Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). 1966. Italy. Directed by Sergio Leone. Screenplay by Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni, Leone. With Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach. 4K DCP restoration. 179 min.
In just five notes, Ennio Morricone secured his place alongside Beethoven by composing one of the greatest opening themes in the history of Western music. (The film’s English title, moreover, has become the stuff of philosophical debate, nasty slang, and countless magazines hawking hairstyles and makeup.) Sergio Leone caps off his Man with No Name trilogy with a prequel to the first two films, burnishing his trademark style of alternating between widescreen expanse and comic-book closeup and shooting scenes of balletic violence to melodies that Morricone had already composed—including the climactic Mexican standoff ushered in by “Ecstasy of Gold” (the soaring song famously covered by Metallica and sampled by Jay-Z)—while eclectically quoting from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Buster Keaton’s The General, and the Civil War battlefield photographs of Matthew Brady.