The Westerner is regarded as one of those classic genre films so easily identifiable by the public due to its characters, settings, and story plots. These movies are filled with semantic and syntactic elements, such as small dusty towns, bars, horses, guns, and cowboy hats, with the ultimate showdown between the lone “good guy cowboy†against the trouble makers of the town. The Westerner always seems to end with the hero freeing the town from the grasp of the bad boys. The lone cowboy is then expected to ride off into the sunset, out of the town which he just saved and brought back to justice, to wander into his next daring adventure in the next helpless town that comes along. These movies involve good vs. evil, and the central focus is strong figures that fight for dominance. Who holds power and how they exhibit it becomes the main struggle. A Fistful of Dollars, directed by Sergio Leone in 1964 and starring Clint Eastwood (as “The Man With No Name†but for the purpose of this essay goes by what the coffin maker seen in the movie calls him, Joe), is a Westerner movie that follows a pattern of power exchange between the good guy, Joe, and the bad guys, the Rojos and the Baxters, two gangs with their grip on the town. The way in which power is portrayed in A Fistful of Dollars involves obvious symbols: guns immediately come to mind, an important part of all Westerner movies. However guns are synonymous with all Westerners, and are a symbol that is constantly recurring. Something more subtle than that obvious symbol comes to mind while viewing the movie, and that is the cigar that is an integral part of Clint Eastwood’s character and is also seen with other characters of the movie. Through mise en scène, Clint Eastwood’s “good guy†is a Westerner hero who has, loses, and regains power of himself and power over the warring town. It is the recipes of the Westerner genre and the differences exhibited in A Fistful of Dollars that make it a unique and evolving film, and the symbolism of power through the cigar clenched between Joe’s teeth are two of my favorite aspects of the movie.
What exactly is considered a classic Westerner genre film? Robert Warshow, in his essay “Movie Chronicle: The Westerner†that appears in Film Theory and Criticism defines what it means for a movie to be a Westerner. Warshow characterizes the Western hero by saying that he “…is a figure of repose. He resembles the gangster in being lonely and to some degree melancholy. But his melancholy comes from the “simple†recognition that life is unavoidable serious…And his loneliness is organic, not imposed on him by his situation but belonging to him intimately and testifying to his completeness.†(Warshow 704). Eastwood plays a man who is very much the lonely character, he rides into town alone, making friends with only the Cantina owner Silvanito and never showing allegiance to one warring side or the other for very long. We last see him riding out of town, leaving the coffin maker to clean up the mess, telling Silvanito that he isn’t going to stick around. Joe’s gun, hat and cigar are his only possessions, he rides alone leaving behind the people that he fought for, never asking for a thanks.
Joe in many ways is like the lonely gangster mentioned by Warshow. In The Glass Key, written by Dashiell Hammett, the character Paul Madvig is a gangster figure that finds himself alone at the end of the book, much like Joe. Paul is forced into this loneliness however when Janet Henry decides leave him for his best friend Ned Beaumont. While both Joe and Paul are lonely characters, Joe chooses to be alone. What also sets them apart is the fact that Paul kills for his own reasons and therefore comes off as a bad guy. Paul has his own interests in mind, while Joe has a different agenda that is typical of the Westerner, which includes honor and justice.
Another point of Warshow’s essay is the fact that the Westerner must uphold justice by doing what he “has to do,†while upholding the honor of himself (Warshow 706). Joe in A Fistful of Dollars is a murky mix of these values, which is an example of the evolution of “classic Westerner†to other forms of Westerners. What makes A Fistful of Dollars most recognizably different is the fact that is a “Spaghetti Western†shot in Italy by an Italian director, which therefore leads to evolutions in style, thought, and ideas that will not have the same exact formula as earlier Westerns. We see Joe go against the whole “has to do†value outlined in Warshow’s essay when it comes to the plight of a little boy. When the viewer first sees Jo, he has just entered town for a drink of water, presumably on his way from his last great adventure in whatever small dusty town he has just left. A small boy is seen entering a house, crying, and then forcefully expelled from the house, and shot at, a rather shocking scene. Who would think that someone would shoot at a small boy? Obviously there is trouble in town. Isn’t throwing out and shooting at the helpless dishonorable? Joe would be expected to do what he “has to do,†which would be to right the wrongdoing, presumably by killing the two thugs causing havoc on an innocent child. In order to uphold the “classic Westerner†values, he certainly should have helped the little boy right away, instead of giving a blind eye to the situation and hiding behind his hat and the well he takes a drink from. Was Joe afraid to confront these men, as suggested by his stance behind the well? However he most certainly could have taken them on. We see in later scenes that under his poncho is a gun with which he is an excellent shot. Joe doesn’t seem to want to get involved with what is happening in town, and it is not until he considers the money he could make that he decides to take on the challenges. It is this lack of interest in the town that evolves the Westerner hero and genre over time. But his sense of honor and doing what he has to do comes full circle when he gives the money he is given by the warring sides to the family of the little boy who he ignores in the first scene. So while Joe does have his honor, he is reluctant to act right away and his motives are not too definite throughout the movie. Warshow says that what the classic Westerner defends “…is the purity of his own image- in fact his honor,†yet Joe is comes of as not so pure and doesn’t seem to care what people think of him (706). Warshow also suggests that the Westerner began to feel the “pressure of obligation,†and Joe is a testament to the aging genre (709). He is reluctant to help the boy, but then finds himself doing it anyway. A Fistful of Dollars is a verification of the changing elements of the genre, and how new ideas are constantly replacing older ideas. It is the development of the Westerner that reflects what Warshow considers to be the “…introduction of a realism, both physical and psychological…†that came along as the Westerner genre matured (709). While the movie is an interesting example of the formulas of genre films evolving, it is how the upper hand is displayed that sets the movie apart.
A Fistful of Dollars centers on the broad theme of power. The Rojos and the Baxters want one thing: control over the town. The Rojos have their gun trade, the Baxters have their alcohol. The two warring sides can’t get along because there are two bosses, and it is interesting to note that once Joe enters town, there are technically three. The visual effects are the main clue to this position of who is in charge and who holds the power during the movie.
The most interesting symbol presented in this movie is the cigar. Several key scenes in the movie show Joe with a cigar, and the mise en scène that the cigar is a part of is suggestive of this power and authority. The first time we see Joe with a cigar is when he is hearing the predicament of the town from Silvanito, the cantina owner. Silvanito feeds him, as they sit at a table. Joe sees a set of steps, and asks Silvanito what is up there, while putting a cigar in his mouth. Silvanito is hesitant to let him go up there, but Joe refuses to listen and climb up the stairs. As he steps through the door and onto the balcony, he lights the cigar, and looks down on the town. The stairs can be seen as his ascent to his position in the situation at hand and his position in the town. When he is on the balcony, the camera is at his level, looking down on the Rojos gang and Baxter gang at work. He is physically and figuratively above them, as both a spectator to the events that unfold and as the person who holds the power in the situation, as he leads to the downfall of both sides.
Here is where the cigar comes in as an integral part of this scene. While listening to Silvanito, Joe has the unlit cigar in his mouth, which he takes out while talking. After saying “every town has a boss,†Joe puts the cigar back into his mouth, the cigar a representation of the upper hand that Joe wishes to have, and his desire to be that boss. The next time he takes the cigar out of his mouth and puts it back in is on top of the balcony. The camera angle switches to slightly above Joe’s perspective, Joe is in the foreground and the street is in the background below him. Joe is describing the situation to Silvanito, and he tells him that the Rojos are there, the Baxters over there, and “me, right in the middle,†which directly after this is said the cigar goes back into his mouth. Joe is shown to have power and sway over the situation as he puts the cigar back into his mouth, his representation of power, his understanding of the situation, and his acceptance of having the upper hand.
Joe’s fall from the position of power occurs when he is being beaten by the Rojo gang. While he is being beaten and bloody, we see one of the Rojo brothers sitting on a ledge, laughing, cigar clenched in teeth. At one point, Joe is thrown over a table and onto the ground in front of the Rojo brother. Joe’s position in the shot is below that of the Rojo brother, who looks down on him and laughs. He has the cigar, and Joe has nothing indicating that he has power. The camera then switches sides of the ledge, and the Rojo brother is closest to the camera, as he gets up and extinguishes the cigar on Joe’s hand. The Rojo brother’s face cannot be seen from the angle, and the lighting casts shadows on everything. This scene differs greatly from the cigar scene of Joe mentioned above, which takes place in the middle of the day, outside. The shadows during the beating of Joe scene suggest a darker world, and also the corrupt power that the Rojos have since Joe is now defenseless and cannot do anything in the situation. The next time Miguel Rojo has a cigar is also suggestive of the dark power of the Rojos, with an ailing Joe now gone. Miguel is seen sitting across the street from the Baxter house, cigar in mouth. The setting is at night, and Miguel’s face is half covered in shadow as he uses the cigar to light the fuse that blows up the Baxter house wall.
Joe does not have a cigar in his possession until the scene in which he is regaining strength from the beating. This scene is crucial in the story for the turning point of power. It opens with Joe leaning against a post. As the camera goes to a close-up of his body, his face is completely hidden in the shadows. His gun is pointed into the light, and as he sits up, his face moves out of the shadows and into the light. It becomes apparent that he has a cigar in his mouth, unlit. Coming out of the shadows symbolizes his return of strength, and the unlit cigar symbolizes his return to power. As he shoots at the metal and realizes that the bullets cannot pierce the metal, Joe comes to the realization that he can defeat the Rojo brothers. Leaning on the metal drum, Joe takes out a match, strikes it on the metal, and lights the cigar, an official return to power and a return of the hero in the movie.
The last significant cigar scene is the last scene of the movie. With the Rojo leaders dead, Joe goes into the cantina and comes out, standing on the porch. The shot, with the camera on ground level looking up at Joe on the porch, puts Joe back into the position of power, as Silvanito is below him. Joe is last seen lighting a match and his cigar, as he walks off, steals a horse, and rides off into the distance. Joe has the cigar as his final symbol of power as who restored the town and as the only boss who came away alive. In a way, he is taking charge of the town as both bosses are now dead, but by walking away from the town he rejects this power and stays the lonely, restless Westerner hero.
What is so important about the cigar? The cigar is a masculine symbol that can also be considered a phallic symbol. The power in A Fistful of Dollars centers around men and their superiority, and all conflict centers on who has enough strength, wits, and guns to rule the town. The only two female characters to be seen are Marisol, a helpless woman sold off like property in a card game, and John Baxter’s wife, the only semi-strong female character of the movie. She too is also under male domination, as in the scene where Joe seizes her hand in her bedroom to get her under control. Because men dominate the town and only two female characters are present in a myriad of male characters, how to show domination and who is in charge becomes an issue. The characters are seen smoking a cigar to make the distinction of what male figure is in control. The cigar is therefore a symbol of masculine power gained and lost throughout the movie. By using this symbol for masculinity and by use of lighting and shadows, the good and bad sides of town are clearly defined.
A Fistful of Dollars portrays the classic Western hero Joe as a lonely wanderer with a reluctant sense of honor and what is right and wrong that in ways evolves him from what is expected. Through the use of mise en scène, the good guys and the bad guys can easily be distinguished. The symbolic cigar stands not only for power, but for the masculinity of the characters possessing one. Through such techniques, the power play between the iconic Man With No Name and the warring gangs becomes clearer and more defined, which I now look at as the beauty of cinema.
I like what Daniel Lipskis’s blog Que Onda says about A Fistful of Dollars. I can definitely see why he would say that The Man With No Name is a “beginning of the modern day action-hero.†He has characteristics of both a hero (quick gun reflexes, killing the bad guys, quick witted) but also the characteristics of a human (reluctance to help the boy at first, mistakes like hitting Marisol by accident) which modern day heroes now possess.
Charlie Rainbolt’s blog Das Bolt contains an interesting post that includes a section about genres overlapping unintentionally that I felt fit well with A Fistful of Dollars. He says that the movie Army of Darkness and Yojimbo share the same characteristics including lonely hero, and reluctant helper of the innocent that also fits with A Fistful of Dollars. It is interesting to see these elements cross over, showing that they are formulas that work.
Mallory’s blog And why not? It worked in blazing saddles! Has a great post with a sentence that I think really fits this movie as well, “I have to respect any book that has me caring about a protagonist that I really know very little about.†While Mallory is referring to Ned Beaumont in The Glass Key, I feel this also fits the Man With No Name in A Fistful of Dollars. We do not know much about him, but we still root for him to pull through. Another post she wrote refers to being able to look into the characters eyes, which is also a prominent feature of A Fistful of Dollars. According to Mallory, it is an advantage that cinema has over text, to be able to see emotions directly.
Warshow, Robert. “Movie Chronicle: The Westerner.†Film Theory and Criticism. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 703-716.
I would like to start this post off by thanking Dr. C For putting me in a depressed mood for the rest of the day. Just kidding. But no, that ending made me so sad and made me think about a lot of things. And the way class ended was just… I don’t know… very moving. It was so interesting to see what this movie was really about. When the movie started I put on my ENGL 345 eyes and looked and listened to everything. My initial thought on the movie was that it was about domination and control and how everything is controlled by something. I also thought about how all the stories were related, and how Errol Morris blended stories together so perfectly, like talking about the behavior of the mole rats, and showing a picture of the audience at the circus, behaving exactly how the mole rat expert was describing it.
I loved the music. It was perfect. And haunting, and it’s interesting that it is a film about death yet the music is not depressing. It’s…hopeful I guess.
Who would have ever thought a lion keeper, a mole rat expert, a shrubbery cutter, and a robot specialist would have something in common. But I guess we all have something in common with them too. We have our passions, we have our mistakes, we have our reasons, we have our plans and fears of the future. I think that Morris could have picked any person and we would all have the same core stories, which is the point of the documentary.
It was beautiful. That’s all I can say.
Let’s just say I had a total Matrix moment during our FTC day talking about reality and portraying what was real and what reality really is. Maybe we are all just imagining this world and we are really being controlled by robots? Oh wait, that also feeds in to Fast, Cheap and Out of Control as well.
So is a movie reality? Is it free from bias? Free from the hands of a human since it is a machine recording it? A movie is reality. Well, it was. In my view, we see people, we see the settings, we see scenes. Maybe the scenes were set up, the clothing picked out on purpose, the acting rehearsed. It is still reality. We see actual people and nature. That was true up until CGI however. Movies are no longer reality and can’t be classified as such.
And movies are never free from bias. It is always capturing what the person standing behind the camera wants you to see. And yes, it is never free from humans. There is always someone pointing that camera somewhere. Not even the security tapes we talked about in class are free from human intervention. They were placed there to capture a certain area with a certain purpose.