Leone an auteur?

[John Baldwin]

3/  Close ups.  Close ups of eyes and other body parts are common (best done on Charles Bronson at the end of OUTITW and at the beginning of FFODy).  Often parodied but I believe only done with conviction by Leone are the close ups of things like boots and hands wavering by guns (accomponied by Ennios music)

In the DVD of OUATIA, there is a bonus. In, you have an interview of Tarantino, who said that when he began to make movies, he didn't know all the name of materials, shots...etc. So, when he wanted an close up or an extreme close up, he said to his cameraman:"I want a Leone!!!", which means not just the close up, but an atmosphere: the quality, the light...
I find it's a funny anecdote...

[soul_full_of_spike]

Cheers everyone, you've all been a great help. Keep it coming, hehe. I agree withall your points, cheers.

[cigar joe]

A couple of more Leonesque touches, he framed a lot of shots through doorways, windows, etc.  Also inanamate objects, rifles, shovels, for example make their entrances by poking into the screen from different angles.

[Two Kinds of ...]

The wide shots/close-ups thing is the camera key.  

Somthing I haven't seen mentioned above is sense of absurdity in his flicks - to wit - the hat shootings sequence in or the old man who basically lives on the train tracks in FFDM.  Everything in GBU from Blondie and Tuco's bounty scam, to the Angel-eye's strange relationship his army job, to Blondie shooting at Tuco with a cannon is absurd.   In OATITW the opening at the train station is complete absurdist Leone.   At the end of that scene, it seems like he wants us to believe he has killed it, as all the gunfighters go down.   But he couldn't resist as we see in the train scenes and indeed in Frank's sadism.     Leone's movies are brilliantly absurd and that is what elevates them over other Western that was ever made.

[cigar joe]

 

Leone's movies are brilliantly absurd and that is what elevates them over other Western that was ever made.

Good point Two Kinds of..., also Leone used or better said framed his shots similar to the compositions of surrealistic paintings.

[Il Buono]

Maybe not really present in the dollars-trilogy, there's much melancholy his later films.  It's always something that makes me identify with his films.  He must have been a very melancholic and nostalgic guy.  I feel his films are more about things that have come to an end than things that start.  OUTIW, DYS and OUTIA are good examples of this.

[Two Kinds of ...]

Leone was also way into cool stuff like secret doors,  rigged up trains, special guns, secret peepholes, small scale models of train depots, guns hidden in boots, etc.

There was melancholy in his later films which you could see developing as early as the bar keep's character in Fistful.   Time marches on, people get old, progress isn't for everyone.

[grandpa_chum]

a few more things that distinguish Leone's films from others...

long shot lengths... one of the things i always notice with leone's movies... he stays on his shots much longer than the average, undistiguishable director... another reason why alot of people think his films are too slow.

Extremely/intensely climactic conclusions... i don't know of another director that film after film ends his films on such a high note... you could credit it to the fact that he's the master of the final showdown in his westerns... but also ends with a bang in different ways like in gui la testa(more so with the final flashback) and OUATIA with everything coming full circle and noodles meeting secratary baily for the last time... with the exception of maybe OUATIA he never just ends the movie... something big happens... and i don't mean we just find something out or there is an obvious conclusion... something HUGE goes down.

another thing that really does it for me is the sequential close ups of faces while the music is climaxing... does it during or just before all the showdowns of the dollars trilogy and during the flashback in west... he'll go from a close up of one face to the next and just keep going... that added with the extreme detail given to the interaction between music and visual really gives you a sense of a leone film

[Dlanor]

It's exactly that Gran Pa. Exactly that...I think everyone of you brillantly sumed up Leone style. As Leone is definitely an Auteur.
I'll add a few things:

-During the gun duels, the shot under the legs of the gunman, and you see the other opponent, far away between the legs.
 
-You see a large lanscape an then sudenly a sinister face erupts just in front of the camera, and fill the entire screen, in the same shot(GBU).
 
-The persistence of the Flash backs. In FDM and OUATIA and DYS, the flash backs are not there to tell the story in a different order, they are there to plunge the audience in the memories of the character. No one appart Leone masterized it in such a way, it really appeals the audience and gives it the will to solve the clue of the charcacter, it really deals with mystery, in a progressive, inner, dramatic and poetic way.

 The slow downs during climatic action: Young harmonica who falls, Dominic who slept in OUTIA, the final flash back in DYS.
The slowness of the gesture, not only the shots but the charcaters themselves. The food.
 The relatively absence of women. It started to change with OUTITW and OUTIA. Leone simply thougt women were not good for the drama (refering to previous american western, he said that presence of women decreased the quality of the drama) .
 The fact that music is played by instruments wich appears in the film itself: the theme is played by El Indio watch in AFDM. The same for OUATIW, Harmonica who uses its intrument to play the theme. And also the bell of the arch which concludes the score. And even in OUTIA: Dominic whistles the theme running in the street.  In a FOD, GBU, and DYS, this procedee isn't used. This procedee is a real full circle, as it integrates totaly the score to the movie, we really feel that the score tells the story of this movie, because the characters play it.
 

Maybe not really present in the dollars-trilogy, there's much melancholy his later films.  It's always something that makes me identify with his films.  He must have been a very melancholic and nostalgic guy.

That was something I also thought. OUATITW, DYS, and OUTIA were so depressive, that I wondered: My! This guy must be totally depressive, he must be alway sad! How can he had lived  his life? It's a paradox, but no, Leone wasn't like his later movies. In life he enjoyed laughing, discussing, eating, to be with his family. He considered himself as lucky to have this sucess. I read that in Ray Freakling book. When I read the book I searched if Leone have had dark moments in his life, but I didn't really found them. He was simply critic toward History and about political engament. He didn't believed in politic because of the fascism and the fact that his father had to give up his career as an actor because he was a communist. But no, Leone's life wasn't under the sign of sadness, this feeling is simply extrapolated in his films. But the guy in itself had a Roman temperament, a  dynamism,  wich was all the contrary.

[John Baldwin]

 

[Dlanor]

I don't know why you cry, but don't cry. Leone is still alive through his work, for eternity.

[cigar joe]

That was something I also thought. OUATITW, DYS, and OUTIA were so depressive, that I wondered: My! This guy must be totally depressive, he must be alway sad! How can he had lived  his life? It's a paradox, but no, Leone wasn't like his later movies. In life he enjoyed laughing, discussing, eating, to be with his family. He considered himself as lucky to have this sucess. I read that in Ray Freakling book. When I read the book I searched if Leone have had dark moments in his life, but I didn't really found them. He was simply critic toward History and about political engament. He didn't believed in politic because of the fascism and the fact that his father had to give up his career as an actor because he was a communist. But no, Leone's life wasn't under the sign of sadness, this feeling is simply extrapolated in his films. But the guy in itself had a Roman temperament, a  dynamism,  wich was all the contrary.

I think that perhaps the only dissapointment that Leone would have experienced would have been in the butchering of OUTIW, DYS, and OUTIA. This would alone, have been a monumental dissapointment to a creative genius, of course it was not only a dent to his career that has since been redeemed but it derailed what could have been a Leone juggernaut. That disappointment of getting sabotaged out of the american market might have caused him to overeat and overindulge more than he should have might have accelerated his heart condition, might have contributed to his early death.

[shorty larsen]

Following Michael's definition of an autheur, I would say Leone is indeed an autheur. Just an example: Leone asked Leone to write the soundtrack before the movie shooting and he played it while shooting to create the sensible mood on the set.

[lee357]

Do you think that Sergio Leone can be classed as an auteur or do you agree that his creative influence was restricted by the classic western formula and that he was by no means the only influence on his movies but brought with him many contributors to his films.

[Leone Admirer]

Depends if you subscribe to the auteur theory  . I would say yes, but there are probably many who disagree with me.