While the documentary on the great Italian director, produced by his daughter Raffaella, is being released, an icon of American cinema talks about their relationship: “That time when, due to a mistake by the Spanish crew, the blown-up bridge had to be rebuilt”
He answers everything except one question, a topic that is discussed in the video: why Once upon a time in America was not understood in the USA, did they cut an hour? Leone never wanted to see that version. Talking with Clint Eastwood
92 years old, it is inevitable to rethink the poncho and the colt in the holster. «Many legends have been shot, at one point they said that I had kept them at home, under a glass case … I returned everything to the costume department of Sergio’s films».
Your first meeting?
“Just landed in Italy. I’ve never been there before. A wonderful interpreter helped us in the communication because at the time I didn’t speak a word of Italian and Sergio didn’t speak a word of English. We understood each other by gestures. We talked about cinema, I met his family. But we were focused on the film. I could not have known that, like Don Siegel, he would be the man who would most influence me as a director. He made me love irony and love for landscapes ».
How did the US public react to the Italian western?
«Scorsese in the documentary says that at first he was irritated because he could not understand it, to take the measures… There were taboos, I think that only jazz and western are truly American art forms. In fact, everyone in the environment said that it was an accomplished genre and nothing else could be added. But he had entered an opaque, mannered area. There was a change of perspective and spaghetti westerns (the fable of a myth foreign to you) were considered a rebirth ».
There is a suspended time in the films of Leone.
“Well, this novelty that nothing can happen in a western was a revolutionary thing. Those films are part of the history of cinema, they seem to have been made today, they don’t look old, dated. I liked the documentary very much, it made me discover new elements of a man I thought I knew ».
You, after the trilogy …
“I’ll come to the point, you’re going to ask me why I didn’t accept
Once Upon a Time in the West
. I always tried to do new things, and it was time to try something different, and to speak my language. With Sergio we did not separate, we philosophically took different paths. Mine are very different sets from his, I quickly shoot a few takes. I don’t even mean action, motor; I say, guys if you’re ready, go. I turned to more personal stories, he loved the spectacular, the explosions on the trains, the soldiers on the hills ».
What episode do you remember?
“Well, the scene of the bridge exploding in
The good, the bad and the ugly
. The Spanish technicians got the timing of the fuse wrong and Leone came out cursing, his eyes bloodshot. He was furious. The bridge had to be rebuilt. And then the sets were full of Spanish and Gypsy extras in cloaks, uniforms, guns, if you had asked them what those films were about, they wouldn’t have been able to answer ».
Ennio Morricone?
«Nobody has used music like him, he changes the style, the approach, his melodies seem to add phrases to the scripts, they are sounds that speak. Lots of trumpets and then boom, horses neigh. It is an operatic music that exalts violence and shootings. Ennio was a splendid composer, he won two Oscars, I gave one to him ».
Leone did not win.
«Well, so many good films deserved to win it and were left with a dry mouth, and the opposite reasoning applies. Sometimes it doesn’t depend on the quality of the movie. From Sergio I remember the words that made me become a better actor: keep your fantasy tight, the imagination of the children ».
Is the man without a name, what his character was called, a hero?
“Hero is someone who does useful things for society, that’s how I see it.”
What does he love?
«Golf, jazz and Cuban cigars. But now I try to avoid them ».
October 18, 2022 (change October 18, 2022 | 07:39)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
