Original subtitles

three men $200,000 in gold and the

greatest Western of all time each entry

in Sergio Leon's dollar Trilogy is a

classic of the western genre a fist full

of dollars created the spaghetti western

by co-opting Akira kurasawa yujimbo for

a few dollars more elevated the

director's Vision with a more personal

and complex story and The Good the Bad

and the Ugly turned that revisionist

approach into a sprawling myth quickly

building off the success of the first

two films before they were even released

internationally director Sergio Leone

reted with star Clint Eastwood for what

would be their final collaboration the

Capstone to what came to be known as the

dollars Trilogy and a Monumental

achievement in the history of the

western The Good the Bad and the Ugly

was released in Italy on December 23rd

1966 and then in the United States the

following year quickly Making Waves for

its blend of Stark violence and operatic

storytelling and in the years since this

Saga of three men in search of their

Fortune in the midst of the Civil War

has become one of the most important

films in the history of the western

creating a modern revisionist approach

to the wild west that every Western in

the nearly 60 years since is influenced

by to some degree The Good the Bad and

the Ugly isn't just one of the greatest

films of all time it's my own personal

favorite movie but let's not get my own

preferences in the way this is an

examination of how Leon's epic Western

of Revenge greed friendship and death

managed to not only tear down the old

Hollywood myths of of the morally

upright Western but replace it in the

process how its blend of Epic scale and

characters placed under a microscope

elevated a simple story into one that

captures the violence greed and

Redemption of its time and place and how

an Italian production managed to

redefine an American institution come

with me as we explore Sergio Leon's

definitive Western epic The Good The Bad

and The Ugly

[Applause]

[Music]

with for a few dollars more a success in

Italy movie studio United Artists

approached its screenwriter Luciano

vinon to buy the international rights

for the film and whatever part three

might be and while Leone and producer

Alberto Grimaldi gave Vincent Sony the

go ahead the writer didn't actually have

any ideas on what the next film might be

about years later vinent Sony would

claimed that he came up with his pitch

for the film that would be The Good the

Bad and the Ugly on the Fly while

meeting with United Artists and securing

a distribution deal with the company

that gave the upcoming film a $1.2

million budget a sizable expansion from

for a few dollars more

$600,000 the script that resulted has

been debated by every party involved

with Vincent Sony claiming he wrote it

before leaving the production after

fighting with Leon and Leone claiming

that Vincent Sony had him hire comedy

writers agard inui and curio scell with

the script they may deemed unusable

forcing the director to fix it as a

result all four men are accredited for

the finalized screenplay of course the

entirety of the film hinged on whether

Clint Eastwood would return to the role

of the man with no name easier said than

done given that Eastwood's career was

essentially made by these movies it may

seem strange that he never worked with

Leone again post dollars Trilogy until

you find out that Eastwood was basically

miserable while making them and had to

be lured back to make this Trilogy

Capper with a $250,000 payday 10% of us

profits and a Ferrari 275 GTB that car

is worth more than $2 million today and

is still part of Eastwood's collection

still Leon's impact on Eastwood's career

and film making Vision was undeniable

with Eastwood eventually dedicating the

disillusion 1992 Western unforgiven to

Sergio and Don seagull who also helped

him break through still The Good the Bad

and the Ugly was a Leoni production not

an Eastwood one and its story film

making and themes are emblematic of the

Italian Creator filmography both before

and after despite running 2 hours and 40

minutes long even longer in recent

versions with deleted scenes added back

in which I don't think is necessary and

hurts the pacting of the film The Plot

really only has two major elements first

is the search for $200,000 worth of

stolen Confederate gold hidden somewhere

by The Runaway Soldier Bill Carson with

the ruthless Bounty Hunter known only as

Angel Eyes played by L van CLE on its

Trail the second is the partnership

turned rivalry of tuko benedicto

Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez played by

Eli wallik a criminal with a list of

crimes longer than this movie and the

bounty hunter called Blondie played by

Clint Eastwood who turn on each other

when their scam comes to an end with

Tuco wanting to kill Blondie for his

betrayal eventually their personal War

intersects with the dying Bill Carson

putting them on a collision course with

angeliz as each man goes after the Gold

with that Quest for gold taking each man

across the Southwest crisscrossing

deserts Frontier towns prison camps

churches and more Leon and vinent Sony

paint an epic portrayal of greed and

revenge giving way to Mutual

understanding against the brutal waning

days of the American Civil War put your

drawers on and take your gun

off and much like how Leon's revisionist

take on the Western in his previous two

pictures created a more violent

unforgiving picture of the Wild West his

portrayal of the Civil War is similarly

unglamorous filled with the wounded the

broken and the lost in a story that

removes the reasons for war and leaves

us only with its toll like the previous

films and most others that would follow

in its style of a so-called spaghetti

western The Good the Bad and the Ugly

was filmed by an Italian crew in Spain

using the country's deserts and more Aid

climate to approximate the wild west

with the film largely shot around

Castilla e Leon but one distinguishing

feature of Leon choice of location is

that by removing the famous naturally

colorful backdrops of us Landscapes like

Monument Valley or the Grand Tetons

which have become synonymous with the

classic westerns of John Ford and Howard

Hawks these dry shrub filled wastelands

of dirt and desolation naturally remove

the romanticization that the morally

upright westerns of the past connected

to their Larger than Life Heroes men

both good and bad die face down in the

dirt here with neither nature nor humans

I realizing their brutal final moments

Leon's westerns quickly gain Fame and

notoriety for the blunt shocking for the

time approach to violence GBU

accentuates this even further very

quickly centering the brutality of this

vision of the West thanks to the arrival

of angeliz who not only shoots an

unarmed man with a hidden gun under the

table but guns down the man's young son

without hesitation both angelize and the

film itself takes so little time to

acknowledge this that it's easy to not

think about the suddenly devastated

family left in its wake but once angeliz

executes his employer under a smothering

pillow you really can't avoid it

anymore the war itself is conveyed

almost entirely through acts of violence

an execution Pit Stop non-stop cannon

fire a young Soldier left alone to

slowly die a body strapped to the front

of a train a prison camp where crying

soldiers Play Beautiful music to

disguise torture and a pointless

unending battle where bodies are thrown

at one another every day like I've

discussed in my previous videos on the

dollars Trilogy Leon's films may have

made an impact at the time because of

their very Stark depictions of violence

when the Western was still mostly

clean-cut and staunchly heroic but Leon

shootouts aren't memorable because of

their violence they aren't filled with

dozens of bullets flying in action that

goes on and on they're all about tension

and anticipation everyone locked in a

duel or shootout with one another fully

knows that death is moment away and so

we hold our breath with them then the

release of tension and the end of life

like everything else here the shootouts

of GBU heighten the approach taken in

the previous two films Duelists wait to

draw even longer the camera pushes in

even tighter on faces the stakes of

these gunfights are even higher and the

results are more

brutal a fist full of dollars made Waves

by Framing a duelist in the same shot at

the moment of impact showing the effects

of a bullet for a less glamorous but

much more stylish depiction and in an

early shootout here Leone feels like

he's almost daring his audience to see

if he can take it any further it's no

longer Man versus man but a gun and it's

targets it's a film of hard contrasts

with Leone and cinematographer tonino

deoli alongside editing by Nino baragi

and yeno alabiso crafting wide shots

that sometimes last for 20 to 30 seconds

steadily observing the landscape and the

people that move across it like ants

existing side by side with extreme

close-ups of rough craggy faces the most

extreme close-ups of Leon's career so

far where frantic eyes and jittery

fingers Loom larger in the frame than

mountains shot mostly on an aoflex 35

iic camera with a 2.35:1 ratio on 35mm

film stock this is ultra wide lens

cinematography that captures the

grandeur of its setting while Leona's

own attitude undermines the beauty of it

with harsh cruel men who were forced to

side with like and root for in an

uncaring

world the way Leona introduces his three

main character says everything you

really need to know about them in an

instant in his signature style that he'd

recreate in a much slower fashion and

Once Upon a Time in the West the film

opens with three unspeaking men closing

in on a bar only for the shootout inside

to happen off screen as Tuco crashes

through the window freeze framed in a

blur as the ugly Tuco is messy a coward

devious and his motivations are unclear

angeliz comes straight toward us out of

the desert a vision of living death that

kills everyone in his way labeled the

bad while laughing in the dark Pure Evil

and finally Blondie strides in a frame

with his face obscured blasting away the

competition to save Tuco only to turn

him in for the money of course it's more

complicated than that as as the reveal

that these two have done this several

times ending with blondie dumping him in

the desert highlighting the gray

morality of our seeming hero with the

freeze frame label of the good coming

just as the film accentuates just how

dubious that label really is years later

when Leone was asked what he saw in

Eastwood who at the time was only acting

in the TV show Rawhide and had no

prospects in film the director described

him as a block of marble and that he

compared him to the stone that

Michelangelo chose to shape into the

statue of David he simply saw Eastwood

as untapped potential that fulfilled his

vision and after three films Leona and

Eastwood aren't looking to turn their

man with no name into a suddenly complex

growing character but instead to

surround him with a more morally complex

and tragic World here Blondie has no

real goal Beyond making money usually

off bounties and doesn't mind breaking

laws and morals to do so he's actually

far less heroic than fistful where he

ultimately saves the town from two

Waring gangs or for a few dollars more

where sides with Colonel mortimer's

quest for Revenge instead of Simply

collecting bounties while we do see some

of Blondie's sympathies as he better

understands Tuco and the countless men

killed in the Civil War it rarely goes

beyond a knowing look or a bit of

comfort in describing his Stars acting

Leone said Clint Eastwood throws himself

into a suit of armor and lowers the

visor with a rusty Clank it's exactly

that lowered visor which composes his

character and that creaky clang it makes

as it snaps down dry as a Martini in

Harry's Bar inent Venice is also his

character look at him carefully Eastwood

moves like a sleepwalker between

explosions and hailes of bullets and he

is always the same a block of marble

still that's the power of this character

whether you see these three films as all

starring the same person or that these

are three different Cowboys the man with

no name is an archetype of strength and

resiliency in the wild west that's able

to withstand the worst of both nature

and man in a Relentless Pursuit it's

everyone else around Blondie that is

either saved or broken by this

revisionist Spirit of the brutal west of

course in contrast to Lan clef's Angel

Eyes Blondie feels much more heroic with

the True Villain of the piece really

only taking up a small portion of the

film disappearing for almost an entire

act before showing up taking advantage

of the prison camp then disappearing

again until the climax it's the

combination of absolutely no character

development and his regular commitment

of heinous acts when actually around

that turns angeliz into an unforgettable

villain despite his limited presence and

Van CLE really makes the most of it

creating a character that's a complete

180 from his heroic Colonel Mortimer in

for a few dollars more who was

essentially the central figure of that

middle film van CLE and Leon really

leaned into his villainous side bathing

his hawk-like features in Shadow a

permanent scowl on his face and a

willingness to create new alliances and

break them whenever he sees fit of

course that goes for all three of these

men who each take turns befriending and

betraying one another in their search

for the gold it's just that angelize is

much more violent in his backstabbing

given a slight change of perspective any

of these three men could be given the

title anti-hero hero or villain and it's

that murky morality that makes Leon's

film into a stark break from Western

tradition one of the great achievements

of Leon's film is that it not only

slowly becomes Tuco story above all but

the film deliberately goes out of its

way to illustrate how Despicable he is

at the beginning only to make us

understand him like him and root for him

by the end the early running joke of

tuco's many heinous crimes being listed

out out gives way to more and more

reveals about his life and the way he

owns up to his faults specifically it's

tuo's encounter with his brother now a

priest tending to wounded soldiers from

any side in the war that highlights how

the man we see is the product of

desperation self-loathing and greed

where we came from if one did not want

to die of poverty one became a priest or

a bandit you chose your way I chose mine

mine was harder alienating him from his

family to the point of not even knowing

that his parents have died in the years

since he cut all ties and it's really

thanks to Eli wallik in reality polish

and Jewish but playing several Mexicans

and westerns around this time pretty

common for the first 80 or so years of

the western really who gives a layered

often comedic performance taking turns

being the butt of the joke and the Heart

of the film we all understand that

Blondie is essentially Untouchable and

that angeliz has to die by the end but

the uncertainty of tuco's Fate really

adds drama to the film surrounding these

characters is a vibrant cast of actors

both old and new to the dollars Trilogy

with Leone once again bringing back

familiar faces and similar roles for

this revisitation to Greed Vengeance and

death in the west the humongous Mario

brega is once again the second in

command for the third of three films

Aldo sell Benito stefanelli and Lorenzo

roblo are once again part of the

villain's gang like the rest of the

trilogy Luigi pistelli returns in a very

different role as the brother priest

Pablo Ramirez and several more faces

fill out the cast helping this Trilogy

to solidify its archetypes and break

them in noticeable ways through

differences in role and like any Leon

movie you can't discuss it without

giving proper due to composer ano

moricone but The Good the Bad and the

Ugly is one of his most important and

well-known works one of the reasons why

Mor con's music and Leone's films blend

together so organically is because the

creation of the music often came well

before filming with Leone saying he's

never read a script of mind to compose

the music because many times he's

composed the music before the scpt is

ever written what I do is give him

suggestions and describe to him my

characters and then quite often he'll

possibly write five themes for one

character and five themes for another

and then I'll take one piece of one of

them and put it with a piece of another

one for that character or take another

theme from another character and move it

into this character and when I have my

characters finally dressed then he

composes and records with a small

Orchestra 12 pieces and then we listen

to it and then we go on to the script

unfortunately the main theme like the

title of the film itself has become so

overused in pop culture references that

it's almost lost its power but ignore

all the frankly lazy short hand that

it's been used for and instead see it

within the context of the film and you

remember just how brilliant it is with

the theme introduced in the opening

credits we experience how moricone

slowly adds layer after layer of

instruments transitioning from a quiet

Melody to a galloping march by the end

electric guitar trumpets mouth harp

choir whistling drums recorder bokarina

and Chimes are all put to use here with

[ __ ] adding a repeating Elite Motif

that symbolizes each of the three men

Tuco is a

yod angeliz is an okarina and Blondie is

a recorder each repeating the same notes

to varying effects to Showcase how while

these three men are different in nature

they are all kindred spirits that

together creates an epic musical

tapestry I've always felt that Music is

More expressive than dialogue said Leon

I've always said that my best dialogue

and screenwriter is ano [ __ ] because

many times it is more important a note

or an orchestration than a line set when

you manage to express something with a

look and the music instead of saying it

with words or how the characters speak I

think it's a more complete work but

[ __ ] produces several other incredible

pieces throughout the film Beyond its

theme the Ecstasy of Gold is a swirling

Delirious piece piece of obsession that

feels so organically tied to its scene

and the way Leon shoots tuco's search

that it gives me chills every time I

experience it with guitars trumpet and a

haunting female vocal performance

building to a crescendo that lasts way

longer than you'd expect keeping

audiences and character in Rapture until

its sudden

stop and then there's the trio for the

film's climax with moricone making the

unconventional choice to place the

sounds of dist gunfire into the track

played during the standoff and letting

us into each man's violent mind like

many of micon's dual songs he chooses to

create a sense of building repetition as

jangly guitarist hesitates and then

explodes with a wailing trumpet that

makes the hair stand up on the back of

my neck only to recede and then give way

to Trumpets again with this cycle of

anticipation happening several times as

our combatants are slowly choreographed

into position and the rapid editing

really takes us to the edge of our seats

like every Italian picture of the time

GBU was filmed without recorded sound

and with each actor speaking his or her

native language to be dubbed over later

in ADR Leone often played Mor con's

finished music while shooting to

emphasize his intended tone the result

while off-putting at first is a

heightened reality where dialogue and

actor are often at a slight mismatch

tell biger that I told him all that I

know already tell him I want to live in

peace understand there is no use to go

on tormenting me in the effects used

make every single gunshot sound so

massive they could blow a building

down Leone seems to be very aware of

this and parodies it during the film

creating a match cut between tuco's gun

barrel and a firing cannon that takes us

a second to fully recognize with

gunfights this massive what's the

difference

really it's in the framing and edit that

Leon really heightens his world and less

in the way that the world is created the

entire world of the film expands or

shrinks simply depending on what the

frame chooses to show us blowing up to a

massive impassible desert or shrinking

down to the eyes and hands of Duelists

nothing outside of these frames exists

to its obsessive Central figures which

is why both Blondie and angelize can

noclip into the graved digging scene

without making a peep two can take a lot

quicker than one the thing is for all

its flare and Larger than Life car

characters Leoni was also dedicated to

authentic Recreations of the clothing

weapons and locations of the Civil War

time period the duster now a staple in

Western costume design was really first

used here as Leon's historical research

highlighted it as a common clothing item

in the dusty harsh West the guns while

more powerful in their effects than the

weapons of the time are all from the era

that authenticity adds rawness to the

world no bright white hats and pressed

shirts here that [ __ ] would be

disgusting by the end of the day and

then there's the real danger of so much

of the film making when the time came

for the battle Centric bridge to be

blown up by Blondie and Tuco the

production really did Dynamite a real

existing Bridge not a staged one and

when that bridge was blown up

prematurely by the Spanish Army before

cameras rolled the Army built it again

free of charge to create the Earth

shaking explosion scene on film

[Music]

score cinematography Direction acting

and editing are all working in perfect

concert with one another here capturing

the power of film as the product of many

different elements and many different

talents all working toward the same

[Music]

goal like the rest of Leon's films The

Good the Bad and the Ugly can easily be

taken as straightforward entertainment

but there is a massive streak of

anti-war criticism that runs throughout

the film informing it plot character

decisions and both its tragedy and

comedy having GBU set during the Civil

War was decided on right from the first

impromptu pitch and turns this into a

prequel to the other two movies but the

finished film makes its time and place

into much more than setting Blondie Tuco

and angeliz remain largely indifferent

to the war raging on around them often

seeing it as an inconvenience to their

pursuit or even using it to serve their

own needs and yet Leona's film also

depicts the war as indifferent to the

hundreds of thousands of men whose lives

as it takes with the effects of the

Civil War winding in and out of the film

rather than emphasizing the reasons for

the conflict Leon focuses on the toll

the endless stream of both Confederate

and Union Soldiers plays as a roaring

background to the story with executions

attacks and the painfully dying Blondie

and Tuco are taken to the fictional

bville Camp based on the real life

Andersonville where massive corruption

and torture run rampant a late film

encounter with an endless battle over a

bridge highlights the war's infinite

stream of fodder thrown at the other

side as a captain laments only wanting

to destroy the bridge to save lives but

being unable to do anything I've done it

I've blown it

up in here I've destroyed it all and

Blondie's quiet comfort of a single

young dying Soldier highlights the real

human toll of the war that our Central

characters have chosen to ignore during

the rest of the movie somehow Leon and

vinent Sony managed to use the Civil War

to make our treasure hunt feel selfish

while also using that hunt to make the

war seem like a waste of course this

being the Civil War adds more context

here but rather than focused on the very

real toll of slavery I see it as a

commentary on War as a whole Leon after

all was born in 1929 and was a young boy

who saw the rise of fascism in his home

country and the destruction of World War

II in Italy while growing up becoming

obsessed with death in all forms in the

films he chose to make collectively the

experience of Leona's movie build builds

and builds upon itself thanks to its

luxurious Pace GBU is fine with taking

its focus away from the buried gold for

a large portion of its runtime for the

first half of the movie it's only

angeliz who knows about it while Blondie

and Tuco fight their personal war

against one another only happening upon

Bill Carson and his runaway coach in the

desert at the edge of death suddenly

realigning the purpose to finding the

gold and putting aside their differences

the focus of the entire movie is very

simple three men fight over money but

Leon and moricone frame this to be a

Mythic conflict of titans of the West

best of all I think that GBU is a film

that actually gets better and better

across its runtime none of it is weak

but the first half feels a little

unfocused until the cumulative effect of

better understanding these characters

and their motivations strengthens the

movie as it goes along but absolutely

nothing beats the film's final 30

minutes as our characters close in on

the gold everything from the bridge

explosion on including the Ecstasy of

Gold scene the uncovering of arch

Stanton the Mexican standoff finale and

Blondie's farewell are complete

Perfection and all almost done without

any dialogue we really don't need much

talking by this point because we know

everything we need to know about our

characters their motivations and their

relationships to one another instead

Leona is much more interested in

creating compelling images building up

tension and turning this into an

unforgettable experience while moricone

conveys the feelings of the characters

shifting from Mourning to Mania to

murderous intent to me there is no

greater duel in the history of the

western than our final three-way

standoff because we've become so

invested know this can only end in

tragedy and ultimately have our beliefs

subverted for something so much more

[Music]

satisfying now as we all know The Good

the Bad and the Ugly is the seventh

greatest movie of all time ranking just

below Evil Dead 2 Predator Kiki's

Delivery Service Chun King Express

Before Sunset and shin goira and above

rear window and Tron legacy but it's

been my personal favorite film ever

since I was a teenager just so happening

to catch it airing on TV one Saturday

afternoon tuning in at least half an

hour late with its cinematography pan

and scan cropped and plenty of

commercials jammed in and even then I

was hooked its twisting story incredible

shootouts quiet moral complexity and

epic sweep rocked my world all these

years later there's still nothing better

to me so much of Leon work draws its

impact from dispelling the myth of the

western no more white hats and black

hats no more Taming of the frontier for

the greater good in their place were

deeply flawed men who stroe across the

wild west to make a fortune for

themselves and yet in the process Leone

and his fellow creators made a new myth

one for the modern era of

disillusionment in the goodness of

humanity and a time where we stopped

believing in our own myths in its place

were three men $200,000 in gold and the

greatest Western of all

[Music]

time thanks for watching today's video

and after so many years I finally

covered something that I thought I might

never would that's right I finally made

a video on my favorite movie of all time

and like I said in the video The Good

the Bad and the Ugly has been my

favorite movie for quite a few years

even as I continue to expand my film tap

and understanding nothing has ever quite

matched up to me and by this point it's

probably always going to be my favorite

movie so obviously it's a bit

intimidating to want to make a video

about the movie that you love most of

all but as we get to the end of this

year you'll see that I've decided to

make a lot of big videos about topics

that I've always wanted to cover it's

sort of a bucket list if you will not

that I'm going anywhere but why not make

the videos that I really want to make

right anyway I think that The Good the

Bad and the Ugly is the greatest Western

of all time really even just outside of

my own personal preferences of it being

my favorite movie to me this is

perfection in the genre and everything

the Western could possibly be obviously

before this I did videos on a fist full

of dollars and for a few dollars more

and I absolutely loved making those

videos and now the trilogy is finally

complete but I don't think that I'm done

making videos about the works of Sergio

Leon or westerns overall really I'd love

to make a video about Once Upon a Time

in the West someday and make a lot more

Western videos maybe one about Gateway

westerns to help people get into the

genre if that's interesting to you let

me know what you'd like for me to cover

as far as westerns go as always a huge

thank you to my patrons for their

continued support and if you'd like to

be a patron it's only a doar a month for

Early Access to every video and

exclusive patreon only podcast reviews

so until next time I hope that you're

taking care of yourselves and enjoying a

great western

[Music]