1:33:00
This isn't the linear duel,
this is the circular one.
1:33:04
And Ramón bites the dust.
1:33:11
There's always a surprise, though.
1:33:22
A chance for Silvanito,
the bartender, to take part in this.
1:33:27
He's been detached from the squabble,
he said, "Don't get involved. "
1:33:31
But at this moment he does get involved.
And saves the stranger.
1:33:37
And so, just as at the beginning,
1:33:39
the stranger rides into town
and the curtain of dust parts
1:33:42
and we're in this theatre of San Miguel,
1:33:45
so at the end this is just like the last scene
of some 16th or 17th-century tragedy,
1:33:50
with the bodies lying on the stage,
the protagonist standing there.
1:33:54
And the show is about to end,
the theatre is about to close.
1:34:00
It's gonna be the end of the show, and out
we go from the cinema into the real world.
1:34:05
The realism of the
American Western was different.
1:34:07
It related to everyday life.
This is myth about myth.
1:34:11
And the great Italian novelist,
Alberto Moravia,
1:34:15
wrote about this.
1:34:17
"There is no West in Italy,
no cowboys and bandits, no frontier,
1:34:20
no gold mines or pioneers. "
1:34:23
"The Italian Western was born
not from memory,
1:34:26
but from the instinct of filmmakers who
were in love with the American Western. "
1:34:31
The Hollywood Western
was born from a myth.
1:34:34
The Italian one is born
from a myth about a myth.
1:34:38
So this is a movie about the Western,
1:34:40
transposed into an Italian
and Spanish cultural context.
1:34:44
In one sense it's not a Western,
it's a super-Western. It's about a Western.
1:34:48
And at the end of it, you're reminded
of its artificiality as we leave San Miguel.
1:34:54
And as Morricone's
main title track takes over,
1:34:58
Eastwood gets back on his mule,
a big man on a little animal,