Per un pugno di dollari (A Fistful of Dollars). 1964. Italy. Directed by Sergio Leone. Screenplay by Leone, Victor Andrés Catena, Jaime Comas Gil, and others. With Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch. 4K DCP. 99 min.
Sergio Leone’s satirical riff on Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo launched a great many things: the popularity of the Spaghetti Western on a global scale, Clint Eastwood’s career as a movie star, a trinity of films marketed by United Artists as the “Man with No Name” trilogy, and Ennio Morricone as a household name, thanks to just a few spare, haunting notes, a man’s whistle echoing in the lonely desert, a theme that would resound for the ages. “Some of the music was written before the film, which is unusual,” Morricone would recall. “Leone’s films were made like that because he wanted the music to be an important part of it, and he often kept the scenes longer simply because he didn’t want the music to end. That’s why the films are so slow—because of the music.”