Convention and Invention of the Western Genre: Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

SOmething a bit different, an essay I wrote as a Sophmore.

Segio Leone’s 1966 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a staple in the Western film genre. This reputation is cemented not only through the recognized conventions that are adhered to but the visual and characterizing tropes it invents in order to create a unique cinematic identity. The use of iconic mise-en-scene while subverting the status quo morality creates an effective juxtaposition which revolutionized the genre.

One convention that the film has utilized from the Western genre mythology is the highly realistic mise-en-scene, paying close attention to historical accuracy of the era. Examining the climactic showdown duel between the three titular characters, there is a great deal of effort in order to authenticate this visual, such as location filming rather than a studio-bound set and incredibly detailed, period-accurate costumes and props. This lack of artistic stylization but an attempt at graphic realism creates an evocative atmosphere which has been a trope expressing the American frontier, featured heavily in the genre’s canon, seen in classic Westerns such as John Ford’s 1939 film Stagecoach and John Sturges’ 1960 film The Magnificent Seven.

This expression of the American frontier embodies many recognizable elements central to the genre ideology. These elements include a sense of lawlessness, rugged terrain which characters can struggle against, and a setting on the outskirts of civilization. As Sergio Leone said, the setting is a place “where life had no value, death, sometimes had its price”. This expression helps to facilitate the contextualization of the story. An example of this is the anarchic set-up of the mechanisms that lead up to the showdown. The gravitas of these three characters duelling for the $200,000 permeates through the countless ordeals that they have had to deal with to get to the graveyard platform, including Tuco forcing Blondie to march through the barren desert until exhaustion and Angel Eyes torturing Tuco in a prison camp. These ordeals could only have achieved such dramatic tenure in such a context as the frontier as they can be seen as both abhorrent and yet perfectly standard.

Another convention from the genre mythology that this film employs readily is the use of the revolver. Revolvers fit in with the historical accuracy of the film but also embody a sense of enablement. The trio all, at one time or another, use a revolver as a means of fashioning a form of control over someone. This develops the revolver as an artefact that brings power to the user. By the time of the showdown scene, not only do all three have revolvers but they all keep them in their belt holsters. This promotes an idea that these men have power, but this power is equalled by their opponents.

Another factor in deciding the film’s revered status as a Western relies upon the inventions it creates for the genre. One example of an invention is the characterization of Blondie who, in the showdown, has adopted a traditional poncho for himself; a piece of costume which has a very ethnic connotation to it. Traditionally, Western films portrayed ethnic characters with a degree of hostility and savageness. This poncho creates a contrast with the archetype of the Western protagonist being a sympathetic character with an understandable honour and code. The result of this contrast leads to a sense of moral ambiguity, as it can be seen as an inversion of the expectations that the protagonist shoulders.

This inversion of the protagonist also relates to the characters having a high degree of moral relativity. Films like Stagecoach created entirely oppositional protagonists and antagonists, with the protagonists being virtuous figures with those pitted against them are emphasised as evil, and often, unsavoury characters. Here, Blondie, Tuco and Angel Eyes are perfectly willing to shoot each other for a monetary reward with little differentiation between their motives, subverting the diametric readings that the audience might rely upon in order to find an empathetic character. This can be seen as an evolution of the character-driven conflict as it builds more ambiguity and character depth, creating a less clearly defined spectacle of the crossover of personas and furnishing more complex ideas about the men.

Another way in which the film breaks new ground on the genre is in the cinematography. In other classic Western films, such as Howard Hawks’ 1940 film Red River, a crescendo of action was often signalled by the use of indicative high and low camera angles for the protagonist and antagonist respectively, and a smooth movements in order to capture a sense of swift flow in the event. In the standoff in the climax of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, the three characters are framed more or less identically with static cameras, using very level close-up shots. This uniform framing contributes to the establishment in the similarities the characters’ motives. To accommodate for the lack of camera movement to flow, through editing the pace of the scene is kept at a fast pace.

The combination of both keeping to the usual conventions of the genre, while inventing new ones, keeps the film innovative by having a recognizably Western identity, while averting many obvious cornerstones which produce compelling cinematic moments. The showdown scene has a large amount of tension due to the triumvirate nature of the showdown rather than the traditional two-man duel, having an amount of uncertainty as who each man might shoot. The trope of the duel as a way of climaxing the film is an extremely familiar one; using three people adds another layer to the suspense.

Leone knew the Western genre very well but did not find it necessary to keep all of his techniques into simple cut-and-paste criteria. He took what strands of the genre’s conventions he thought best benefited the film’s tangled storyline and wove these strands with other influences which were deemed to engage an audience. Covered in sauce, it is these strands which make the film appropriate for its classification in a subgenre- the Spaghetti Western.