An unfair duel

Reyes 2021-10-19 09:48:20

Accompanied by exciting but somewhat absurd theme music and an oil painting and watercolor-like opening animation, the classic nearly three-hour masterpiece by Western film master Sergio Leone kicked off. Sure enough, it is the consistent style of Western movies, with a slow pace and detailed narrative. When watching the movie, there is a feeling of watching a story. The character descriptions of the three main characters, the good, the wicked, and the ugly, are extremely delicate. The final duel of the three men took place in an empty cemetery. The revolving camera, the close-up of the three people's expressions, the hands reaching the holster, and the repetitive theme music pushed the film to the climax, and also made the audience have various assumptions about what will happen after the shot is fired. The good, the wicked, and the ugly, three western cowboys with almost the same marksmanship but with different behaviors and tricks. Who will fall and who will survive?

According to Darwin's survival theory of the fittest, it is obvious that in this western society where there is no law but guns and no order but power, the cowboy who can survive in the end must be the one who can best adapt to the living environment. The reason why a good man is a good man is that he will not use any means to achieve his goal, and he will not kill innocent people indiscriminately in order to destroy the enemy. The reason why a wicked person is a wicked person is that in order to gain benefits, he can never consider the feelings of others or even his life. The ugly person knows both sides. In order to achieve his goal, he can pretend to be loyal and honest, and even bear the humiliation. From this point of view, it seems that the ugly person's methods are more sophisticated and limited, and he should be the best candidate to win in this who can survive game.

However, the fact is often not the case. No matter how true the situation is, it cannot be completely separated from the limitations of the director's imagination and the audience's general expectation of the "good guys will win" model ending. Good people don’t die. Even if the good people die in the end, they must die heroically with the bad guys. This is the ending that everyone and the film business owner are happy to see.

So Clint Eastwood is always the luckiest one. Although he was arrested by ugly people and tortured in the desert, he grasped the most important information through the last words of the treasurer: which tomb the treasure is under. The abused and sadistic relationship between the good and the ugly has also changed 180 degrees. The ugly person understands that the good person is the only source of information for him to get the treasure, and he has to do everything possible to please the good person. Eastwood also knows that this information is his gold medal, as long as he does not disclose the information, he can live on, unless the other party does not want to get the treasure. On the other hand, the bad guy obtained the information held by the ugly person through more violent means. He knew that torturing a good person would never reveal information, so he simply let him go.

Back to the final duel, who will fall? Although the good guys kept the stone with the name of the treasure cemetery in the center of the site, as the bad and the ugly, how confident are they that they believe that the good guys are writing the truth? From the perspective of these two people, if what a good person writes is not true, but the good person is shot to death, then how to find the treasure? So if you kill the opponent and don't kill the good person, when the opponent falls, the good person will inevitably take the opportunity to shoot yourself, and then the good person will profit in the end. How to do it? This is indeed an unfair duel. This was the case. Just as the two were hesitant, a gunshot sounded and the bad guy fell, and a burst of blue smoke came out of the good guy's muzzle. At this time, the ugly person suddenly reacted. Although killing the good person may not get the treasure, if you don't kill the good person, you will definitely be the next target to be killed, so he pulls the trigger at the good person. The good man did not fall, because he had already unloaded all the bullets from the ugly man's gun. This is obviously an unfair duel between the bad guys and the ugly people. Good guys only succeed when they are hesitant to shoot at whom to quickly solve the bad guys. Absolute information advantage and sophisticated psychological analysis are the guarantee of the good guys' victory.

For the audience, the reason why this movie is classic is precisely because of his wonderful, logical and dark humorous plot. The good guys will win in the end, but Eastwood is not the undead Bruce Willis or the Superman wearing his underwear or the Ultraman who flashes the light every time he is about to die and then makes a big move to solve the opponent. He is human. The true and expressive plot has achieved the pinnacle of the heroic image of Eastwood.

The historical themes of the Civil War are wonderfully integrated into the movie. I very much respect the Northern Army general who died with a heroic charge of soldiers for a meaningless bridge but was meaninglessly wounded and satisfied with the sound of the bridge being blown up. He understands that only bombing the bridge can truly free everyone from this meaningless massacre, but he has always bravely defended his honor as a soldier. "I have never seen so many people die meaninglessly." Eastwood told the director his knowledge of war. If the bad guy who died under the Eastwood gun was sacrificed for that large amount of fortune, then what were the anonymous people who died on the battlefield for? In the Cold War era when McCarthyism prevailed in 1966, this kind of anti-war masterⳠ plot and black humorous mockery of war was great enough. War is meaningless, whether it is gray or blue, whether it is the so-called justice or the so-called injustice. For politicians, there is no more corpse in a war; for soldiers, a war is enough for all of themselves.

The film satirizes the tragic war between the North and the South for a meaningless bridge, but with a serious attitude it describes the process of three cowboys, or bandits, robbing treasures. Although the three are called good people, bad people, and ugly people, the goals of the three are exactly the same. Although the good guy didn't kill the ugly person in the end, his tricks of winning are still unremarkable. Although bad guys kill innocent people, they are still honest and trustworthy. Although the ugly people are driven by the wind, they are driven by the helplessness of life. His missionary brother may never understand why his younger brother should be a bandit who does nothing but evil, but he himself knows the meaning of his role, perhaps with an unconscious soldier who only obeys orders in a war. The same, except that his commander is not a single person, but the entire western society. Perhaps good people will only survive in Western movies and novels. He belongs to Sergio Leone, and does not belong to this society that is incompatible with romanticism.

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Extended Reading
  • Antonette 2021-10-20 18:59:10

    Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhah

  • Shanie 2022-04-24 07:01:02

    Watched it a second time to write a review, still so insistent that it was the best example of a Western.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly quotes

  • Blondie: If your friends stay out in the damp, they're liable to catch a cold aren't they... or a bullet.

  • Union Captain at the Bridge: [to his surgeon] Can you help me live a little more? I expect good news.