (like Johnny Depp) who are not only doing voice over. And the subtlety of their emotions down to the smallest twitches is a pleasure to watch.

Lee Van Cleef in "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly"

The lighting throughout the film really impressed me the most. The lighting plans were so detailed and intricate and they gave the film a very unique look.

I read an interview with Tim Alexander, the visual effects supervisor on the film. An interesting interview because Tim discussed how Industrial Light & Magic, a company used to working in live action, had to adapt their entire workflow to create an animated feature length film.

Tim said lighting was difficult for them because they are so used to receiving video plates where the lighting in the shot has already been composed by the DOP, in which case they just created their effects based on the existing lighting plot.

Creating an image that was 100% animated was difficult because they had to create the lighting from scratch. To help them with this problem, they hired an experienced DOP, Roger Deakins (Shawshank Redemption, True Grit, O Brother, Where Art Thou, Fargo, Dead Man Walking, etc) to help them figure out lighting designs. I must say the plan definitely worked because the lighting is simply perfect!

Photographs copyright © 2011 by Paramount Pictures

Rango! gotta love your lizard

I just saw Rango last night. Simply amazing piece of work. Directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) the film pays a homage to a number of films both in terms of storytelling structure, some memorable characters themselves and even music and lighting.

Films referenced are of course "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", "For a Few Dollars More" (Sergio Leone), John Ford westerns, the extraordinary "Chinatown" (Roman Polanski) which shares the core story, "There Will be Blood" (Paul Thomas Anderson) in terms of lighting, and great characters based on such icons as John Huston (in Chinatown), Lee Van Cleef's in For a Few Dollars More, which in Rango is the very bad Rattlesnake Jake. and, yes, Clint Eastwood as "the Spirit of the Desert", poncho and all. (And oh, a wink to Star Wars, why not) I am sure there are other references I missed!

In short it is a film fest, definitely go see it! Needless to say the character modeling, animation, environments, shaders and particularly the acting, etc are simply outstanding. Talking about acting, some of the characters are actually played by their actors, (like Johnny Depp) who are not only doing voice over. But the subtlety of their emotions down to the smallest twitches is a pleasure to watch.

Photographs copyright © 2011 by Paramount Pictures