The film, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, is a great western directed by Sergio Leone. One scene that i thought was excellently planed and executed was the opening scene. It is hard not to compare it to Once Upon A Time in the West. It starts out with 3 characters, none are talking. They slowly approach each other and Leone takes shots from both points of view. It makes you think its going to be a shoot out. They keep approaching and Leone uses long shots to show the scene. This also makes it seem like a classic gun scene. But they keep approaching! This makes you go crazy and starts to make you get antsy. Eventually they come within feet of each other and you cant tell whats going to happen. Eventually they enter a bar at the same time a shootout is heard but not scene. A mystery man jumps out the window and is introduced as Ugly. During this whole scene not one word is spoken. This is just like Once Upon A Time in the West. Sergio Leone shows that he uses like styles to open a movie and introduce characters. This style adds mystery and suspense which is necessary to keep viewers glued to the screen. This proves that Sergio Leone is a master and can be seen as a great director. During the film i was wondering why Sergio would introduce Ugly first and why in that fashion. It is also curious because the title is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
6 comments:
I have not seen Once Upon A Time In The West or any other Sergio Leone movie for that matter so i cant comment on the opening. Although, I do know the one obvious reason Leone introduces the Ugly is because he is later seen in the introduction of the Good, Clint Eastwood.
Even though this is the first Sergio Leone film of this project i have a felling that Sergio is always going to have a special actor. Even though Eastwood stars in this film, the man who plays Ugly is my favorite. Sergio portrays him in so many ways. One scene makes Ugly look sincere. Ugly visits his brother even though he has not seen him in a long time. This is a sign of goo nature and Ugly tries to make things better between him and his brother. One scene also shows the bad sides of Ugly. While on a Union train as a confederate spy, Ugly shoves his captor off the train and muders him by shoving is head into a rock. These actions of good and evil are unexplainable and unexpected. This is why Ugly is my favorite chracter.
I like how you call him ugly. His name is Tuco. Anyway, one thing I liked about his film is that he has very good composition in his shots. For example, in the second scene where Angle Eyes is visiting someone, Leone uses framing with the three doors to pull your attention to Angle. Another thing I noticed was that Leone like to create suspense in different ways. One example is in the opening scenes, the silence of the men walking toward each other created suspense. Also, the scene of Angle visiting the man uses silence and close ups to show emotion to create suspense. Another scene where he uses silence is in the final shootout where the good, the bad and the ugly face off for the money. There are several ways Leone creates suspense in this last scene. One he uses shots of the hands slowly reaching for the guns and extreme close ups to show emotion. He also sound with an increasing tempo along with shorter and shorter cuts to build suspense.
Yea I really liked that opening scene. It was very well planned out. Leone used so many different angles. The way he sets it up makes you think it's going to be a crazy shootout. I was confused when they got really close to each other but Leone pulled the scene out. It caught my attention and made me focus during the whole movie
I didn't know you could pay attention while your eyes are closed.
If by made you focus during the whole movie, you mean made you fall asleep throughout the whole first half of the movie, then your analysis of the opening scene is correct.
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