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Related: About this forumOn this day, January 3, 1929, Sergio Leone was born.
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone
Born: 3 January 1929; Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Died: 30 April 1989 (aged 60); Rome, Italy
Resting place: Napoleonic Cemetery, Pratica di Mare, Pomezia, Italy
Sergio Leone (/liˈoʊni/ lee-OH-nee, Italian: [ˈsɛrdʒo leˈoːne]; 3 January 1929 30 April 1989) was an Italian filmmaker, credited as the pioneer of the spaghetti Western genre. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema.
Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots. His films include the Dollars Trilogy of Westerns featuring Clint Eastwood: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966); and the Once Upon a Time films: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Duck, You Sucker! (1971), and Once Upon a Time in America (1984).
Early life
Born on 3 January 1929 in Rome, Leone was the son of the cinema pioneer Vincenzo Leone (known as Roberto Roberti or Leone Roberto Roberti) and silent film actress Edvige Valcarenghi (known as Bice Waleran). His mother was of Milanese and remote Austrian descent. During his schooldays, Leone was a classmate of his later musical collaborator Ennio Morricone in third grade. After watching his father work on film sets, Leone began his own career in the film industry at the age of 18 after dropping out of law studies at the university.
Working in Italian cinema, he began as an assistant to Vittorio De Sica during the production for the movie Bicycle Thieves in 1948. Leone began writing screenplays during the 1950s, primarily for the "sword and sandal" (or peplum) historical epics, popular at the time. He also worked as an assistant director on several large-scale international productions shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, notably Quo Vadis (1951) and Ben-Hur (1959), financially backed by the American studios.
When director Mario Bonnard fell ill during the production of the 1959 Italian epic The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompei), starring Steve Reeves, Leone was asked to step in and complete the film. As a result, when the time came to make his solo directorial debut with The Colossus of Rhodes (Il Colosso di Rodi, 1961), Leone was well-equipped to produce low-budget films that looked like larger-budget Hollywood movies.
Career
Italian: Il cinema deve essere spettacolo, è questo che il pubblico vuole. E per me lo spettacolo più bello è quello del mito. Cinema must be spectacle, that's what the public wants. And for me the most beautiful spectacle is that of the myth.
1960s
In the mid-1960s, historical epics fell out of favor with audiences, but Leone had shifted his attention to a subgenre which came to be known as the "spaghetti Western", owing its origin to the American Western. His film A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari, 1964) was based upon Akira Kurosawa's Edo-era samurai adventure Yojimbo (1961). Leone's film elicited a legal challenge from the Japanese director, though Kurosawa's film was, in turn, probably based on the 1929 Dashiell Hammett novel, Red Harvest. A Fistful of Dollars is also notable for establishing Clint Eastwood as a star. Until that time, Eastwood had been an American television actor with few credited film roles.
The look of A Fistful of Dollars was established by its Spanish locations, which presented a violent and morally complex vision of the American Old West. The film paid tribute to traditional American Western films, but significantly departed from them in storyline, plot, characterization, and mood. Leone gains credit for one great breakthrough in the Western genre still followed today; in traditional Western films, many heroes and villains looked alike as if they had just stepped out of a fashion magazine, with clearly drawn moral opposites, even down to the hero wearing a white hat and the villain wearing a black hat (except for the most successful of the "traditional western cowboys" Hopalong Cassidy, who wore a black outfit upon a pale horse). Leone's characters were, in contrast, more "realistic" and complex: usually lone wolves in their behavior; they rarely shaved, looked dirty, and sweated profusely, with a strong suggestion of criminal behavior. The characters were also morally ambiguous by appearing generously compassionate, or nakedly and brutally self-serving, as the situation demanded. Relationships revolved around power and retributions were emotion-driven rather than conscience-driven. Some critics have noted the irony of an Italian director who could not speak English, and had never even visited the United States, let alone the American Old West, almost single-handedly redefining the typical vision of the American cowboy. According to Christopher Frayling's book Something to do with Death, Leone knew a great deal about the American Old West. It fascinated him as a child, which carried into his adulthood and his films.
Leone's next two films, For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più, 1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966), completed what has come to be known as the Man with No Name trilogy (or the Dollars Trilogy), with each film being more financially successful and more technically accomplished than its predecessor. The films featured innovative music scores by Ennio Morricone, who worked closely with Leone in devising the themes. Leone had a personal way of shooting scenes with Morricone's music ongoing. In addition, Clint Eastwood stayed with the film series, joined later by Eli Wallach, Lee van Cleef, and Klaus Kinski.
Leone and Enzo Santaniello on the set
of Once Upon a Time in the West
Based on the success of the Man with No Name trilogy, Leone was invited to the United States in 1967 to direct Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West) for Paramount Pictures. The film was shot mostly in Almería, Spain, and Cinecittà in Rome. It was also briefly shot in Monument Valley, Utah. The film starred Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, and Claudia Cardinale. Once Upon a Time in the West emerged as a long and violent dreamlike meditation upon the mythology of the American Old West, with many stylistic references to iconic Western films. Audience tension is maintained throughout this nearly three-hour film by concealing both the hero's identity and his unpredictable motivation until the final predictable shootout scene. Perhaps unsurpassed as a retribution drama, the film's script was written by Leone and his longtime friend and collaborator Sergio Donati, from a story by Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento, both of whom went on to have significant careers as directors. Before its release, it was ruthlessly edited by Paramount, which perhaps contributed to its low box-office results in the United States. Nevertheless, it was a huge hit in Europe, grossing nearly three times its $5 million budget among French audiences, and highly praised among North American film students. It has come to be regarded by many as Leone's best film.
{snip}
Sergio Leone
Born: 3 January 1929; Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Died: 30 April 1989 (aged 60); Rome, Italy
Resting place: Napoleonic Cemetery, Pratica di Mare, Pomezia, Italy
Sergio Leone (/liˈoʊni/ lee-OH-nee, Italian: [ˈsɛrdʒo leˈoːne]; 3 January 1929 30 April 1989) was an Italian filmmaker, credited as the pioneer of the spaghetti Western genre. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema.
Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots. His films include the Dollars Trilogy of Westerns featuring Clint Eastwood: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966); and the Once Upon a Time films: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Duck, You Sucker! (1971), and Once Upon a Time in America (1984).
Early life
Born on 3 January 1929 in Rome, Leone was the son of the cinema pioneer Vincenzo Leone (known as Roberto Roberti or Leone Roberto Roberti) and silent film actress Edvige Valcarenghi (known as Bice Waleran). His mother was of Milanese and remote Austrian descent. During his schooldays, Leone was a classmate of his later musical collaborator Ennio Morricone in third grade. After watching his father work on film sets, Leone began his own career in the film industry at the age of 18 after dropping out of law studies at the university.
Working in Italian cinema, he began as an assistant to Vittorio De Sica during the production for the movie Bicycle Thieves in 1948. Leone began writing screenplays during the 1950s, primarily for the "sword and sandal" (or peplum) historical epics, popular at the time. He also worked as an assistant director on several large-scale international productions shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, notably Quo Vadis (1951) and Ben-Hur (1959), financially backed by the American studios.
When director Mario Bonnard fell ill during the production of the 1959 Italian epic The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompei), starring Steve Reeves, Leone was asked to step in and complete the film. As a result, when the time came to make his solo directorial debut with The Colossus of Rhodes (Il Colosso di Rodi, 1961), Leone was well-equipped to produce low-budget films that looked like larger-budget Hollywood movies.
Career
Italian: Il cinema deve essere spettacolo, è questo che il pubblico vuole. E per me lo spettacolo più bello è quello del mito. Cinema must be spectacle, that's what the public wants. And for me the most beautiful spectacle is that of the myth.
1960s
In the mid-1960s, historical epics fell out of favor with audiences, but Leone had shifted his attention to a subgenre which came to be known as the "spaghetti Western", owing its origin to the American Western. His film A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari, 1964) was based upon Akira Kurosawa's Edo-era samurai adventure Yojimbo (1961). Leone's film elicited a legal challenge from the Japanese director, though Kurosawa's film was, in turn, probably based on the 1929 Dashiell Hammett novel, Red Harvest. A Fistful of Dollars is also notable for establishing Clint Eastwood as a star. Until that time, Eastwood had been an American television actor with few credited film roles.
The look of A Fistful of Dollars was established by its Spanish locations, which presented a violent and morally complex vision of the American Old West. The film paid tribute to traditional American Western films, but significantly departed from them in storyline, plot, characterization, and mood. Leone gains credit for one great breakthrough in the Western genre still followed today; in traditional Western films, many heroes and villains looked alike as if they had just stepped out of a fashion magazine, with clearly drawn moral opposites, even down to the hero wearing a white hat and the villain wearing a black hat (except for the most successful of the "traditional western cowboys" Hopalong Cassidy, who wore a black outfit upon a pale horse). Leone's characters were, in contrast, more "realistic" and complex: usually lone wolves in their behavior; they rarely shaved, looked dirty, and sweated profusely, with a strong suggestion of criminal behavior. The characters were also morally ambiguous by appearing generously compassionate, or nakedly and brutally self-serving, as the situation demanded. Relationships revolved around power and retributions were emotion-driven rather than conscience-driven. Some critics have noted the irony of an Italian director who could not speak English, and had never even visited the United States, let alone the American Old West, almost single-handedly redefining the typical vision of the American cowboy. According to Christopher Frayling's book Something to do with Death, Leone knew a great deal about the American Old West. It fascinated him as a child, which carried into his adulthood and his films.
Leone's next two films, For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più, 1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966), completed what has come to be known as the Man with No Name trilogy (or the Dollars Trilogy), with each film being more financially successful and more technically accomplished than its predecessor. The films featured innovative music scores by Ennio Morricone, who worked closely with Leone in devising the themes. Leone had a personal way of shooting scenes with Morricone's music ongoing. In addition, Clint Eastwood stayed with the film series, joined later by Eli Wallach, Lee van Cleef, and Klaus Kinski.
Leone and Enzo Santaniello on the set
of Once Upon a Time in the West
Based on the success of the Man with No Name trilogy, Leone was invited to the United States in 1967 to direct Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West) for Paramount Pictures. The film was shot mostly in Almería, Spain, and Cinecittà in Rome. It was also briefly shot in Monument Valley, Utah. The film starred Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, and Claudia Cardinale. Once Upon a Time in the West emerged as a long and violent dreamlike meditation upon the mythology of the American Old West, with many stylistic references to iconic Western films. Audience tension is maintained throughout this nearly three-hour film by concealing both the hero's identity and his unpredictable motivation until the final predictable shootout scene. Perhaps unsurpassed as a retribution drama, the film's script was written by Leone and his longtime friend and collaborator Sergio Donati, from a story by Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento, both of whom went on to have significant careers as directors. Before its release, it was ruthlessly edited by Paramount, which perhaps contributed to its low box-office results in the United States. Nevertheless, it was a huge hit in Europe, grossing nearly three times its $5 million budget among French audiences, and highly praised among North American film students. It has come to be regarded by many as Leone's best film.
{snip}
Ennio Morricone - Sergio Leone Greatest Western Music of All Time (Remastered HQ Audio)
Ennio Morricone
644K subscribers
25,072,062 views Apr 24, 2018 #EnnioMorricone #EnnioMorriconeMusic #SpaghettiWesternMusic
Sergio Leone, one of the greatest movie directors of all time wonderfully soundtracked by his friend Maestro Ennio Morricone.
🎶🎧 Sergio Leone Greatest Western Themes: https://fanlink.to/SergioLeoneGreatest
Ennio Morricone The Spaghetti Westerns Music
Ennio Morricone - The Spaghetti Weste...
#EnnioMorricone #EnnioMorriconeMusic #SpaghettiWesternMusic #sergioleone #spaghettiwestern
1. Watch Chimes 0:00
2. The Ecstasy of Gold - feat. Edda Dell'Orso 1:08
3. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 4:28
4. A Fistful of Dollars - Main Theme 7:09
5. Once Upon a Time in the West - feat. Edda Dell'Orso 10:06
6. For a Few Dollars More 13:13
7. A Fistful of Dynamite - feat. Edda Dell'Orso 17:03
8. The Sundown 21:42
9. My Name is Nobody 23:00
10. The Wild Horde 26:08
11. Man with a Harmonica 28:49
12. A Fistful of Dollars - Prima 32:18
13. The Trio 34:07
14. The Strong 41:22
15. Farewell Cheyenne 43:46
16. Jill 46:24
17. My Fault? 48:10
18. Chapel Shootout 52:57
19. Good Luck, Jack 55:16
20. Chase
21. To el Paso
22. Cavalcata
23. Final Duel 1:00:19
24. The Bird's Tale 1:02:46
25. The Story of a Soldier 1:03:38
26. Father Ramirez 1:07:08
27. Two Against Five 1:10:46
28. Prison Break 1:18:08
29. My Name is Nobody - Version 2 1:20:50
30. A Dimly Little Room 1:29:40
Special thanks to Edgar ALEGRE (first comment below) for his kindness.
Sergio Leone Greatest Western Themes of All Time
Spotify - The Ecstasy of Gold - Ennio Morricone Masterpieces https://spoti.fi/38yepfC
YouTubeMusic Music - The Ecstasy of Gold - Ennio Morricone Masterpieces https://bit.ly/2O8YGdv
Amazon http://hyperurl.co/SergioLeone_Amazon
Deezer http://hyperurl.co/SergioLeone_Deezer
Ennio Morricone Film Music Collection on:
https://fanlink.to/morricone_filmmusiccollection
Ennio Morricone
644K subscribers
25,072,062 views Apr 24, 2018 #EnnioMorricone #EnnioMorriconeMusic #SpaghettiWesternMusic
Sergio Leone, one of the greatest movie directors of all time wonderfully soundtracked by his friend Maestro Ennio Morricone.
🎶🎧 Sergio Leone Greatest Western Themes: https://fanlink.to/SergioLeoneGreatest
Ennio Morricone The Spaghetti Westerns Music
Ennio Morricone - The Spaghetti Weste...
#EnnioMorricone #EnnioMorriconeMusic #SpaghettiWesternMusic #sergioleone #spaghettiwestern
1. Watch Chimes 0:00
2. The Ecstasy of Gold - feat. Edda Dell'Orso 1:08
3. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 4:28
4. A Fistful of Dollars - Main Theme 7:09
5. Once Upon a Time in the West - feat. Edda Dell'Orso 10:06
6. For a Few Dollars More 13:13
7. A Fistful of Dynamite - feat. Edda Dell'Orso 17:03
8. The Sundown 21:42
9. My Name is Nobody 23:00
10. The Wild Horde 26:08
11. Man with a Harmonica 28:49
12. A Fistful of Dollars - Prima 32:18
13. The Trio 34:07
14. The Strong 41:22
15. Farewell Cheyenne 43:46
16. Jill 46:24
17. My Fault? 48:10
18. Chapel Shootout 52:57
19. Good Luck, Jack 55:16
20. Chase
21. To el Paso
22. Cavalcata
23. Final Duel 1:00:19
24. The Bird's Tale 1:02:46
25. The Story of a Soldier 1:03:38
26. Father Ramirez 1:07:08
27. Two Against Five 1:10:46
28. Prison Break 1:18:08
29. My Name is Nobody - Version 2 1:20:50
30. A Dimly Little Room 1:29:40
Special thanks to Edgar ALEGRE (first comment below) for his kindness.
Sergio Leone Greatest Western Themes of All Time
Spotify - The Ecstasy of Gold - Ennio Morricone Masterpieces https://spoti.fi/38yepfC
YouTubeMusic Music - The Ecstasy of Gold - Ennio Morricone Masterpieces https://bit.ly/2O8YGdv
Amazon http://hyperurl.co/SergioLeone_Amazon
Deezer http://hyperurl.co/SergioLeone_Deezer
Ennio Morricone Film Music Collection on:
https://fanlink.to/morricone_filmmusiccollection
Sun Nov 10, 2024: On this day, November 10, 1928, Ennio Morricone was born.
Fri Nov 10, 2023: On this day, November 10, 1928, Ennio Morricone was born.