Spectacle, myth, fable - these words instantly leap to mind when considering director Sergio Leone's celebrated films. His popularization of the Spaghetti Western genre, through works like A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), continues to have a profound impact on filmmakers worldwide. In this exciting new study, Italian film scholar Christian Uva explores a side of Leone's works rarely before discussed: the political. Grappling with the contradictions between Leone's politically critical cinematic eye and his aversion to ideological classification, Sergio Leone: Cinema as Political Fable makes sense of how the director's internal political tensions shaped the radical themes of his Western fables. Looking at Leone and his films through a number of lenses, the book examines the elements of Italian history and identity interwoven in the director's stories, provides cultural context for a career spanning from Italy's fascist regime to Leone's death in 1989, and discusses the influences that formed Leone's directorial identity. Uva focuses in particular on the postmodernist theory behind Leone's works, revealing the critical basis of his stylistic and narrative innovations and newly analyzing the most iconic sequences from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1967), Duck, You Sucker (1971), and Once Upon a Time in America (1984). An admirably thorough take on the man and his works, Sergio Leone: Cinema as Political Fable provides fresh perspective on a director long-established in cinema canon.

Tonino Valerii is one of Italy's best genre film directors. Starting out as Sergio Leone's assistant on For a Few Dollars More (1965), he went on to direct spaghetti westerns that stand out among the most accomplished in their class--Day of Anger (1967), The Price of Power (1969), A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die! (1972) and My Name Is Nobody (1973). He also directed the outstanding giallo My Dear Killer (1972). This book examines Valerii's life and career in depth for the first time, with exclusive interviews with the filmmaker, scriptwriters and actors, and critical analysis of his films.

African American westerns have a rich cinematic history and visual culture. Mia Mask examines the African American western hero within the larger context of film history by considering how Black westerns evolved and approached wide-ranging goals. Woody Strode’s 1950s transformation from football star to actor was the harbinger of hard-edged western heroes later played by Jim Brown and Fred Williamson. Sidney Poitier’s Buck and the Preacher provided a narrative helmed by a groundbreaking African American director and offered unconventionally rich roles for women. Mask moves from these discussions to consider blaxploitation westerns and an analysis of Jeff Kanew’s hard-to-find 1972 documentary about an all-Black rodeo. The book addresses how these movies set the stage for modern-day westploitation films like Django Unchained. A first-of-its kind survey, Black Rodeo illuminates the figure of the Black cowboy while examining the intersection of African American film history and the western.

They are tough. They are mean. They are the fastest, coolest gunslingers of the 1960s, and they don't talk much. They are the heroes of the Italian Spaghetti West and they changed the Western forever. Clint Eastwood's poncho-clad, cigar smoking Man With No Name is the enduring symbol of the genre and his Dollars trilogy with Sergio Leone reinvented action cinema, adding a European freshness to the time-worn Western myths. But Leone and Eastwood weren't the only hombres to saddle-up and head west, and this guide rounds-up and reviews the best of a very wild bunch, including perennial cult classics Django, The Big Gundown, Django Kill, and They Call Me Trinity. He also charts the Spaghetti Western careers of actors like Lee Van Cleef, Terence Hill, and Klaus Kinski as they rode the trail to international success. As well as an introduction to the genre, 31 of the best Spaghetti Westerns are analyzed in detail and there is a comprehensive multi-media reference section.

The Films of Sergio Leone examines the work of this Italian filmmaker who made his mark re-envisioning the American Western. The book examines each of Leone's major films as director, as well as My Name Is Nobody, which Leone co-wrote and guided as producer. The book also includes an exhaustive bibliography, discography, and filmography, completely updated for this new edition.

Ever more popular in the age of DVDs, eBay and online fandom, the Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s have undergone a mainstream renaissance which has nevertheless left their intimate relationship to the troubled politics of 1960s Italy unexamined. Radical Frontiers reappraises the genre in relation to the revolutionary New Left and the events of 1968 to uncover the complexities of a cinematic milieu too often dismissed as formulaic and homogeneous. Establishing the backdrop of post-war Italy in which the Roman studio system actively blended Italian and American culture, Austin Fisher looks in detail at the works of Damiano Damiani, Sergio Sollima, Sergio Corbucci, Giulio Questi and Giulio Petroni and how these directors reformatted the Hollywood Western to yield new resonance for militant constituencies and radical groups. Radical Frontiers identifies the main variants of these militant Westerns, which brazenly endorsed violent peasant insurrection in the 'Mexico' of the popular imagination, turning the camera on the hitherto heroic colonialists of the West and exposing the brutal mechanisms of a society infested with latent fascism. The ways in which the films' artistic failures reflect the ideological confusions of the radical groups is examined and the genre's legacy is reappraised, as the revolutionary energy of Italy's New Left becomes subsumed amidst the conflicting agendas of New Hollywood, blaxploitation and the 'grindhouse' revival of Tarantino, Rodriguez and Raimi. Reclaiming the Spaghetti Western from the domain of the merely cool and repositioning it within the spectrum of late-1960s radical cinema, Radical Frontiers analyses the genre's narrative and cinematographic inscriptions in their political context to uncover Far Left doctrines in these tales of outlaws and sheriffs, banditry and redemptive violence.

Der Band untersucht das Genre erstmals eingehend in seinen komplexen und vielschichtigen interkulturellen Auffächerungen, die sich in nationalspezifischen Western-Variationen finden. Er eröffnet interessante Perspektiven auf diesen film- und kulturgeschichtlich kaum erschlossenen Bereich. Ein Schwerpunkt gilt den verschiedenen nationalen Western-Varianten in Osteuropa. Beiträge von Spezialisten aus Polen, Tschechien und Russland arbeiten bislang unbekannte Übereinstimmungen und Differenzen im Gebrauch des Genres in den damals kommunistischen Ländern zu Tage. Deutlich wird dabei u.a., dass das ideologisch als anrüchig betrachtete, aber beim Publikum sehr beliebte Genre vor allem in Russland und Polen über die Intervention der Regierungen dazu diente, sowohl Kapitalismuskritik als auch Überhöhungen der eigenen Nationalkultur zu inszenieren. Darüber hinaus beinhaltet der Band auch Texte mit neuen Perspektiven auf den deutschen Western sowie auf Western-Variationen im französischen, britischen, australischen, indischen und afrikanischen Kino. Auch die vielfältigen Verbindungen zwischen Western und Eastern werden u.a. anhand internationaler Koproduktionen beleuchtet. Der Band betont die Vielschichtigkeit und Komplexität der interkulturellen Transformationen des Western, die sich von Europa über Lateinamerika und Afrika bis nach Australien und Asien nachweisen lassen. Dabei wird herausgearbeitet, wie Western-Elemente in sehr unterschiedlicher Weise zur Geltung kommen, um nationalspezifische Kulturmuster und Kommunikationszusammenhänge zu verhandeln.

Take a dive into the brain of master auteur Quentin Tarantino, writer and director of multiple award-winning films such as Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. In this sensational graphic novel, the author imagines an interview with Tarantino himself, revealing the history of his ostentatious career and illuminating insights into the icon’s life, from his humble beginnings as a video shop clerk, to his rise through iconic indie blockbusters, all the way to global superstar. Discover the influences, opinions, and history of one of the world’s most acclaimed filmmakers, unmistakable in his style and talent.

Musical accompaniment were jazzed up renditions that basically fit the art form like a glove with a stylish beat that usually pounded out the action as the story unfolded. The music set the mood and the audiences followed. Most of these films would never reach America during the era, even though they were generally aimed at the American film goers. The Actors who went to Italy and got involved in these lucrative new genre spinoffs all enjoyed star status, recognition and glow of the limelight that came with it. These are the Actors were talking about here.