Rating: 3.5/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2018 | 11/52 | Spaghetti Western
The revolution is not a social dinner, a literary event, a drawing, or an embroidery; it cannot be done with elegance and courtesy. The revolution is an act of violence... — Mao Tse-Tung
1913 A barefoot Mexican man pees on an anthill as a storm starts to brew. He looks out across the Mexican countryside and sees a coach riding near. He ambles down to the roadside and signals the coach to stop. The man begs for them to take him to San Felipe, and they decide he’s perfect to get a rise out of the passengers. They send him to the back of the coach, where he sees a group of wealthy Americans eating. They stare in horrified silence as he finds a place they’ll allow him to sit. Once there, the rich people discuss the ongoing revolution, disparaging the Mexican people as “animals” and comparing them to the Black people back home (they use a different word).
The coach rides past a small village. Men sneak underneath and stop the carriage with rocks at the wheels and untether the horses from the carriage. They shoot the drivers and gunmen, then hold the passengers at gunpoint. One of the rich men goes for his gun, and they shoot him in the head. The Mexican man gets out of his seat and joins the assailants, robbing the wealthy people. The Mexican man drags one of the rich men outside to rough him up. He then assists the rich woman out, sending her to a pen with animals, where he SAs her. The Mexican man is the outlaw Juan Miranda, and this is his gang of bandits.
Just then, a bomb goes off. The bandits take the carriage closer to determine what’s happening. Through the debris rides a man on a motorcycle. Juan shoots the back tire out on the motorcycle. Wasting no time, the motorcyclist dismounts his bike. He approaches the bandits and lights a cigarette. He enters the carriage and brings the children out before a bomb blows the roof off the carriage. The bandits draw their weapons. The man, speaking with an Irish accent, opens his jacket to reveal it lined with dynamite and a vial of liquid that creates explosions with merely a drop. The man with the explosives is named John H. Mallory, and the Irish government wants him for murder and terrorist activism. Juan imagines the banner for the Mesa Verde National Bank hovering over John’s head.
The film follows Seán and John as they travel to Mesa Verde to rob a bank, only to become entangled in the Mexican Revolution.
I don't wanna be a hero! All I want is the money!
The film has a grittiness to it, pushing the violence onscreen and able to show it in the US due to relaxed Hayes Code censorship. It also plays in the moral ambiguity of the revisionist Western tradition, embracing the pacing of a psychological thriller to heighten the tension throughout. Sergio Leone claims he didn’t mean for the film to be political, using the revolution as a symbol through which the naïve (Juan) befriends and teaches the intellectual (John). The film also conveys the disillusionment that comes when the revolution doesn’t bring everything it promises.
Revolution? Please don't try to tell me about revolution. I know all about the revolutions and how they start. The people that read books, they go to the people that don't read books, the poor people, and say the time has come for a change… So the poor people make the change, huh? Then the people who read the books, they all sit around the big polished tables and talk and talk and eat and eat. But what has happened to the poor people? They're dead!
For Juan, his country is his family — the only people worth fighting or dying for. John fought for Ireland, but after becoming a fugitive, he brought his fight and explosives to the Mexican Revolution. Juan plants the same seed of disillusionment in John, causing him to reflect on his past and the beliefs that led him to this point.
The cinematographer, Giuseppe Ruzzolini, employs many techniques that Leone formulated with Tonino Delli Colli on films like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. Delli Colli returned for Once Upon a Time in America 13 years after this movie. I’m not saying Ruzzolini didn’t bring his own touch, just that he also makes similar use of closeups. For example, during the dinner scene, the camera focuses intently on the rich people’s eyes and their mouths as they spew their racist rhetoric and stuff their mouths. The compositions create an additional layer of disgust on the already rampant hate speech.
That said, the film still engages in plenty of unchecked racism, primarily through Juan Miranda, as played by white American actor Rod Steiger. His brownface, being a rapist, as well as having six kids, each with a different woman, is an unnecessary characterization for Miranda built from lazy stereotypes.
James Coburn is an intentional choice beyond his acting, as he had a storied career in Western films up to this point. Here, he upturns his heroic image while maintaining his reputation for “cool.” It’s just that, here, his cool comes with an ironic detachment.
Of course, I enjoyed the Ennio Morricone score — the drone elements are excellent grounding for the grit onscreen. Don’t worry, we still get folks whistling and making noises in the score, especially in the moments played for comedic effect.
If Leone did not intend to make a political film, he failed. Here, intentionally or otherwise, he argues for the populist — no gods, no masters, no loyalty to anyone save those who will support your personal ideals. Currently, the United States is seeing the fruit of such beliefs in action.
I’m not the biggest fan of Westerns about men, though I’m reluctantly coming around on them. I can appreciate when one works. This one does, but it never earns its 2.5-hour runtime.