:48:01
he thought the script was much too talky
:48:03
and he cut a lot of dialogue to
make the character more enigmatic.
:48:07
The shooting script contains lots of long
speeches. Leone put a line through it.
:48:12
He may be the only actor in movie history
who's actually fought for less lines.
:48:17
Most actors want more,
but he wanted less,
:48:19
because he felt it created the magic,
the enchantment. It created the enigma.
:48:47
The second big set piece scene
is the exchange of hostages.
:48:53
Instead of white fluff,
autumn leaves blowing over the camera.
:48:57
The idea of a brown, autumnal colour.
:49:00
And we've got the Rojos in all their finery.
:49:03
Their hidalguia, the sort of hierarchical
sense of a clan, a Spanish-Mexican clan,
:49:09
on one side, the Baxters on the other.
:49:11
In the middle, the man with no name.
That trill on the soundtrack
:49:15
is a typical Morricone commentary
on the character through music.
:49:19
That had never appeared
in a Western before.
:49:22
And then the cigar shifts,
or Eastwood does a double-take.
:49:26
It's a kind of musical punctuation.
:49:30
The "Deguello" again on the
soundtrack, the mariachi trumpet,
:49:34
with the Spanish guitar backing.
:49:38
Very ritualised, very rhetorical.
:49:43
Leone had been involved in
an exchange-of-hostage sequence before,
:49:47
when he was assistant director
on Helen Of Troy.
:49:57
Big close-ups.
:49:59
Guns.