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Spaghetti Western

Posted by Masakim on April 03, 2003

In Reply to: Spaghetti Western posted by ESC on April 03, 2003

: : I know the term started because many Westerns with Clint Eastwood were filmed in Italy. But, the term must mean more than that?

: SPAGHETTI WESTERN - "Nickname for a Western film; it is typically set in the southwestern part of North America during the late 1880s, but it actually is produced and filmed in Italy or its nearby countries (e.g., Spain or Yugoslavia). The term originated when describing a collection of such films that came to prominence in the 1960s. Popular examples include: 'A Fistful of Dollars' , 'For a Few Dollars More' , 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,' , 'Hang 'em High' , 'Once Upon a Time in the West' , 'They Call Me Trinity' , and 'My Name is Nobody' ." From the "Filmmaker's Dictionary" by Ralph S. Singleton and James A. Conrad, edited by Janna Wong Healy, (2nd edition, 2000, Lone Eagle Publishing Co., Hollywood, California). Another reference says: "spaghetti western - A cheap western movie, first made in Italy in the 1960s, usually featuring bloody violence more prominently than plot or character." From the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

spaghetti western A somewhat derogatory term for a western motion picture shot in Italy. [often shot in Spain --masakim]
From _NTC's Mass Media Dictionary_ by R. Terry Ellmore
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BTW it was called "macaroni Western" in Japan.
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"El Topo" (it means "The Mole") was made in Mexico, and it resembles the spaghetti Westerns. It begins with a bearded stranger in black leather ... riding on a sandy plain; the color looks cheap and overbright, unreal in that gaudy way that unsophiscated attempts at realism often produce -- it's like Kodacolor, with aquamarine skies. But the stranger rides with his naked son sitting behind him.... And when the father and son come to a town, the town is a scene of more than usual Spaghetti-Western carnage. It is a town of corpses and entrails; animals, children -- everyone has been butchered, and the waters literally flow red. (Pauline Kael, "The Current Cinema," _The New Yorker_, November 20, 1971)

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