Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy

One of the questions that we are so frequently asked and one that I can never answer is what is your favorite trilogy ? Even the current poll at LAMB asks the same question and I still do not have the answer. There just are too many options to choose from like
(a) Nolan's Batman trilogy: with The Dark Knight Rises(2012) epic ending to the trilogy this summer, we have another brilliant option available.
(b) Three Colors trilogy: White(1994) is inferior of the three only because it has likes of Blue(1993) and Red(1995) alongside and together they just hit it out of the park.
(c) Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy: After I saw all three movies earlier this year, it has become a serious contender as my favorite. Only thing keeping me is the quality of the competition.
(d) Lord of the Rings trilogy: Another one of personal favorites and certainly one I have seen most. More than everything else put together in this list
(e) Toy Story trilogy: Probably the weakest of the list but I love Toy Story 3 and can not argue with the iconic status of first one.
(f) Bergman's Faith trilogy: probably the best trilogy I haven't seen yet.
and I am sure there are quite a few more I am forgetting here but then this labor day when I sat down in front of the TV and saw all 3 movies from Sergio Leone's Dollar trilogy, I added one more name to the list.

Starting out with A Fistful of Dollars(1964) as the first installment, it is adaptation of Kurosawa's Yojimbo(1961) set in the west. Eastwood's iconic character Man with no name, arrives in one of the small towns on Mexican border where there are two gangs fighting with each other over the control of the town. One of them is Gang of Rojo Brothers - Don Miguel, Esteban and Ramon while the other is so-called sheriff of the town John Baxter. Because of the constant feud between these two families, rest of the town is pretty much dead as there are no more businesses alive except one hotel. After this stranger arrives in the town, he decides to make use of this divide in the two families to make some quick money. He gets his chance to play these two families against each other pretty soon as Ramon, with the help of his gang dressed in American uniforms, steals the gold being delivered to Americans by Mexican soldiers. He feeds false information to both the gangs that couple of American soldiers survived Ramon's attack and are hiding in the cemetery. Both the gangs rush to cemetery, Rojos to silence these soldiers and Baxters to use them against Rojos. When they both square up against each other in cemetery, Ramon becomes successful in killing both the soldiers who are actually just the dead bodies planted by stranger. With this success under his belt, stranger tries to do something bigger and soon realizes that he is biting something bigger than he can chew. But, he is the Hero right? So, he has to win in the end and with the help of couple of friends in the town, he does. Of all the three movies, this is probably the weakest in my opinion but for the first film in trilogy, it does a lot of groundwork for more greatness to follow. It establishes the character which pretty much made Clint Eastwood Clint Eastwood, that is of of 'The Man with No Name', though he does have a name in the other two, in his signature costume with his typical hat, poncho and munching the cigar. We never know anything about his background, here we don't even know what he really does, he speaks only when it is necessary and rather prefers to let his gun do the talking for him. It also sets you up with what to expect visually because lets be honest, if I ask one thing that is of prime importance in this movie I am sure majority of us will say it is visual style. It also marked first collaboration of Leone and his composer Ennio Morricone which would bring us to another very important aspect of the trilogy - background scores. Even though the weakest of the three, it certainly is marks a great start to the trilogy.

Rating(out of 5):

For the second installment of the trilogy, we have For a Few Dollars More(1965), only movie of the trilogy that I could remember properly before I saw it again that day. It may be isn't the most popular or even the best of the trilogy, but in my opinion it is most compact of the three in a sense that I may be in the minority who thinks so but it is better than A Fistful of Dollars and is shorter than The Good, the Bad and the Ugly(1966). This time around, as I said, The Man with No Name has a name - Monco and we also know that he is a bounty hunter. There is also another bounty hunter in picture by the name of Colonel Douglas Mortimer. After getting their hands on some smaller bounties both happen to set their eyes on the big prize of Indio and his gang. Being good at their job, they both guess correctly that Indio who has just escaped from prison, his first target will be Bank of El Paso which is considered as the safest bank of all. When they both arrive in the town of El Paso and square off against each other, they have already learned about each other from different sources. After testing each other out, they both realize that the best thing for either of them will be to join forces against Indio. Mortimer proposes an idea of one of them joining Indio's gang so that he can work from inside and Monco reluctantly agrees to be that man. However, not everything can go according to plan, after all there is a reason why Indio isn't an easy target. This duo of bounty hunters also try to come up with a counter plan to make up and with some more twists and turns we get to the eventual ending but not without revealing why Mortimer is so badly behind Indio. Building on the elements from first installment, it adds a lot in various departments, especially characters. We get to know Clint Eastwood's character a little more in depth here after first installment. He still has all his signature articles - his poncho, cigar, his hat and he still prefers to let his gun do the talking which should be clear from the scene when Monco and Col. Mortimer face each other. But to tell you the truth, Van Cliff's Douglas Mortimer is much better and even more interesting character in this. He is the brain of their partnership whereas Monco is pretty much of a follower. Even Indio's villain is little more dangerous as he is just as savage as Ramon but this time around works more with his head than his heart. If not better, this movie has as much visual flair as the first one and also Morricone scores again with his whistling soundtrack. Something else that did stand out for me this time is sound editing in general but specifically the use of echo mostly in their gun fights and the use of chiming of a watch in final duel was amazing.

Rating(out of 5):

And finally, we come to the most iconic, most popular and certainly the best of the trilogy The Good, the Bad, the Ugly(1966) as the final installment. Now, I had seen it before but it was long ago and I almost remembered nothing about it. So, despite the fact that it would mean I will be watching 3 movies in a row, 10 hours non-stop, I sat down for this classic yet again. This time we have three men we are focusing on. The Man with No name goes by the name of Blondie here who is a professional gunslinger, Angel eyes is a man on hire who makes sure that the job he is hired for is done gets done while Tuco is a wanted criminal. Tuco and Blondie have a kind of partnership where Blondie will arrest Tuco and give him to police, collect the bounty on him and when he is about to be hanged, he will rescue him and then they share the bounty. After a while Blondie gets tired of doing this every time and he ditches Tuco in the desert with not even water to drink. Tuco not only survives the scare but he soon enough finds Blondie out and makes Blondie go through the same routine he did. Just when he is about to bolt Blondie to death, he sees a stagecoach full of confederate soldiers. Only one of them, by the name of Bill Carson, is alive and he tells Tuco about cemetery where he has hidden a lot of gold but he is dying of thirst and will not tell the name on grave unless he has water to drink. By the time, Tuco finds water for him and brings it to him, he is dead but not before giving Blondie the name on grave. So, the two men again have to form an uncomfortable partnership and keep each other alive to get that gold. Now Angel eyes has also been looking for this gold for quite some time. He knows that Bill Carson is the one who knows everything about it but unfortunately he hasn't been able to get hold of Carson. Through a lot of interesting twists and turns where at one point Tuco and Blondie disguised as confederate soldiers, even fall in hands of Angel eyes in Yankee prison Camp, where he is disguised as Yankee Captain; we finally get to the cemetery and to the grave where we witness probably the most iconic moment in western movies ever - all three men for themselves in a three-way shootout. Almost all the elements Leone has been building so far have been almost perfected in this movie. Characters are much more richer, deeper and best example in this case is Eli Wallach's Tuco who is like chameleon changing its color and he gives probably the most entertaining performance of the whole trilogy. It has much better storyline which maybe isn't really complex but there is a lot that happens in it. Soundtrack is unforgettable, I am sure even those who haven't even seen movie know about it(e.g. my parents). Cinematography is breathtaking. Even though I do feel like it is little too long, especially towards end and sudden disappearance and reappearance later in the film of Van Cliff's Angel Eyes bothers me a little, there is no denying at all that this is Western Cinema at it's very best from any angle you choose to look at.

Rating(out of 5):

Bollywood Essentials: Sholay(1975)

Couple of weeks ago, on Labor Day, I spent my entire day sitting in front of TV watching all the three movies in Dollar trilogy. I had not seen first of the three, A Fistful of Dollars(1964) before. So, after that I can cross one of the most popular trilogies of my list. I still stuck around for For a Few Dollars More(1965) despite of having seen it and despite I could remember it vividly just for the hack of it and then I wanted to see The Good, the Bad and the Ugly(1966) because even though I have most certainly seen this one before, that was a long ago and there were big chunks of it that I could not remember. However, since then I have Westerns stuck in my head. Last month, I did one post about Bollywood Essentials where I discussed one of my favorite Hindi movies Satya(1998). I started with Satya mainly because over at the LAMB, Steve decided to go with 'Modern Bollywood' as the theme of Foreign Chops. I would have loved to start with a little more Classic movie. With this western theme stuck in my head right now, this was the perfect time for me to introduce another essential of Hindi Cinema and one of the very very few real Westerns of Indian Cinema, Sholay(1975).

Like most of the Westerns I know, Sholay basically is the story of revenge where at the heart of which is Thakur Baldev Singh and pair of petty thieves Jai and Veeru. Thakur used to be a Police Officer in his prime, and that is where he has seen the duo of Jai and Veeru. He knows that despite being petty thieves who can swindle even their own families for money, they both have big heart and are capable of doing almost anything given the right amount of money. His assessment of Jai and Veeru is based on sole encounter with them where they not only helped him fight against the whole gang of dacoits trying to rob the train they were on, they also saved his life when he got injured. Thakur has something specific in mind for them and despite being told that they both are completely useless, he believes that they are perfect for what he has in mind and hence is looking for them. After some hilarious encounters and some bad-ass fights, both Jai and Veeru arrive at Ramgadh to meet Thakur at his house. Thakur tells them that he wants them to capture in-famous dacoit Gabbar Singh. There is a prize of 50,000 on his name. Not only they will get that prize, Thakur will also pay them on top of it. There is only 1 condition - they will not kill Gabbar. They will only capture him as Thakur wants to kill him by his own hands. Even though it is a lot of money, Gabbar Singh and his notoriety goes far beyond that and hence both Jay and Veeru are little cautious. However, what seals the deal for them is when they understand the real reason why Thakur hired them for the job. During his days in Police force, Thakur was one of the best and most dynamic officers wearing that uniform. One of his most important and famous achievements was he put Gabbar Singh behind the bars. Gabbar Singh certainly is not the one to forget. Soon enough, some of his associates breaks him out and first thing he wants to do after getting out is get his revenge. And when he does, he does it in a worst possible way. After Thakur finds it out what Gabbar has done, he flips out, walks right into Gabbar's den and gets both his hands cut.

Anyone who has seen any westerns will not really find anything extraordinary in this story. Even I sometimes wonder how would I have felt had Sholay wasn't Sholay. To understand what I am trying to say, you have to know a little background about it's place in the Indian cinema. Let me assure you that last sentence was first and last time I will be using word 'Little'. There is nothing 'little' about Sholay anymore, everything is hyperbolic. When it opened in 1975, supposedly it opened to a lukewarm reception for first few weeks but then it picked up gears and went on to become the most successful movie in the history of Hindi cinema. Every single commercial record you can imagine, this film not only broke them but held it's position at the top for almost 20 years. By any measure imaginable, Sholay is 'The MOST POPULAR Indian Movie' ever. I remember I saw this movie for the first time when I was around 10, more than 20 years after its release. It was either 15th August(Indian Independence Day) or 26th January(Republic Day). Being a national holiday, everything was close anyways but during it's run-time, there was not a single soul to be seen anywhere - inside my building, on the roads anywhere and this is 20 years after its release. I remember reading somewhere that if G.P. Sippy, producer of this movie, decides to re-release it today without making any change in it at all, it will do more business than every single movie released on that day and to tell you the truth, I have to agree with it. Even though I have seen it dozen times by now, I am still ready to pay any amount of money just to see this on the big screen. Greatness of this movie lies in the fact that this movie is the most popular, most respected piece of work in career of every single person associated with it and there are quite a few legends of Indian cinema in that list.

So, now that I am almost done with my fan-boy banter, let me try objectively to explain what makes it great? Two things - first and foremost Amjad Khan who played Gabbar Singh to perfection and secondly Screenplay written by Salim-Javed. There are some pretty obvious influences, spaghetti westerns like Dollar trilogy and Seven Samurai(1954) being most prominent but this script takes some elements from them, puts them into Indian background and adds pinch of humor, romance and comedy to it and molds it into something original. They also have to be credited for making the character of Gabbar Singh what it is - easily the best character in cinema. He is known for his ruthless, notorious and fearsome demeanor. Amjad Khan doesn't have that intimidating physical presence but he makes it up with his body language and reminds you of his terrors with every single word he utters, every single action and every single movement - imagine Ramone or Indio but much much worse. Amjad Khan in his very first role on screen owns Gabbar Singh. It is a very definition of perfection. One more thing I can credit duo of Salim-Javed for is despite such a strong villain, they made other characters equally strong like Thakur and is played with an amazing determination by Sanjeev Kumar, one of the most versatile actors of industry. Dialogues are iconic, infused with a lot of humor and are so ingrained in pop-culture that when I sat down for the first time to watch it, I already knew 80% dialogues due to countless parodies, homages and tributes. I can hardly remember a movie with so eclectic side characters like Surma Bhopali, Sambha, Kaalia, Asrani's Jailor or A.K. Hangal's Imaam who leave their stamp in a single scene space.

You have to realise that I have rambled on for last 2 paragraphs about what makes Sholay great without even mentioning the 2 leading pairs. Not to undermine their importance, but it is a kind of movie where there is so much to talk about. Combined with beautiful cinematography and set designs to create that look and feel of typical western, great editing, good music especially title track makes it a bare essential that no one with any interest in Hindi movies should miss out.

Rating(out of 5):