The Settling of Accounts
This weekend, well...I got gunned down

Somehow, against great social odds, I managed to slip in one of the spaghetti's that I had ordered. Although, I had actually at one point wanted to talk about my recent revisit to David Cronenberg's Videodrome, but I realized that I had nothing to add to the subject. What I mean is that I watched the commentaries on the beautiful new Criterion disks and watched the special features, and I found that they said everything that I would have wanted to say about it. Now on one hand that's very reassuring that mentally you're on the same track as the creative piece that you were looking at, but it doesn't leave you with much to say since your thoughts were exactly original: they were all there in the movie already.

Anyhow. While the movie does still apply to TV, if you substitute 'computer' for 'TV' throughout the movie, it takes on a really creepy prescience. If you've never seen it, give it a look. And if it's been a long time, maybe you should go back and see it again. Then you can get your own thoughts about it, and don't have to read mine.

So. As I'm sure I mentioned at some point, Sergio Sollima's Face to Face is one of my favorite spaghetti westerns. It's a wonderful film that shows an unusual and incredible psychological dynamic, but that doesn't stop it from being filled with a wild display of whoop @$$. Also, it features one of my favorite Morricone scores. Sergio made three spaghettis in total, and until Blue Underground released his third and final western, Run Man, Run, I had been unable to find the other two. Thing is, it was always his first that appeared on everyone's top spaghetti lists. It was considered a classic. It had Lee Van Cleef. It had Tomas Milian. It had another great Morricone score. But it was missing from...well...everywhere.

Finally, this weekend, I got gunned down at...

The Big Gundown (1966, d. Sergio Sollima)

The Story: Gunslinger and unofficial lawman Jonathon Corbett (Van Cleef) has political aspirations and the capture of the outlaw 'Cuchillo' Sanchez (Milian) for a wealthy developer could seal his future, but along the path of the chase the face of evil begins to change.

The Review: Ok, so I built the hell up out of this one, and I'm gonna probably let it down a bit. In fact, that's the problem. Over time, I think that I built this one up in my own mind for so long that it couldn't do anything but let me down a bit. The more I think about it though, while it still can't beat Face to Face for me, The Big Gundown was still a pretty spectacular spaghetti western.

First off, let's start with the title. The one, I've referred to as so far is of course the U.S. title. Though it's certainly a rousing albeit generic title, it does have spaghetti written on it. However, the original Italian title was La Resa dei Conti, which in the context of the movie is probably best translated "The Settling of Accounts." This, of course, lacks the all too important 'oomph', but it is more indicative of the story's content. It's an important thematic thread that makes it's way through the movie: You get what you pay for. For bullheadedly and blindly hounding the wrong man, Corbett gets nothing but trouble. For constantly letting himself get into trouble, Cuchillo gets punished time and time again by Corbett and others. For other characters, their various vices, greed, and crimes gets them served up a justice that is proper. But not all of the scores come as retribution, it's all the trade off of events along the way that eventually brings Cuchillo and Corbett to a positive understanding of one another.

The movie does a spectacular job of stripping off layers to it's characters personalities. When we first meed Corbett, he's obviously the hero. He represents the law in a lawless place. In discussing his political aspirations, he espouses belief in the future and not in profit. Like the audience, Corbett believes that Cuchillo is guilty and that he should be brought to justice, but as the plot unravels, his unquestioning effort to stick to goal shows that he's wrong for not pursuing or looking at any contrary evidence. Finally, at the bottom, Corbett is shown to be a cold-blooded killer and a lawbreaker himself. Only after Cuchillo holds up enough mirrors to him does he begin on his own path of self-redemption.

Cuchillo gets a similar treatment, but not to nearly the same depth (The dualistic character study, to me, was perfected in Face to Face.). Cuchillo is accused of raping then killing a young girl, and when Corbett (and the audience) first see him, he immediately takes off running. Soon following, in a brilliant tension enducing scene, Cuchillo is then left alone with a young Mormon girl until Corbett arrives to arrest him. It doesn't take long, however, to realize that Cuchillo is no pederast despite his being a scoundrel. Going a step further, the scoundrel façade fade to reveal that he's little more than a wild and hedonistic boy in a man's body. At the same time his sense of right and wrong, though Nietzchean in it's own way, is very well developed and, when he speaks about it, thoughtful. In the end though, Corbett comes out changed, but Cuchillo is still wild and arrogant (but loveable, don't get me wrong).

The movie makes fine use of it's many varied locations. It was a nice change to spend a good deal of time out of the familiar vistas of Almeria. There were a host of amazing shots. Of particular note is the shot of Cuchillo crouched down in the cane field which craned up to show the squadron of hunters in pursuit all around him. Though this wasn't my favorite Morricone score (Navajo Joe is rapidly on it's way to No. 1), it remains a strong one nonetheless and carries many of the sweeping operatic movements to fit the peice. The other characters were fine enough, and some of my favorite 'canon fodder' showed up (Seriously, there are certain guys who only show up in these things to get shot). Perhaps my only objection was with the other master gunman, Baron Von Schulenberg, who came complete with villain's monocle. At one point he's in a buckskin outfit (à la Last of the Mohicans), but when he adds a cape to it, he's a very thinly disguised Nazi.

In summation, a good film and possibly a great film that unfortunately my anticipation may be blinding me from seeing at present. Perhaps I'll have to let it lie for some time, before passing final judgement on it. Maybe if I had seen Face to Face after having seen it, my opinion may have been higher, though Face would likely have still been the better. For those of you who may be wondering about the third Sollima western, Run Man, Run is actually the further adventures of Cuchillo, but doesn't really compare to the first two. I made need to watch it again, but my initial feeling is that it was a fun solid movie that just didn't hold the depth of the other two.

As a warning to those of you who may search it out, U.S. versions of the film go from truncated to heavily truncated. Some are missing about twelve minutes and others are missing about seventeen all together. The original running time is a little over an hour and forty-six minutes. Problem is, if you find a full length copy, get ready to watch it in Italian or a patchwork of English and Italian. Since the film was truncated, English recordings for the scenes or moments that were cut were never recorded. As they don't exist, they can't be put back into the movie, right? If you have a problem with that, you can stick to the cut English only version, but be prepared for several moments in the movie to make a whole lot less sense in certain parts.

And that's...umm...all I have to say about that.

Cheers.